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MiFi 4510L Problems - unable to browse web but can ping !

Have had stationary 4510L for months since my local store rep convinced me to upgrade my perfectly good 2200. Wish I had never done so. First the 4G/3G connect issues kept me from working until the recent firmware patch was finally released. But mixed in with that issue is another one that has gotten progressively worse. Three replacement devices and two new SIM cards later and I still have the issue. After three (alleged) trips to the tower reporting no issue, I decided to take the MiFi on the road to see if I have same issues on another tower. I do. Anybody else seen these symptoms or have any suggestions?

1) Browsing fine, usually in forced 3G (EVDO) mode due to earlier issue resolved by firmware upgrade.

2) Suddenly web sites stop responding with timeouts, or server unavailable, or web site taking too long to respond messages (depending upon browser in use).

3) WiFi connection is good and I can browse locally to access modem.

4) Modem states to be connected and not dormant, with decent EVDO signal strength.

5) Connection log shows some TCP and UDP traffic.

But cannot browse anywhere. The only fix is to disconnect and reconnect. Then it all works fine. The WiFi connection is never lost. Don't need to reset the modem, just drop the call and then reconnect.

Logged 12 to 15 calls on this and have not gotten satisfactory response yet. Spent hours and hours collecting data on dates, times, screenshots, etc. Two very interesting things that I think would be indicative of issue:

1) Even though I can't browse web sites, I can ping them !!

It's as though internet layer protocols are working but transport layer are not. When I can't browse, I also lose my VPN connection (if a session was established). Cannot reconnect VPN, says the server does not respond, but I can ping it!

And in the Connection Log, I can see the ICMP traffic from the ping, along with TCP and UDP. Yet cannot browse to any website.

2) Once this problem occurs, the clock starts to drift from real time. The time stamps in the Connection Log and in the System Log are a few minutes off, then ten to fifteen minutes off, then withyin a few days they are an hour off. They occasionally show 1980!! A hard reset re-synchs the timestamps to the system clock.

*ANYBODY* have these symptoms or any suggestions? And if you have issue where browsing stops, but WiFi is still wokring, try pinging the website and see if you get a response. I'd like to hear form you.

Comments

AHepburn

I've been having the same issue in both 4G and 3G areas - I've actually got a trouble ticket open for it, but I haven't heard a peep from the tech staff since it was opened over a week ago. It gets really frustrating at times!

alternation

I am having just these same problems here in central NC (Durham area). The device is almost unusable. It really would be nice to get some help on it from Verizon Wireless or someone who understands what is happening.

unknown

Thank you everyone for sharing your concerns about this device. I understand not having a reliable data connection can be frustrating. Our product team has been working with the manufacturer on making this device more stable and a software release is expected sometime soon. Some of the things the update includes is improvement in 3G and 4G areas; improved hand-off between 3G and 4G areas; improved VPN stability. I do not have an exact date, but I would suggest checking the support site for the MiFi 4510L often for updates. The new version is version 2.23.

John_Getzke

Marquia,

Could you request for a sticky post to be created at the top of this forum when the software update is available? Many of us are going to want to install the latest software as soon as possible. Since we check the forums more often than the support website its much more natural to spread the word through the forums.

Also, could you tell us if this most recent software update will be forced like the previous update? The previous software update caused myself and many of our users to have issues in the field. It would make everyone look better if Verizon allowed the users to download and install the software update on thier own, without disrupting thier work. That way the users can be prepared and complete the steps when they have time to do so.

ipodjockey

How are you going to repay your customers for all of their lost time?

where

I have the *exact* same problem. Been happening for months and nobody at Verizon has a clue. I am going insane!!! My problem is especially worse when I have more than one WiFi client connected. "Stop browsing" means unable to browse the internet. I can still browse on the local MiFi private network fine. Just can't browse thru the Verizon network!

One laptop will stop browsing (but can still ping!!) while the others are working just fine. Dropping the wireless and reconnecting doesn't fix it. Rebooting the laptop doesn't fix it.

