MiFi 4510L gets stuck in "dormant" state

[nsayer]

Firmware v2.23 is far and away better than the older firmware, but still, once or twice a week, the device will fail. The symptoms:

1. WiFi is still connected, but any data I/O simply hangs.

2. vz.hotspot responds, and shows the connection state correctly, except that it is "dormant."

Hitting "Disconnect" waiting and then hitting "connect" works around the problem and brings the connection back up.

The "dormant" state is not sufficient to identify this problem - the mifi connection is often dormant, but when you start doing something, it typically "un-dormants" itself and operates normally. Only sometimes - once or twice a week for me - does it wind up in a state of semi-permanent dormancy.

[nsayer]

I can see the logic in that solution - it's possible that if a large number of clients begin the connection process that perhaps the mifi might drop existing connections to attempt to service them (because of its internal connection limit). The MAC filter probably prevents that.

However, in my case, the WiFi connection is never in doubt. I never see the WiFi connection get dropped or waver in the slightest. I can always reach vz.hotspot, and can always look up the modem status and system log. With firmware 2.16, I saw the Mifi outright crash with some frequency. When THAT happened, the wifi would be dropped, but too when that happened, the entire device became stuck and needed to be powered back up. But I haven't seen that behavior since upgrading to 2.23.

[nsayer]

Support is flailing on this. They first tried to replace the SIM. That took an hour, two store employees, three phone calls and four SIMs to accomplish and made no difference. Next, they sent a replacement device. That replacement is utterly defective - it locks up 30 seconds after being powered up. So much for Verizon's lauded 100 point inspection on refurbs.

I am hopping mad.

[tryan]

I had a similar issue, dormancy and dropping connections and found this thread when trying to solve it.  I'm connecting with an HP Touchpad, so I thought perhaps it had something to do with the Touchpad.  In troubleshooting, I changed the encryption to 128 bit WEP.   No idea why this would have an impact on dormancy, but it seems to work much better for all devices.  Can't say that will solve it for everyone, but seems to have worked for me.  It still goes dormant, but seems to come out of it more gracefully.

[nsayer]

The replacement for the replacement arrived, and it's operating nominally, but the problem still persists.

I'm not really willing to downgrade the security of the WiFi to WEP, since I mainly use my MiFi on a train, and the chance of getting hacked is unacceptably high.

[tryan]

you might want to try it at home, just to see if it works for you.

[nsayer]

It hasn't made any difference I can detect. I still run into this at least daily.

[cyberpunk]

re 'dormant state' a solution that works for me every time within seconds...

* login to mifi 4510L (for me: http://192.168.1.1/mifi.cgi)

* select advanced > software update

* select 'check for update'

* watch 'dormant' change to 'connected'

* enjoy

I've had the dormant state during browsing, software updates, IM, email, skype, gtalk when roaming or stationary with full/clear wifi or full/low cell signal. this seems to work every time--logs reveal nothing. my logic for trying was verizon would want their device to connect to verizon home servers anytime and anywhere. been waiting for a real fix, finally had to share.

[nsayer]

I'll try that next time. If this works, then it makes it really, really plain that this is a firmware bug in the MiFi. There should, in principle, be no difference whatsoever between the traffic of the MiFi checking for an update versus a client trying to do anything else.

[clubtech5]

I tried everything in this and other posts and my Mifi always got stuck in Dormant mode or endless loop of reconnecting.

The only thing that solved this for me was disabling the SSID broadcast of the mifi and since i have not had a single issue with the device.

Has anyone tried disabling the SSID and check if solved their problem?

[nsayer]

I can confirm that checking for a software update will shake the mifi out of the stuck-dormant state. The benefit of doing it that way is that you're less likely to lose your WAN IP address, so long-lived TCP sessions or VPN connections should be less likely to fail. I'll check this next time it dies (should be later on today if history is any guide).

[jbb]

First let me say that I LOVE Verizon's phone service. It beats the pants off AT&T. I've had them both. And my Verizon 3g USB gizmo always worked flawlessly.

However, this Mifi 4510L is a complete and total flop. It will not hold a connection no matter what firmware is in it (I now have 2.23.1). I've used it from NY to Las Vegas in the 12 days I've had it and it will not work properly anywhere. The times it does work for a few minutes, it's slow - very slow. The sad part is that I don't think Verizon has a clue what to do about it.

It's going back to the store and I'm going back to the 3g USB thing.

I also have an AT&T 4g Mifi and it screams. It never drops the connection, and it just always works. I'm keeping it for work and travel and giving the old USB thing to my wife. She's fine with its speed. But she could never tolerate the way the Verizon Mifi drops the connection all the time.

I've tried ALL the workarounds and different settings and all that stuff you see posted here, but the bottom line is that it doesn't work.

Ford had the Edsel and now Verizon has the 4510L, it's crazy old uncle that lives in the attic. It's a shame really. Verizon does everything else so well. They just can't do 4g yet.

