Media streamers/TVs cannot connect to the internet via ethernet

[Johno]

Something odd is happening with my RT-AC68U which I recently upgraded to latest firmware and then inadvertently reset it to factory defaults once the upgrade completed. All of my media streaming devices and TVs are connected to an ethernet home LAN on which the router is the internet gateway. When I test the network with the ethernet connection active on the streamer, the device eventually reports that it is able to connect to the router/switch but is unable to connect to the internet.

Suspecting it may be a DNS issue, I've checked my DNS settings and for the WAN I've specified getting the DNS server details automatically (from my ISP) and for the LAN DHCP settings the DNS address entries are blank so that the router's WAN DNS addresses are used. DNS filtering is also OFF.

If I switch the streaming devices to connect to the router via WiFi then all is well and the streamer connects to the internet in no time at all. Sometimes the ethernet connection will work and I'll load up say, the Amazon Prime Video app to watch a movie, but it's slow to get to the home page of the app, slow to start streaming the movie and stops about 20 seconds in before reporting that "something has gone wrong".

Does anyone have any idea why the flakey ethernet performance and why the media devices cannot seem to connect to the internet from the router? There's no such issue with any other ethernet devices such as desktop PCs and a network printer.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Can you describe how all of your effected Ethernet devices are connected, e.g. switches, patch cables, etc.?

P.S. It RT-AC68U.

 

[Johno]

Can you describe how all of your effected Ethernet devices are connected, e.g. switches, patch cables, etc.?

P.S. It RT-AC68U.

Thanks, corrected.

The ethernet network is all connected to a Cisco gigabit switch into which the router is also connected to provide the internet gateway for everything connected using cat5e and cat6 patch cables. Basically there's a patch panel in the garage at which all the cat5e cabling in the house terminates and from there each port is connected to the switch using cat5e patch cables.

I don't suspect an issue with the cabling because everything worked fine before I upgraded the router firmware and inadvertently reset it to factory defaults,

 

[ColinTaylor]

Do you have any non-streaming devices that are also connected to the Cisco switch? Are the also effected in this way?

I suggest that you unplug/plug both ends of the cable between the router and the Cisco to make 100% sure they are seated properly and the link has been negotiated correctly.

 

[Johno]

Do you have any non-streaming devices that are also connected to the Cisco switch? Are the also effected in this way?

I suggest that you unplug/plug both ends of the cable between the router and the Cisco to make 100% sure they are seated properly and the link has been negotiated correctly.

Everything ethernet is connected via the Cisco switch and other devices connected to it work just fine.

 

[dosborne]

I would try setting a static ip, default gateway and dns servers on the streaming device to see if it resolved the issue. That might give you something to troubleshoot.

 

[Johno]

I would try setting a static ip, default gateway and dns servers on the streaming device to see if it resolved the issue. That might give you something to troubleshoot.

Tried setting DNS to 8.8.8.8 (Google) to no avail, still get intermittent connection problems or if the network status is reported as okay, subsequent streaming of say, Netflix or Amazon will fail. Have set manual IP assignment by DHCP and DNS to the router, seems to work okay now. Odd.

 

[Johno]

The issue seems to be sorted now. I have a second RT-AC68U which serves as an AiMesh node which needed to have itself reset to factory default before being added to the mesh, which I've now done via Ethernet backhaul , added the mesh node and now all seems well with the Ethernet connected TVs and streamers.