One client can browse but the other can't (but both can ping) and there is nooooo way to fix it but disconnect the call and then reconnect. FRUS.STRAT.TING !!!!!

Happening now five or six times per day. We may have two to four laptops connected at any given time. Mostly we just do w/o internet on the clients when they stop browsing. The other laptops will continue to browse for quite some time. Eventually, when the working systems have an opportunity, we have to drop the MiFi call and reconnect to restore internet to everybody.

THIS IS KILLING ME.

I cancelled my voice service this week and transferred to ATT. T-mobile has a $40/month 5GB plan that does not charge for overages. I'm considering switching to that. Verizon, how many customers will you lose before you get your act together?

MiFi 4510L - replaced twice, latest one is three weeks old

Modem Firmware - 2.16.07 (the latest),

Using EvDO with better than -80 signal strength

ArnettH_VZW

Hello John_Getzke,

I really like that idea about the sticky note! It would be very useful on the forums for such a case like this. Another way to stay in the know on our latest products and services would be to sign up for notification using the link below.

https://email.vzwshop.com/servlet/formlink/f?NFOQU&SOURCEID=WEB_DGF_VZW_SUPPORTNAV

As far as the software update for the mifi 4510L, it is officially available as of 11/1 on our website. Here's the link to the download.

http://support.verizonwireless.com/system_update/mifi4510l.html

Although the website says Coming Soon, the actual software update is available in a link under Software Update Instructions (*PDF). As always, we are here to assist you in any way we can.

Thank you...

jlthorpe

I'm also having the same issue in the RDU area. My 2200 worked fine. I'm about to throw this 4510 under my truck tires and run it over. I even applied the newest firmware today. Guess what? No fix.

jlthorpe

2.23 did NOT fix this issue.

jimmylittleman

I too am having a ton of problems with the 4510L - since I purchased this device about a month ago, I have spent hours with tech support, have one device replaced as "defective" , another one improperly registered by the sales person (which took more time to figure out)

Our internet connection drops frequently - when we do connect we are a little bit faster than dial up speed - using a new Mac laptop and an older Dell PC with a Net Gear adapter.

I am about ready to cancel the service and go back to dial up - this has been sooooo frustrating. And there is no way I will pay an early termination fee to Verizon - I signed a contract, but they agreed to provide a product and a service and have really done neither to this point.

VERY frustrated

John_Getzke

Hello everyone,

Take a peek at the common solutions I use for the MiFi 4510L. Try to gather some more info and share with us what you can find so that we can make a more specific suggestion to your problem.

Common solutions:

1. Lower your MiFi to B/G down from B/G/N

2. Lower your MiFi to 3G only connections

3. Reset your MiFi to the defaults

4. Reseat your SIM card

5. Attach a external Antenna

6. Purchase a car booster kit from Wilson Electronics

7. Power down your MiFi when not in use

8. Store your MiFi in an area where it is not exposed to extreme heat or cold

9. Try different locations and look for consistencies or gaps in service

10. Replace the MiFi under warranty

Jimmy,

I advise spending as much time on the product as seems reasonable, but you also want to back out before it is too late. The longer you wait to get out the more likely Verizon is to stick you with the fee. These devices will continue to get better as the 4G network develops and you can always come back again later to see if there is improvement where you need it.

where

John_Getzke

No kudos.

Though your list is helpful in mitigating some of the many other known issues with the Verizon service and the 4510, nothing in it helps with this new issue thread. New, in that I have not yet seen it reported here before _blink_ reported it last month. Yet I have had this problem for several months. I thought I was the only one. Now we see other people with the same symptoms.

