Connecting Vero 4K to network cause the router to drop the internet connection

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
1

Very strange problem this, I wouldn’t believe it unless I was experiencing it myself.

Connecting the Vero 4k to the network (either wired or wireless) causes my Asus RT-AC68U router to drop the ADSL connection. Looking in the router logs, I can see pppd cycling from a successful connection to a terminated connection every few minutes, and the connection will be usable for a very short time upon every reconnection before it goes dead again.

It’s definitely the combination of the Vero and the router. The connection will be stable for days, if not weeks, upon the Vero being unplugged, or even it the network settings in My OSMC are disabled. I also tried a different router/modem and the connection was good, so it must be the combination of the Asus and the Vero.

Of relevance:

The LAN is fine and unaffected

OSMC on a Raspberry pi does not cause an issue

The problem has occurred since the Vero was unboxed.

The router is on the latest firmware and the Vero is on the 2017.07-1 release (flashed via an SD card - obviously I cannot do an online upgrade)

The Vero is effectively factory default for all but the initial OSMC configuration (timezone, language, etc) and the network settings. No weird dodgy Kodi addons!

OSMC/Vero works correctly in all other ways

The router has a PPPoE connection via an ADSL modem. I’ve tried two different modems and the problem was observed for both.

The problem occurs whether the Vero is connecting directly to the router or via another router in Access Point mode.

As mentioned, the dropouts occur whether the Vero is using a wired connection or a wireless connection, which makes me suspect it’s not hardware related, and instead a software/OS issue.

On the face of it, it does seem to be a problem with the router, but I have not witnessed this phenomenon with any other of the literally dozens of devices I’ve used with it in 2+ years, many of them Ubuntu and closely related to Debian on the Vero.

Any suggestions of how to debug this problem would be very appreciated. I’m handy with Linux from the command line. Thanks.

2

Hi,

Thanks for the detailed report. I appreciate you clarifying that the issue presents on WiFi and Wired connections, as the first thing I would have asked would have been to try the other.

A friend of mine actually had a similar problem. I had a look at it and it seemed to be caused by the power adapter his modem was using. He uses Zen Internet which is an ISP in the UK.

But over the last few weeks we’ve had one or two bad power supplies ourselves, which are bound to happen with switched mode power supplies and lots of orders.

Here’s what I’d suggest trying:

  • Connect up Vero 4K, directly to the wall if you can
  • Don’t connect to WiFi or Ethernet

If the Internet is still problematic, then it could indeed be a PSU issue. If you PM me your order #, I’ll get a replacement out for you on Monday regardless. Sometimes an extra PSU comes in handy

Cheers

Sam

3

Thanks for the quick reply. Remarkably I’m also on Zen Internet, although I’m not using their supplied router/modem.

I can confirm the issue disappears if the Vero has the ethernet unplugged and its wifi disabled.

I’ll follow up your clue of faulty PSUs. Was there any observable electrical symptom of your friend’s bad modem PSU, or was it just a case of swapping it out through trial and error and the problem disappeared?

Thanks for your offer of a replacement PSU, I’ll wait for that to arrive so to eliminate that cause before investigating others.

:Travis

4

Not really – just figured it was worth a swap over. If that had failed would have tried HDMI, then checked peripherals attached and moved to the device thereafter.

I’ll have a new power supply out for you on Monday morning. Hopefully it will clear things up

5

Hi folks,

I had analyzed a similar behavior with people using torrent clients. The amount of connections spawned “kills” small routers (usually, ADSL routers are not immune to this, as small CPU, not much memory).
In the special case I had analyzed, a TeenAgerGeek had used the TOR Browser and a Torrent client, configured the torrent client to use the Socks-5 proxy of the TOR browser, and was downloading all kind of “crap”.
Getting a packet capture from the ISP, we saw that the Tor/Torrent combination was initiating around 60k concurrent connections. The ADSL Modem died with that.
After stopping the torrent software, it worked again without a problem.
The reason the ADSL modem dropped the connection was that the CPU was at 100% and the watchdog restarted pppd as it was not possible to open a new connection to test the internet.

FYI - I have worked at an ISP (a long time ago), and I have the local ISP contacting me when they have issues they can’t find the root cause for (well, my old age and experience finally pays :slight_smile: ) …

6

It’s a puzzle as to how a device can send a packet to a modem which causes it to go off-line and stranger still if a weak power supply is causing that message to be sent. It’s probably unrelated, but in testing a 4G dongle directly connected to vero on USB, it can keep disconnecting, but that problem seems to be at the USB layer:

Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: hub 1-0:1.0: port 1 disabled by hub (EMI?), re-enabling...
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: usb 1-1: USB disconnect, device number 19
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: cdc_ether 1-1:1.0 usb0: unregister 'cdc_ether' usb-xhci-hcd.0.auto-1, CDC Ethernet Device
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero net.agent[1467]: net.agent remove event for usb0 not handled.
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 20 using xhci-hcd
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=19d2, idProduct=1405
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: usb 1-1: Product: ZTE WCDMA Technologies MSM
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: usb 1-1: Manufacturer: ZTE,Incorporated
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: usb 1-1: SerialNumber: MF8230ZTED010000
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero connmand[379]: usb0 {create} index 15 type 1 <ETHER>
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero connmand[379]: usb0 {update} flags 4098 <DOWN>
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero connmand[379]: usb0 {newlink} index 15 address 36:4B:50:B7:EF:2D mtu 1500
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero connmand[379]: usb0 {newlink} index 15 operstate 2 <DOWN>
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero connmand[379]: Adding interface usb0 [ ethernet ]
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: cdc_ether 1-1:1.0 usb0: register 'cdc_ether' at usb-xhci-hcd.0.auto-1, CDC Ethernet Device, 36:4b:50:b7:
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: usb-storage 1-1:1.2: USB Mass Storage device detected
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero kernel: scsi12 : usb-storage 1-1:1.2
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero systemd-sysctl[1473]: Overwriting earlier assignment of vm/min_free_kbytes in file '/etc/sysctl.d/101-osmc-devic
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero systemd-sysctl[1473]: Overwriting earlier assignment of vm/swappiness in file '/etc/sysctl.d/101-osmc-device.con
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero systemd-sysctl[1473]: Overwriting earlier assignment of vm/min_free_kbytes in file '/etc/sysctl.d/osmc.conf'.
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero systemd-sysctl[1473]: Overwriting earlier assignment of vm/swappiness in file '/etc/sysctl.d/osmc.conf'.
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero net.agent[1474]: ERROR: /sbin/ifup not found. You need to install the ifupdown package.
Aug 13 12:38:56 vero net.agent[1475]: net.agent add event for usb0 not handled.
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero kernel: scsi 12:0:0:0: CD-ROM            CWID     USB SCSI CD-ROM  2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero kernel: sr0: scsi-1 drive
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero kernel: sr 12:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero kernel: scsi 12:0:0:1: Direct-Access     ZTE      MMC Storage      2.31 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero kernel: sd 12:0:0:1: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero udisks-glue[571]: Device file /dev/sr0 inserted
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero udisks-glue[571]: Trying to automount /dev/sr0...
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero udisks-glue[571]: Successfully automounted /dev/sr0 at /media/O2 4G Dongle
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero kernel: ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 1
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero kernel: ISOFS: changing to secondary root
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero udisks-glue[571]: Device file /dev/sr0 mounted at /media/O2 4G Dongle
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero sudo[1496]: osmc : TTY=unknown ; PWD=/ ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/net usershare add O2 4G Dongle /media/O2 4
Aug 13 12:38:57 vero sudo[1496]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Aug 13 12:38:58 vero sudo[1496]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Aug 13 12:39:00 vero connmand[379]: usb0 {dellink} index 15 operstate 2 <DOWN>
Aug 13 12:39:00 vero connmand[379]: (null) {remove} index 15
Aug 13 12:39:00 vero connmand[379]: Remove interface (null) [ ethernet ]
Aug 13 12:39:00 vero avahi-daemon[371]: Withdrawing workstation service for usb0.
Aug 13 12:39:00 vero kernel: hub 1-0:1.0: port 1 disabled by hub (EMI?), re-enabling...
Aug 13 12:39:00 vero kernel: usb 1-1: USB disconnect, device number 20

The same dongle sets up OK on Pi2.

7

No luck with the replacement power supply unfortunately. ADSL connection was up for three days (since doing the experimenting prior to the original post), then went down within minutes of plugging in the Vero with the new power supply. For the record, here’s the router log:

Aug 16 11:10:39 pppd[575]: No response to 10 echo-requests
Aug 16 11:10:39 pppd[575]: Serial link appears to be disconnected.
Aug 16 11:10:39 pppd[575]: Connect time 3672.7 minutes.
Aug 16 11:10:39 pppd[575]: Sent 1711344046 bytes, received 1921851391 bytes.
Aug 16 11:10:39 miniupnpd[6379]: Failed to get IP for interface ppp0
Aug 16 11:10:39 miniupnpd[6379]: SendNATPMPPublicAddressChangeNotification: cannot get public IP address, stopping
Aug 16 11:10:40 dnsmasq[518]: read /etc/hosts - 5 addresses
Aug 16 11:10:40 dnsmasq[518]: read /etc/hosts.dnsmasq - 48 addresses
Aug 16 11:10:40 dnsmasq-dhcp[518]: read /etc/ethers - 48 addresses
Aug 16 11:10:40 dnsmasq[518]: using nameserver 212.23.3.100#53
Aug 16 11:10:40 dnsmasq[518]: using nameserver 212.23.6.100#53
Aug 16 11:10:42 WAN_Connection: Fail to connect with some issues.
Aug 16 11:10:45 pppd[575]: Connection terminated.
Aug 16 11:10:45 pppd[575]: Sent PADT
Aug 16 11:10:45 pppd[575]: Modem hangup

Thanks to others for their input. Torrent client maxing out a modem is an interesting cause, but not applicable here, there’s nothing to be observed in the CPU+RAM usage of the ASUS that suggest anything unusual.

