Request for assistance with Verizon FIOS connection

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1

Hi all - I apoligize for the not-necessarily-on-topic post, but I've been struggling with this issue for the past two
weeks and am about out of ideas and options other than ask here.

The short version is I recently got FIOS at my (new) house, and plugged in my router (SFF PC running Vyos). Initially,
all was fine, however, some time later, connectivity to the gateway given by the DHCP server is completely lost. If I
force a renewal, the gateway (sometimes) comes back--sometimes not. When it doesn't work, the DHCPDISCOVER process has
to start over again and I often recive a lease in a completely different subnet--which isn't really the problem, but
seems to be symptomatic of whatever is happening upstream of me.

The problem, from my perspective, is that the IPv4 gateway given to me in my DHCP lease goes away before my lease
expires--leading to broken v4 connectivity until either 1. the system goes to renew the lease and fails, starting over;
or 2. A watchdog notices and renews the lease (This is what I have attempted to implement, without much success).

As a note, IPv6 connectivity (dhcpv6-pd, receiving a /56) is entirely unaffected when IPv4 connectivity breaks.

For the past week, I have been monitoring to various IPv4 and IPv6 endpoints over ICMP and TCP, and have been able to
chart the outages over that period. More or less, every two hours, shortly after a lease is renewed, the gateway
disappears. I'm happy to share more details and graphs/logs with anyone who might be able to help.

I have attempted to contact FIOS support several times and even had a trouble ticket opened at one point--though this
has been closed as they cannot apparently find any issue with the ONT.

I'm at my wit's end with this issue and would really appreciate any and all help. Please contact me off list if you need
additional details--I can provide ticket numbers/conversation IDs/etc, as well as graphs/logs/etc.

Best,
Neil Hanlon

2

The first thing I would do is to try a different RJ45 cable AND router to rule out your cable or homemade router being the problem. Yes, you’ll have to pick up a cheap router, but any $50 gadget, such as a Mikrotik RB or Ubiquiti ER-X will do. Most network techs have a garage full of castoff routers they can pull out in a pinch.

-mel beckman

3

The first thing I would do is to try a different RJ45 cable AND router to rule out your cable or homemade router being the problem. Yes, you’ll have to pick up a cheap router, but any $50 gadget, such as a Mikrotik RB or Ubiquiti ER-X will do. Most network techs have a garage full of castoff routers they can pull out in a pinch.

Yeah, I should have included that in the initial email, apologies. I've plugged my laptop in (Lenovo T14) and it
exhibits the same behavior. I've even plugged in my travel router which works pretty much anywhere I've tried it, and
after some time, the same thing happens.

4

If possible, put a network tap in-between the router and the ONT, and sniff the traffic.

I’ve seen this recently where in a very specific circumstance (two hardware vendors, and only with CGNAT IPs), one side stopped responding to ARP requests. The tap capture showed the request going out, but the far end never processed it. Running a capture on the far end device wouldn’t show the received ARP request - it just vanished somewhere between the wire and the pcap.

Solution ended up being a software update on the router side, I’m assuming it updated a NIC driver as well.

5

I've always had good luck with https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us. This tends to result in a higher-level tech getting assigned to your ticket at least at larger providers. Depending on where you are, your local government may have a similar process (e.g. in NYC the city has a similar process that tends to get very high priority tech attention as city council members will rake providers over the coals on individual complaints come contract-renewal time).

Matt

6

Getting the FCC involved seems premature, since the OP hasn’t yet ruled out a problem with his home made router. Not that there’s anything wrong with making your own router, but it seems there is a burden of proof on the end user to demonstrate the problem isn’t at with the CPE. Even a test as simple as connecting a laptop up for a day and running pings would rule out the CPE.

-mel

7

OP indicated they've tried both a direct laptop connection as well as another router. That seems to meet the requirement for having ruled out his home-made router, though obviously I agree one should attempt to rule out any possible errors by doing transparent packet sniffing analyzing the problem carefully before escalating an issue. Hopefully everyone on this list knows the value of the tech on the other end of the line's time :slight_smile:

Matt

8

Matt,

I missed where the OP indicated they’ve tried both a direct laptop connection as well as another router. I think you may have seen my reply suggesting that and thought that was the OP stating he’d done it.

-mel

9

As from a consumers standpoint, Verizon FIOS has published an IPv6 website, created a discussion forum, and stated they would soon support. That was 14 years ago.

Joe Klein

10

Neil,

Sorry, I must have missed that branch of the thread. When you had a computer directly connected, did you happen to run a wire shark capture? That wouldn’t require an Ethernet tap.

-mel

11

I dunno … I had to turn Verizon’s FiOS IPv6 off because it wasn’t playing well with my Pulse VPN. So they are providing it now (maybe not supporting it :wink:

12

His IPv6 was staying up. It was only his IPv4 breaking.

Maybe it’s Verizon’s way of telling you to go IPv6-only and do NAT64/DNS64 on your home network. (Only half-joking.) Be good for them to be able to operate the FIOS more like the wireless and not worry about giving customer devices IPv6.

Out of curiosity, when the IPv4 is working, is it a globally routable address or CGNAT?

13

Of course, I meant, “not worry about giving customer devices IPv4.”