Last week I traveled to Ft. Worth (from Houston) and never once had an issue. I never lost signal nor internet connection for hundreds of miles (I rode while someone else drove). Yet I return home and within one day at my "regular" cell tower I am suffering again. I lose internet "browsing" capability, yet I can ping internet hosts by name (which means DNS lookup is working and ICMP/IP communication is working).

jlthorpe

So it appears that our 4510's have some issues with the OSI model. Go figure. Still happening to me today after doing a bunch of troubleshooting steps. No luck. It appears that layers 4 and above go away but 3 and under work fine. Annoying and I'm sick of paying for a service that doesn't work. I went back to my 2200 for a while and it worked perfectly. Go back to this thing and update it to 2.23 and stlll a no go.

jdski2003

Pretty much having the same problems...just got a new 4510 replacement last week...no help. Log displays also went to 1980..looks like a device issue since the 2200 did not do this...but the external antenna port keeps me in the 21st century speed...I'll keep trying, expect that Vz will get with the vendor and fix this, as 4G is the hot one right now, and they will want to sell these devices...I use it as my only internet access point, no DSL or cable modem available, Hughes satellite was the worst experience ever....the MIFI's are my only feasible option...

John_Getzke

JD,

The timestamp problem has been reported in a different thread. The OP reported back that Verizon had to replace his device to correct the problem. It has something to do with the MiFi selecting the wrong towers and not synching correctly. I wouldnt be surprised if your time was off by a few hours in addition to the wrong year. Check with Verizon and see if they can send you a new device under the current warranty. Timestamps should be automatically negotiated, we cant influence them.

Flyer,

I look forward to the feedback from a certified network professional. It sounds like you have already found some of the other threads regarding the common/easy solutions which is good start. Your not alone on the wireless channel problem. I have been tracking that problem as the "Dissapearing SSID" issue. In most cases the user has to do what you did and override the automatic channel feature.

I believe Verizon suggested to use 3G because it is the most commonly available network, not because it performs better. Coverage maps do not show 4G deadspots or weak signal areas that could attribute to a poor handoff between the two. Two firmware updates have been released so far to help with the 3G/4G handoff feature, sticking with 3G simply eliminates the handoff situation.

Keep us posted on your analysis.

Tom_SJ

Just a thought:

I always am very close to the mifi when I use it. The transmit power default for the wifi is much higher than I actually need. In the config file it is set to 13. I lowered mine to 7 and it still connects well in a conf room across my office area.

This will reduce power AND lower RF noise in the unit. It might make the LTE portion of the unit work better and will keep your unit cooler.

I also turned off the WMM feature on the WiFi page. This does some kind of power saving, but these things often make the protocol more complicated - and thus flakey.

Just my two cents.

John_Getzke

Tom,

Thanks for your feedback. Its always nice to learn new things about these MiFi devices! I was not aware that there was a way to lower the WiFi transmit power on this device. After looking into the subject I was unable to find the setting on my MiFi. Perhaps that feature is disabled with the 2.23 firmware update. Could you share the steps with us on how you were able to do this?

I also looked into the WMM feature of the MiFi as I have never tinkered with it before. Some further research has revealed that WMM is a feature designed to improve Video/VoIP performance by leveraging the existing broadband and prioritizing it accordingly. It sounds like WMM is only going to make a difference if three criteria are being met. This might explain why so many users have reported few problems streaming video content with the MiFi, but do have problems browsing to websites.

To take advantage of WWM functionality in a Wi-Fi network, three requirements have to be met:
(1) the access point is Wi-Fi CERTIFIED for WMM and has WMM enabled;
(2) the client (device) that the application is running on must be Wi-Fi CERTIFIED for WMM; and
(3) the source application supports WMM. [emphasis mine]

Source:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-features/30833-does-wi-fi-multimedia-wmm-really-do-anything-part-1

Assuming you do not want to prioritize video or voice applications like skype, there should be no harm in turning off WMM. Otherwise you may want to consider leaving this feature on. It would be interesting to hear from someone else with the browsing issue if disabling this feature made a difference or not.

evdotech

You might want to try a Verizon 4G LTE direct connect amplifier! This supports 4G LTE only, so no boost for 3G.

If you are in a 4G area, but the signal is weak, you can certainly benefit from the 4G LTE Amplifier

Cellphone-Mate CM700V Direct Connect 4G Amplifier

Read more about Cellphone-Mate CM700V 4G LTE Amplifier

jjselle

For those who use the 4510L for their home internet:

I initially had the same problems and set up my home wireless router as a repeater using custom router firmware found at www.dd-wrt.com. The documentation to configure the router as a repeater is also found there in tutorial form. I am experiencing no issue whatsoever surfing, streaming, or otherwise on multiple devices.

