4G LTE Network Extender intermittently disconnects from Verizon network

[cfogri1]

Update,

I was notified, the case to fix this issue is still open with Networking. 

[hightowe]

I just wanted to add in that I am another very long time Verizon customers with one of these extenders and I am experiencing the exact same problem, repeatedly, to the point that my extender is useless: SCTP link failure | [Cleared] SCTP HB failed over criteria

I am very much hoping that Verizon is now taking this seriously and will fix it soon.

Lester Hightower

[hightowe]

For the network engineers, here is some ping results from my home to the Verizon Security GW IP Addresses, and within it you can see the large packet loss, mid-screen, % Failed and sorted in descending order.

My home is in Northeast Florida and Internet is serviced by Comcast/XFinity and it is very solid.

Lester Hightower

[vzw_customer_support]

Just to be sure we are on the same page, were you able to contact your Internet Service Provider? Feel free to send us a Private Note to continue the conversation. ~Vic

[lbo12]

Who is this addressed to? Me? It’s unclear who vzw_customer_support is talking to here. I have already responded by private note as requested only to be met with silence by customer support. No follow up. 

What seems clear is the support folks who are monitoring and engaging in this thread are simply not able to help - and it’s not for lack of trying. It’s just that they’re not given the tools to solve the problem.

Apparently, this issue has been escalated to Verizon’s networking group to investigate the poor performance of Verizon’s contracted-out servers located in China. We can only hope those investigations lead to a solution for all of us. 

[vzw_customer_support]

Thank you for the clarification. Rest assured that as soon as we have a resolution on the recent ticket we will get a hold of you to go over the details. Sound good?~Vic

[cfogri1]

Update, Verizon contacted me yesterday and are still working on this issue with a Priority 1 level with the Network Dept. assigned to this issue. 

Yes,  the level 2 tech. support group that monitor this member's community can not fix this issue. Some of us think it is caused by the large packet losses and high ping times to the Verizon servers that are causing these intermittent connection drops that happen randomly.  I can not use my Network Extender due to the high amount of daily connection drops. I will continue to post updates until the issue has been resolved for us all.

I was interested in the post reported earlier, where one user had his box replaced by Verizon and when he plugged it in, the firmware was using an older version and he was not having connection drops. I  contact him privately to get a update but I have not heard back yet. I am sure in time, his device will get pushed the newer firmware, and will get the dropouts again, unless Verizon has halted the pushed out firmware updates, that might be the cause of the issues. 

[kayakboy000000]

My replacement unit is still on GA4.30.  It has *not* updated.  It is working very well.  NO dropouts during the day.   

Again, my older unit would drop out from 11a until 7p MDT....consistently.   

The new unit has been in service from 7/30/21.

[hightowe]

@cfogri1  - I fear that we may be hitting a bug in PingInfoView. Today, I used fping on Linux (https://www.fping.org/) in hopes of proving to myself that what we were seeing in PingInfoView was representative of the problem. Instead, fping would not replicate the problem (never a missed ping)...

I had not used PingInfoView until now, after I saw you using it, and so I experimented with it a bit after fping would not verify the problem. If I raise PingInfoView's "ping timeout in ms" to 1000, from the default of 500, no pings ever fail. Importantly, however, I rarely see a ping take more than 100ms to these Verizon servers and so I think we are hitting a bug in PingInfoView and not seeing a real networking problem.

In the attached, you can see successes with both fping and PingInfoView, after I made the "ping timeout in ms" adjustment noted above to PingInfoView.

Given this, sadly, I do not think that we are any closer to solving this problem...

[hightowe]

@kayakboy000000 - thanks for providing the update. Your experience is very interesting. My unit recently upgraded its firmware (on its own) from "GA4.21 - V0.4.021.5757" to "GA4.36 - V0.4.036.1813" but, unfortunately, I cannot attest that that is when these problems started (I am just unsure). It would be wonderful if we could downgrade our firmware versions to test this...