Solved [R7800]: Configured as bridge - Scheduled WiFi results in no connection over ethernet

[airgap]

Hardware Version R7800
Firmware Version V1.0.2.80.5SF
GUI Language Version V1.0.0.361
Installed Firmware: Voxels Firmware

Hello everybody,

well obviously I'm new here but OK let's go ahead to the core because we all have a life and don't want to waste time.

I am using a netgear r7800 and it works great overall (besides the bad and unintuitiv gui) but one strange weird issue bugs me and I can't figure out what it might be (and to solve it) and I searched on google and had no lucky and then looked in Netgears forum but no luck again and last I tried here but no luck either.

This issue is in stock firmware and the Voxel-Firmware - so it seems that is somewhrer in the core settings or configuration of the firmware or it might be hardware issue.

My setup:

Fritz!Box 5490 (Fiber) as the internet router
Netgear R7800 as WiFi-Bridge for my computer (connected over LAN)

1. both routers shutdown their WiFi at the same time in the evening when there is no use of WiFi
2. the fritzbox starts about 15 minutes earlier at the morning to activate the WiFi - it takes about 5-10 minutes due radar scan
3. then 15 minutes later the R7800 activates its WiFi

Outcome:
I start my computer and have no ethernet connection between my computer and the R7800.
Looks like the computer doesn't establishes a connection and doesn't get any IP.

The only way to solve this issue is by two options:
A) rebooting the R7800
B) hold the WiFi button on R7800 to shut the WiFi off manually and then push it to reactivate and after few seconds
the WiFi connection establishes and my computer gets an IP.

I guess for some odd reasons the networking service is not restarting correctly the entire bridge conenction.

The logs don't show any hint on this issue.

So do you guys have any idea on this?

I appreciate your help.

Thanks

 

[airgap]

Well after 1 week an almost 200 views no help I have to assume either nobody is able to help on this issue or I put it in the wrong forum section but where should it be otherwise or I have a defect R7800 which could be also a possibility but how could one check for it?

Anyways thank you for all for at least havin' a look here and tried to figure it out.

I guess I should consider to get rid of the router and research for a better replacement.

Have a nice day guys

 

[NetBytes]

Here is a potential brute-force idea, but I have no way to test it.

1) Install the @kamoj addon onto your R7800
2) Using @kamoj addon set up a cron job to reboot your R7800 everyday at the appropriate time.

 

[airgap]

Hi NetBytes,
thanks! Yeah I thought about cron and tried to implement a scheduled restart of the network not just reboot the device (which would be also a good idea to reboot) in the native voxel firmware but for some reason something overwrites it again again.

I can't figure out where the stupid template is from which the crontab is created seems to be somehow created on the fly because it always contains my scheduled wifi on off:

00 05 * * * wlan schedule 11a on
00 23 * * * wlan schedule 11a off
0 2 * * * * wlan apscan <- i don't know why it has to that one. it's not from me.
56 03 * * * streamboost update_fmn; streamboost auto_upload; streamboost auto_update && streamboost restart <- also useless and it's not from me.

so when I just restart the cron "/etc/init.d/cron reload" or reboot every change I made will be overwritten and there will exactly the same lines like above.

If I could figure out from where it creates that - may be I could inject my wished crontasks into it. Because doing things with cron is a lot easier but it's frustrating if the crontab is always overwritten.

I thought about using Kamoj - Addon but I was and somehow still am a bit afraid of bricking the device and then I am even not able to get rid of it and buy something else. I will first take a look and read about the kamoj addon and may give it a try.