The way this works is that your wireless router acts as a client to the MiFi & then your PCs & other devices connect to the wireless router rather than the MiFi. I currently have an internet radio, Xbox 360, a phone & two PCs connected and the MiFi only shows one connected client (wireless router). Basically the settings of the wireless router just mirror those of the wifi network created by the MiFi. You must use the dd-wrt firmware on the wireless router for this to work.

I wish I had an explanation of why this works, but I'm guessing the integrity and QoS of the custom wireless router firmware handles packets & protocols much more efficiently than the 4510L. Perhaps, the wireless router plays more nicely with Win7 as well.

And by the way, you can use the LTE & 802.11n with this configuration!

Hope this helps.

reeper

Same problems as the rest. Here is the review I just left for the device. Hopefully they can get the issues worked out.

I picked this device up early after and was initially quite pleased. Although not in a 4G area it seemed to work just as good as the MiFi 2200 device I had with 3G. With all the traveling I do for work I was anxious to try it in a 4G area. Unfortunately it’s not to be. I took the device home after work later that day and the device failed to get a connection. I could see all my devices connected to the device just fine, same devices that worked earlier, but the device would not connect to the internet like it had done previously. I spent about an hour on the phone with support – which I must say was great. The gentleman I spoke with was patient understanding and was there to genuinely to try and make me happy. Still with the superb support we unfortunately never got the device to work.

I’m a Director of Information Technology and had hopes to upgrade 18 MiFi 2200 devices to this device. But at this time I think I’ll wait until Verizon can work the bugs out of this device or wait for a newer generation of MiFi device. It’ll be hard to beat those 2200 series devices – they have been extremely dependable for the guys out in the field.

doublel85

Well I feel like an idiot. I just found what my problem was. I only researched further when I realized that there were more networks than just my Mifi that I couldn't connect to. I checked the settings for my wireless connection under TCP/IP and found that I didn't have the Obtain Domain Address Automatically checked. I have no idea how it got that way but checked it and walla.. it works now. Thanks for the help guys

John_Getzke

Glad to hear you found the root of your problem Double. The TCP/IP issue you mentioned here is a rare one to encounter. Aren't connection problems fun?

NEONINK

This has been a great thread for me, because I'm constantly dealing with this exact issue. I can ping websites, but cannot browse to them. I have tried turning WMM off, but that did not help. I'm turning it back on.

I just wanted to add to this thread that I can open my VPN work site. My VPN connection works great, even though I cannot browse the internet when shifting between 3g/4g, and living in the fringe of 4g. In the advanced settings the default is ROUTER - VPN Passthrough is enabled. I'm thinking it is the router software that is causing the problems!

I keep trying to update from 2.23 to 2.28.02, but it 403 Software Update fails everytime. Perhaps that version has not been released to my device yet, I'm not sure.

I'm modem FW version 2.23. Router FW version 2.01. AP FW version: 2.10-3.0.0.5

John_Getzke

Hello Neon,

Your firmware is out of date if it is reporting 2.23 on the admin page. I would suggest trying to manually download the entire software update first, then run the install locally instead of the automatic/over the air option on the MiFi.

MiFi 4510L 2.28 firmware update:

https://community.verizonwireless.com/thread/770671?start=0&tstart=0

Helpful tips:

- WMM will not have anything to do with your website browsing capabilities, dont worry about it.

- VPN's may be interferring with your download. Try connecting from a personal machine without your VPN and see if you can complete the steps.

- VZW stores will peform these actions for you for free if you cannot complete them on your own.

- Post back and let us know if the problem persists after the firwmare update.

Keep us posted and let us know if you need help with anything else.

qustofla

This is a long thread and after reading it, I
can see that almost everyone has some experiences of one sort or another.

My employers use this unit for work and I
have to admit that until he past month, it has performed adequately.

By That, I mean it was able to connect to a vpn
and with some coaxing usually mange to get at least one of the mapped network
drives to connect.

