Nest Wifi constantly losing signal

[Ptmc1888]

I am a Fios internet-only customer. I've had the service for almost two years now and since signing up, I've used a Nest Wifi router w/two access points in my home for internet. Up until a few months ago the service had been fine. I was getting the 400/400 speed almost always, I live in a big old house so understand if sometimes it isn't perfect. But recently, my internet just stops working all together on wifi. If I turn wifi off on my phone then it works fine but on wifi it stops. It happens to my wife's phone, it happens when trying to stream on the Chromecast with Google TV that I have.

I had a Fios tech out and he couldn't find a problem. He did replace the ONT and some other connections just in case because they were pretty old, and that seemed to work for a day or two but then the same thing. Rebooting my router and access points fixes the issue for a few hours but then it either slows down or stops working again. I'm guessing it's the Nest router that's the issue but don't know what would have changed within the last few months to cause this. I don't want to buy a whole new router if I don't have to so wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions on how I can fix this first. The router is connected directly to the ONT via ethernet. Thank you in advance for your help.

[Cang_Household · Accepted solution]

Are the devices all Android? If so, that's a known DNS + IPv6 problem.

Some patience is required while the Engineering is charging into the problem.

[Ptmc1888]

Is that documented anywhere? Not that I don't believe you but I'd be interested in following the issue. Would turning ipv6 off on the nest routers possibly fix the issue? Thanks for your help!

[smith6612]

You can try turning off IPv6 to see if it helps. I would actually question your home network in general though. Are the Google WiFi pucks hardwired to each other or is wireless mesh involved? Do you have Sonos or other wireless speaker systems in the mix, maybe hardwired? Other devices (not based on Android) keep working fine right?

[Ptmc1888]

Turning off IPv6 seems so far to have helped. Casting to my Chromecast w/Google TV and using the apps on it hasn't had issues so far but I'll wait a few days to make sure. 

My wifi nodes are wireless and had been working fine for the first two years I had service, it was just within the last few months that the internet started being intermittent. It definitely seems to mainly be our Android phones as my iPad hasn't really had any issue at all and on the apps that support casting to Chromecast (most of them) it works fine. My speakers are all Nest/Google speakers and smart displays. I have a few smart light bulbs and plugs, they're all Wyze or TP Link. My xbox also seems to work fine, downloading large games and large updates to games without problems.

[Cang_Household]

---

@Ptmc1888 wrote:

Is that documented anywhere? Not that I don't believe you... Would turning ipv6 off on the nest routers possibly fix the issue?

---

Since I typed it out, so it is kind of documented here.

Turning off IPv6 would miss out on its benefits, especially if you are interested in playing multiplayer games on Xbox or similar.

Also the future of the Internet is IPv6, so expect certain websites to drop IPv4 support in the coming years.

I would recommend replace devices that do not support IPv6. It does not make sense to disable a future-proof and advanced feature to accommodate, well, now legacy devices for not supporting IPv6. All these suggestions are contingent upon your issue is 100% caused by IPv6.

[Ptmc1888]

None of the devices that I'm having issues with don't support ipv6. The Chromecasts that I have are all Chromecast Ultra or Chromecast with Google TV. Both of our Android phones support it and the nest hubs support it as well so replacing my devices isnt going to fix this. Like I said multiple times, up until a few months ago, with IPV6 enabled I had absolutely no issues then all of a sudden the network just started becoming intermittent on every device other than my iPad. So far with IPV6 disabled on the nest wifi routers I've had no more latency issues. So it seems like it has to do with Verizon and ipv6 causing a problem. 

[Cang_Household]

Could you disable IPv6 in your LAN, while still enable IPv6 on the WAN?

When I had issues with Chromecast years ago, the fix was disabling the IPv6 interface only on devices that need casting.

Wireshark captures would be helpful in this case to troubleshoot.

[LawrenceC]

I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to post your comments and opinions related to this topic. This topic has been thoroughly discussed and will now be closed. Please feel free to open a new thread for further discussion. Thank you.