Will continue to think about this…

8

How did you connect the vero to your ADSL Modem? Direct, or is there a switch and/or firewall in between?
I would kindly ask you - if there is a firewall, to block the Vero device from accessing the internet.
Just to see if your ADSL modem still makes issues.

in your log, we see the message: “No response to 10 echo-requests” means the pppd does nto receive a response to its request, and drops the connection.
I have never seen a ADSL modem hanging up due to someone plugging in a Vero device. Only plausible explanation is that the power-usage of the Vero device is causing the “phone” line to have so many parasites that a regular ADSL link is not possible anymore. But that would mean that something is really bad in your power/phone cabling.
Plugging the Vero to another Power-Plug (5m a part) would also be a test to verify that.

FYI: The ADSL link going down on Torrent+Tor usage came from the fact that the IoT ADSL Modem was not able to handle the sheer amount of connection requests, and as in your case below, would not receive the responses to the echo requests (which is very simple to reproduce once you know it).

9

The Vero is in a completely different room to the modem/router, actually on a different electrical circuit! And it’s only communicating with the modem/router via Wifi.

I too have been wondering about the possible cabling issues that could cause this, however far-fetched it may be. If I can find the right connectors, I may try to power the vero with a 5V battery to try and discount that possibility.

Will also try your firewall suggestion to hopefully give more of a clue.

Like I said at the start, I wouldn’t believe any of this unless I was experiencing it myself!

10

This one’s a real head scratcher.

I guess it’s possible that the the replacement PSU has similar electrical characteristics to the previous version, which isn’t to suggest that it’s necessarily that bad but perhaps the electrical noise is enough to disrupt the ADSL signalling. What’s the signal-to-noise ratio on your ADSL line? Perhaps it’s already a bit marginal.

As @smurphy mentioned, if might be due to down to inductance from the power cabling to the telephone line but Iif that were the case you’d have probably noticed a mains hum on the telephone line before now. That’s of course assuming you still use the telephone!

I suppose there’s still the possibility of RF noise propagating from the PSU to the power cabling and then to the router’ via its power supply but this:

makes it a less likely scenario, but still possible.

So, on the available evidence, it looks as if there might be some kind of inductance from the Vero power cable to a nearby ethernet cable or even a power cable, eg for the TV. Try to maintain a “good” (> 15cm) distance between the Vero power cable and any other cable, especially where they run in parallel. Then, with the ethernet cable disconnected from the Vero, methodically bring the Vero power cable close to (and parallel with) each neighbouring cable one at a time and see if anything causes ADSL to drop.

Unless you’re on a 3-phase installation it’s all on the same electrical circuit, since they all return to the same line, neutral and earth point in your consumer unit.

11

Then please put the Vero behind a firewall and block access to the Internet (ADSL Modem) and test it again.
If then it shuts-down the ADSL modem, you have a weird Power-Line … :}

12

I checked the replacement PSU before we shipped it out. I think one of the challenges with some of the suggestions, and what’s even stranger, is that it seems to take a while for the modem to stop functioning.

Happens when the routing table gets too large.
Takes some going for that.

Sam

13

As it seems to be Linux based OS on the router can you install iptraf? That could give you an overview if certain packets on an interface increase before the disconnect.

14

@travis could also try connecting Ethernet and dropping the default gateway route so there is no traffic.

15

Actually, not the routing table. The NAT table bails out first :smiley:

16

Good to know but, as I said, it doesn’t necessarily mean that either it or the original PSU are “bad”. If the SNR is marginal, for example, it might not take much to push it beyond its working threshold.

It seems to take only a few minutes after the Vero is connected. I suspect that during much of this time, ADSL is trying to keep the connection alive before it finally gives up.

It’s also worth noting that the router is an RT-AC68U, which is not an ADSL model, and the ADSL interface is being provided by a separate modem. So the log in post #7 is from the router’s perspective, not that of the ADSL modem. If possible, some kind of log from the modem might also be useful.

17

Well, I’ve had some progress. Dillthedog’s suggestion of interference from/to other devices, and the thought that a nearby USB charger had also failed recently, made me move the Vero to another room and success, the connection stayed stable.

I then moved the Vero back to the original room (where it still causes the connection to fail) to try and find the root cause without any luck. Have changed various cables and monitors and unplugging other devices without finding any common denominator. The connection appeared to stay up longer when the Vero was headless, but that may have been my imagination.

Have now run out of time and won’t be able to investigate further for a week or so. Thanks for everyone’s help and suggestions and I will report back once I’ve had a few hours spare to systematically go through other combinations of possible interference.

18

Sorry, of this has been asked before, but is this all on stock software image or did you install any stuff already?

Could also be a virus or something sending a ton of packets and blocking the router?