However, starting a few months ago, issues began
to crop up where the vpn would connect but the drive mapping would fail. There have been no changes at the office endand the inability to connect to the mapped drive continued to get worse. Calls to Verizon techs got nothing but worthlesswild guesses none of which did any good theydon’t know

As all things do this has now gotten
worse. The laptop using the Mifi can
make the VPN connect. Even before the connect
the VPN connection, you can ping the servers with no problem. The same laptop connected to normal Internet Router works perfectly. I can even run RADMIN or TeamViewer or other
remote control software using the MIFI. All tests come back showing that it is in some
way not passing the GRE packets on Port 47 and port449 which is necessary for
connecting a mapped network resource is
blocked.

Oddly enough, the New JetPack 4620 ( I believe is the model) appear to not have these problems. What worries me is that the 4510 did not have them either at the start. When theyfirst came out it was like a miracle. They worked perfectly for everyone who got one.

Now we have at least three employees, one of whom just this unit 2 months ago. Yet now it is discontinued and no one is interested in finding oAut whyit will not work.

I have seen several articles mentioning Verizon
having to do some fast shifting around due to a lack of IPV4 addresses. I wondered if anyone else had experienced any vpn / network mapping problems with the MIFI4510L

Thanks

qustofla

I just read your reply and I will give i a try but the last time I took to a Verizon Store they said they could not work on them They hd to send them out. This is not acceptable as it is a busines tool and this is a business account with several of thse units and they are all suddenly haing the same problem.

But before you mention anything about our equipment, s long as I coonnect using your NEW JETPACK model on display (which I did) it cnnectd AND mapped the drives onthe same laptop that would not work on the 4510 siting right beside it

I do not know what the problem is, but whatever it is, it is easy to see how to fix. The JetPack works fine.

wpenfold

I started having this problem recently after I started getting 4G in my area....randomly can't browse websites or they timeout, and browsing is very slow. I tried the firmware upgrade in this post...no luck. So I tried locking my jetpack back to using 3G and then I can browse websites fine. Verizon is sending me a new jetpack and sim, so I'll see if that will allow me to use 4G.

nettie5

I too am having this same problem! I'm in the York PA area and up until a week and a half ago I'd had no issues with the 4510L, would flip back and forth from 3G to 4G with no probs. We took 2 laptops and the modem out of town to a 3G area, worked just fine. Came back home to our 4G area and pages stopped loading. Crazy thing was it was only affecting the 2 laptops we took out of town, had no affect on the other 2 computers that we have in our house. Modem was reading 4G, said I had excellent signal, but nothing would load! Called tech, they said there was a signal issue they were working on. Ok, gave it 4 days and still had nothing. Called tech again and was told the issue was fixed but for me it wasn't. They had me hard reset the modem 2 times, nothing! They tried blaming my virus software so I disabled every component of it and still nothing! Then I decided to manually set the modem to 3G (EVDO only) and all of a sudden I could browse with no problems. Called back AGAIN, they sent me a replacement modem. That didn't work! Called yet again, they said I needed a new SIM card. So took the modem and both laptops into our local VZWireless store where they inserted a new card and connected both laptops and both ended up working just fine, it would load pages in 4G and everything. So thinking the issue was fixed I returned home and once again - nothing would load in 4G. Switched the modem back to 3G and BAM I have internet. Tech supposedly has issued a ticket for me too to have signal issues checked but I have a feeling they're going to come back and say everything's fine. But it's not! This is frustrating b/c I have 3 kids who need internet to do their homework. This modem is supposed to revert to 3G on its own if the 4G signal isn't there but I guess because it's reading that there is 4G, it won't revert. So in a nutshell here's what I have...1 bar of signal in 4G mode and won't load any internet pages, all bars in 3G mode and works just fine, and prior to signal issues reported by others last week, I NEVER had a problem with 4G working at my home - even on only 1 bar of signal. And considering I've done tons of trouble shooting and ruled out my laptops and devices, it HAS to be a signal issue with VZ. I'm just amazed at how many people are having the same problem when tech acts like it hasn't been a commonly reported issue.

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