Tablo remote - port forwarding with G3100

[Boguespierre1]

I have had a Tablo DVR for about 3 years and recall being able to easily access it remotely on overseas trips before Covid. Earlier this year, with the whole family WFH, I decided to upgrade my FiOS to 1G along with the latest G3100 router and an E3200 extender (previously Quantum Gateway and a Netgear extender). 
The new set up is fairly good (though far from perfect in parts of the house), and being housebound I haven’t been using Tablo remote until recently.

With Upnp enabled it is easy to open up two ports to allow remote access, but they inevitably disconnect within an hour or so. I can sometimes get them to stay open a little longer if I disable Upnp right after enabling Remote, but they still fail before the day is out. Any ideas? I’ve set a Static IP for the Tablo, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference. That’s about the limit of my expertise.

Tablo Support absolutely say it is a router issue, which I believe. FiOS support say that they do not offer assistance with Port Forwarding - you’re on your own.

Any ideas?

[Cang_Household]

That's about right, port forwarding is out of scope of the official Fios support, but is within the scope of this Community Forums.

UPnP or Port Forwarding, they achieve the same purpose ultimately. Once you enable Port Forwarding, UPnP becomes irrelevant.

Just to make sure we are on the same page, did you set up port forwarding rules or port triggering rules? What you are describing seems you mistaken port triggering setup for port forwarding.

[Boguespierre1]

I don't believe I made the mistake you suggest.

With Upnp enabled, I can enable Remote Access by checking a single radio button in the Tablo's settings. And I can then see the resultant change in the Port Forwarding rules on the Router under Firewall -> Port Forwarding -> Applied Rules as:

Networked Computer/Device Applications & Ports Forwarded Status Action

localhost 127.0.0.1	Verizon Fios Service TCP Any -> 4567 TCP Any -> 4577	Active
FiOS-E3200-04xxxxxxxxxxxxx67	Destination Port 35000 TCP Any -> 35000	Active
Tablo:80	UPnP IGD TCP 21420 TCP Any -> 21420	Active	Remove
Tablo:8887	UPnP IGD TCP 21421 TCP Any -> 21421	Active	Remove

At this point the Remote Access works fine.

However, for reasons I do not understand, the bottom 2 rules lapse shortly after.

[Cang_Household]

Can you go to Universal Plug and Play settings under Advanced? Check if you have Enable Automatic Cleanup of Old Unused UPnP Services enabled, if so, disable it. Disabling this option would leave ports open after they have finished their sessions, which would create some security concerns.

[Boguespierre1]

Yes, I currently keep that disabled.

[Boguespierre1]

Looking around other forums, I can see that disabling Enable Automatic Cleanup of Old Unused UPnP Service is often effective in resolving similar issues. But it doesn’t seem to work in this case!

[Cang_Household]

To by pass the issue, is there a way you can setup a fixed port on the WAN side pointing to the two ports Tablo needs? Do you know how to use Syslog? You can check how does G3100 log the cleanup of UPnP ports. Maybe find some clue there.

[Boguespierre1]

Thanks, but that is beyond my skill level.

A couple of points, though quite possibly irrelevant:

(1) My G3100 appears to be connected to the ONT via both Ethernet and Coax - is that normal?

(2) My E3200 is at the other end of my house, and the Tablo is hooked to it with Ethernet. The E3200 being located where I previously had my Quantum Gateway, I have it connected to the ONT via coax. FiOS support have told me this is preferable to acting as an extender to the G3100’s WiFi signal.

Verizon have told me multiple times that the role of the E3200 is benign. True?

[Cang_Household]

E3200 is a layer 2+ device, it does not gateway the access to the Internet. If you don’t know how to check the logs, it maybe difficult for me to help you.

For those two opened ports, do Tablo only uses those two ports from time to time?

[Boguespierre1]

Well I can see how to access the various router logs (System, Security, Advanced, Firewall, WAN DHCP & LAN DHCP), but I don’t see anything in them that obviously relates to port forwarding (not that I know what I am looking for...).

The Tablo will only use the ports when called upon by a remote device that has previously been paired to it (PC, iOS, Roku, Firestick). I have had this working at a far distant location, but the link eventually goes down even while in use. 
The ports are there and work fine, but it seems like the G3100 just gets tired and shuts them down... 😞