[nsayer]

jbb wrote:

However, this Mifi 4510L is a complete and total flop. It will not hold a connection no matter what firmware is in it (I now have 2.23.1).

Where did you get 2.23.1? I have 2.23 on mine. So far as I know, that's the latest.

[jbb]

Came on it.

[jbb]

Give up on it man. You're gonna drive yourself crazy.

[wmhjr]

Folks, let's be honest about this.  The 4150 (and quite possibly the Verizon LTE network at large) is a dismal failure.  It is without a shadow of a doubt, the most unreliable, poorly performance and worst supported technology product I've had the unfortunate experience of living through in the past 20 years.  Core defects exist in its implementation, and they are not "Wifi" in nature.  They are all completely under the control of Verizon.  I have massive, and undebatable data showing that the issue has nothing to do with signal strength, SNR, tower configuration, geographic or external interference, client device characteristics, etc.  This is a Verizon problem (also being clear that I consider the Novatel/Samsung Mifi development and manufacturing as a Verizon issue, since Verizon had to certify and support those devices as well as the fact that Verizon sells them for use on their own network).  There are even clear defects in the admin console.  Selecting LTE Only no longer locks the device to LTE Only.  I have screen shots of my device, having been set to LTE Only, being connected via 3G or worse yet, EVDO or 1XRTT.  It is pathetic. 

[nsayer]

Oh, I don't know.

Apart from the couple of known, widescale outages I've experienced so far, the only problem I've systematically had with my 4510L is the dormant hang issue, and performing a firmware update check is the work-around for it.

The fact that a firmware-update check works around the dormancy problem tells me that this is a bug in the firmware of the device. In principle, there's no reason that the firmware update check traffic is any different from the other traffic flowing through the device. It's likely that because of this bug, local traffic is able to "wake up" the modem, but routed traffic does not. I'd think this would be fairly easy for them to fix, and I expect a fix in the next firmware release.

In contrast, firmware 2.16 was abysmal. That the firmware is improving gives me hope. That the one problem I am having has such an easy work-around gives me hope that the flaw is not as systemic as you say.

There may be a geographic disparity at work as well. I've used my MiFi in the San Francisco Bay area and in San Diego. I've not used it elsewhere, so maybe you're in a place with bigger problems. I don't know.

Now, how long will Novatel and Verizon take to pull their thumbs out and actually fix it? That's the open question.

As for Verizon LTE being the shoddiest technology release in the last 20 years.... Well, clearly you've never owned an AT&T 3G Microcell.

[wmhjr]

I'm sorry, but frankly the defects in this product are core, critical, high severity issues.  For the record, I've used the  device in locations such as Boston, NYC, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, San Diego, Los Angeles, Pgh, Philly, Cleveland (sort of), Columbus, and the list can go on and on.  While they are unacceptable and are indicative of poor engineering, I'm not talking of the widespread outages.  I am talking of the "Dormant" issues, the fact that the device does not properly prioritize the connection type , the lack of reliability, and yes - even the speed when connected via LTE and great signal.  "When" it works, it's not bad.  The problem is that it rarely works reliably for any length of time.  In any of the locations I've mentioned above.  There will only be change in VZ if people such as us apply pressure, rather than just giving them a break. 

As for the shoddy release thing, I was speaking of my experience.  We can debate if there were others that were worse.  The fact that we're even debating it makes my point. 

[clubtech5]

Have you guys tried to disable SSID broadcast? I don't know why but since i have done this my "dormant" issues are 100% GONE and i was suffering from this issue like everyone else.

My setup:

WAN mode: auto

LAN: Wifi B/G WPA2 with SSID broadcast disabled.

MAC address filter: on.

[nsayer]

I haven't tried that, but others have mentioned turning on the MAC address filter and I see you have that on as well. Are you sure it's the lack of SSID instead of the mac filter?

In any event, are you also sure that the problem you're seeing is the same? I could imagine a bug where the WiFi connection could go bad that would cause similar symptoms. Are you able to go to vz.hotspot and refresh the page and see that the connection really is "Dormant" and in another window going to a real website hangs? I'd expect any problem that the mac filter or SSID hiding would fix would cause vz.hotspot to hang AS WELL as the Internet in general.

If you have dormancy issues where vz.hotspot is always responsive, but not Internet sites generally, AND if either the mac filter or disabling SSID broadcast makes that not happen, then I'd be quite surprised.

[clubtech5]

When i only enabled mac filtering, it didn't solve the problem.

My Mifi would still get stuck in dormant mode. I could access the mifi homepage but nothing on the internet.

I really don't know why but as soon as i disabled SSID broadcast the problem went away and i can confirm that i use the mifi all day long for two weeks now and not single dormancy issue.

I am running the latest firmware as well.

Give it a try and see if this solved your issue as well. nothing to lose here!

[nsayer]

This does not work for me. I disabled SSID broadcast yesterday and this afternoon the unit got stuck in the usual way. Checking for software update fixed it, and I've turned SSID back on.