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Intermittent FIOS Connection

paloma6479

For the past month or so, we've been experiencing periodic connection drops.

We are currently on our second replacement router and the situation has not changed.

We have multiple devices connected to the router, some wireless and some wired and all are affected at the same time.

Logging into the router shows that the router is still connected to the internet and that supposedly everything is fine. But for a few minutes, all ping requests will time out and then will eventually recover. Sometimes this happens multiple times in an hour and sometimes we can go most of the day without it dropping. Occasionally when the router recovers after such an episode, it will have a new IP.

Anyone else having the same problem or have any insight into what the problem could be?

Comments

Hubrisnxs

are your connection drops on wired, wireless or both? pls be as specific as poss.

Also Verizon should be able to check the event logs of the main box - the ONT, so you may want to call or do a chat, and ask them to check the logs and see if there is anything that can help pin down the issue for you. if it's wireless only, then that is a different problem, but since you are sometimes losing your ip, I think it may be something bigger.

paloma6479

As I stated in my original post, "We have multiple devices connected to the router, some wireless and some wired and all are affected at the same time."

Verizon's solution so far has been to send new routers as they've been unable to remotely connect to and manage the router.

Is the ONT the box on the outside of my house or the main box for the community?

Hubrisnxs

Yes it's the outside box, and it records event logs like a computer would.

I would have them check that and see if it's reporting anything suspicious.

paloma6479

Ok, after talking to a customer service rep again today, I asked them if the issue could be related to the fact that our router is using PPPoE instead of DHCP. They initially told me that it should be using DHCP because FIOS connections don't use PPPoE at all, and then when they checked the circuit they confirmed that it's using Open PPPoE. Then they said that the ONT is the problem because it doesn't support PPPoE. Apparently our connection used to be DHCP and was somehow changed recently. So they're going to replace the ONT to one that supports PPPoE. But in the same breath they told me again that the connection shouldn't even be PPPoE, that they only use DHCP. Can anyone else shed some light on this?

While waiting in the queue for a representative I thought I may have fixed the problem. In the router config the "WAN PPPoE 2" connection was disabled. So there was nothing for the "WAN PPPoE" connection to fail over to when it was time for it to renew its lease (if lease is even the proper terminology for a PPPoE connection). So I enabled the "WAN PPPoE 2" connection. But the customer service rep told me that the problem is still with the ONT because it's not renewing its IP address properly so no matter how many PPPoE connections I have enabled on the router, it won't matter.

They're sending a tech to replace the ONT tomorrow and we'll see if that fixes the problem or just causes new ones. In the meantime, I haven't had any drops in the last couple hours since I enabled the "WAN PPPoE 2" connection.

Edited: I clarified that I was speaking with a customer service rep at the FSC and not a tech that had been dispatched.

Hubrisnxs

FiOS does use PPPOE in some area's, and there aren't any good ways to switch to dhcp for those folks, or anyways that I have seen work. The ONT has nothing to do with DHCP or PPPOE - those are handled by the head end gateway routers.

You may be onto something with the 2nd pppoe connection and enabling it, let us know which seems to fix the problem.

the new ont, or the new change you made to the router.

@paloma6479 wrote:
Ok, after talking to Verizon again today, I asked them if the issue could be related to the fact that our router is using PPPoE instead of DHCP. They initially told me that it should be using DHCP because FIOS connections don't use PPPoE at all, and then when they checked the circuit they confirmed that it's using Open PPPoE. Then they said that the ONT is the problem because it doesn't support PPPoE. Apparently our connection used to be DHCP and was somehow changed recently. So they're going to replace the ONT to one that supports PPPoE. But in the same breath they told me again that the connection shouldn't even be PPPoE, that they only use DHCP. Can anyone else shed some light on this?
While waiting in the queue for a representative I thought I may have fixed the problem. In the router config the "WAN PPPoE 2" connection was disabled. So there was nothing for the "WAN PPPoE" connection to fail over to when it was time for it to renew its lease (if lease is even the proper terminology for a PPPoE connection). So I enabled the "WAN PPPoE 2" connection. But the tech told me that the problem is still with the ONT because it's not renewing its IP address properly so no matter how many PPPoE connections I have enabled on the router, it won't matter.
They're replacing the ONT tomorrow and we'll see if that fixes the problem or just causes new ones. In the meantime, I haven't had any drops in the last couple hours since I enabled the "WAN PPPoE 2" connection.

paloma6479

The tech came out today and confirmed that we don't need to replace the ONT. Go figure. Contrary to what the customer service rep was telling me, the only thing our ONT won't support is moca, which we don't have anyway. And as stated in previous posts, it has nothing to do with the router renewing its address (either DHCP or PPPoE) from the gateway router. Also, there's no way they would have switched us to PPPoE if we were previously on a DHCP connection. We've always used PPPoE and I don't think customer service knows that there are still customers that use it so they were trying to tell me that it must have somehow been changed recently and that was causing problems.

Anyway, after talking to the tech, we think that the problem could have been a result of a firmware upgrade to our router which inadvertently disabled the "WAN PPPoE 2" connection. Since there are very few customers left that use FIOS PPPoE, they probably never thought to test that before pushing out the upgraded firmware. So he said that enabling it like I did should fix the problem and to let him know if it reoccurs.

Even though he ended up not doing anything, I'm glad the tech came out and confirmed that I wasn't crazy and the customer service rep was just wrong.

As a recap, here's a screenshot of the disabled connection that I had to enable.

To enable, it click the "Action" button to the right of the above screen and then click the "Enable" button at the top. Also make sure that the "Underlying Device" is the correct one. It should be whichever physical connection your broadband uses, either Ethernet or Coax. To change it if it's incorrect, click the "Settings" button on the screen below and then select the correct result from the drop down box on the resulting page.

paloma6479

Ok, I take it back. The problem isn't fixed. Although it isn't occurring as frequently as before so either there are two different issues and enabling the "WAN PPPoE 2" connection only fixed one of them, or it was just a coincidence that the problem seemed to go away for a while after enabling it.

I'm at a loss. From other posts I've seen here, it seems the problem is ongoing with DHCP and PPPoE connections and replacing hardware up to and including the ONT has had no effect.