Best regards

 

[kamoj]

You can the the cron jobs this way

#Set OFF
cron_name="airgap_off"
\mkdir -p /tmp/addons/cron/"$cron_name"/crontabs
echo "00 23 * * * wlan down" >/tmp/addons/cron/"$cron_name"/crontabs/root
crond -c /tmp/addons/cron/"$cron_name"/crontabs

#Set ON
cron_name="airgap_on"
\mkdir -p /tmp/addons/cron/"$cron_name"/crontabs
echo "00 05 * * * wlan up" >/tmp/addons/cron/"$cron_name"/crontabs/root
crond -c /tmp/addons/cron/"$cron_name"/crontabs

#Show all cron jobs
ps -www | grep -v "grep" | grep "crontabs"

PS
These cron jobs will be lost at reboot, so no danger of bricking

Hi NetBytes,
thanks! Yeah I thought about cron and tried to implement a scheduled restart of the network not just reboot the device (which would be also a good idea to reboot) in the native voxel firmware but for some reason something overwrites it again again.

I can't figure out where the stupid template is from which the crontab is created seems to be somehow created on the fly because it always contains my scheduled wifi on off:

00 05 * * * wlan schedule 11a on
00 23 * * * wlan schedule 11a off
0 2 * * * * wlan apscan <- i don't know why it has to that one. it's not from me.
56 03 * * * streamboost update_fmn; streamboost auto_upload; streamboost auto_update && streamboost restart <- also useless and it's not from me.

so when I just restart the cron "/etc/init.d/cron reload" or reboot every change I made will be overwritten and there will exactly the same lines like above.

If I could figure out from where it creates that - may be I could inject my wished crontasks into it. Because doing things with cron is a lot easier but it's frustrating if the crontab is always overwritten.

I thought about using Kamoj - Addon but I was and somehow still am a bit afraid of bricking the device and then I am even not able to get rid of it and buy something else. I will first take a look and read about the kamoj addon and may give it a try.

Best regards

 

[kamoj]

I think you should disable 11k in the Netgear debug-page, since it is known to cause big problems.
(Then you might get rid of "wlan apscan" as well?
Else just kill the process manually!

0 2 * * * * wlan apscan <- i don't know why it has to that one. it's not from me.

)

 

[airgap]

Hello Kamoj,

thank you for the reply. Correct me if I'm wrong but...
this would do the same as I edit the root crontab directly which I already tested.
It will be lost after reboot or reload of cron.
So why would creating a new folder and file in "/tmp/addons/cron/"$cron_name"/crontabs/root" make a big difference?
Could you elaborate on that please?

 

[kamoj]

This way you start 2 new cron jobs, your own!
This will not be lost when the router updates/deletes it's own cron jobs.
This way you create your own jobs. It's standard way of Linux.

 

[NetBytes]

There are numerous internal netgear processes which overwrite the standard root cron job.
Attempting to use it or fix it is an exercise in futility - Use @kamoj's idea.
You can make the jobs persist by putting them into your post-mount.sh script.

Also - if wlan down/up doesn't do the trick then use cron to literally reboot when u want the wireless back up.

 

[airgap]

Attempting to use it or fix it is an exercise in futility...

Yeah exactly! I tried to find it but no luck seems very complex but there were some other weird challenges. For some reasons cron didn't work anymore may be I wrecked it by manipulating too much I also installed the Kamoj-Addon and then the router froze.

Then I reinstalled stock firmware and the voxel firmware to get back to the status quo but ... the router works faster since then which didn't make any sense because logicaly nothing really changed.

I noticed that custom made "wifi schedule cron jobs" somehow are buggy. The wifi will be shut down but will never come back up but if you just do it over the standard cron it works but then it will fail as the main issue will stay (which was reason I opened the thread).

Yes a reboot cron does the trick - that's sure but it's somehow weird that one have to reboot his router everytime for such simple stupid task which should have worked out-of-the-box. My frizbox has none of those issues - so the question is why? Or may be I shouldn't ask it - may be the answer would be terrifying.

Anyways I decided to look out for another router but I guess never a netgear again or you have some suggestions.
I think I will try ASUS as had mostly good experience with those devices or something else.

I will mark this thread as "solved" ... somehow

Thank you all very much! Appreciate it!

 

[NetBytes]

Based on your description of your usage, to me a reboot is an elegant solution.
Whether I have a cron job calling wlan down/up or simply rebooting the router I
would not care if by the time I got to my computer in the morning it just worked.

Good luck with everything.