Issues with google home

taldiia

Hi,

I'm fairly new to using pfSense I just set it up a few days ago and most things went smooth but I ran into a few issues. Mainly that my google homes no longer seem to work and I can't get my Roku TV to work either (using the remote app).

My setup looks a bit like this:
"Modem" -> pfSense box (handles dhcp)-> dumb 24-port switch -> dumb 6-port switch -> tpLink Archer A7 (which is set to Access point mode).

I've checked through firewall's system logs which isn't blocking any of the traffic from the google homes which are at 192.168.1.10x etc ranges. But it is consistently blocking something that's coming from 169.254.16.xxx coming from my LAN and a few other scattered address' coming from my LAN. I'm wondering if anyone has run into any thing similar to this or if I'm just being a total idiot. Below I provided a diagram that shows what my set up right now looks like.

homeNetwork.drawio.png

I have a few other questions generally about my setup but I think those questions are better reversed for another board. Any help is absolutely appreciated!

johnpoz

@taldiia said in Issues with google home:

coming from 169.254

This is link local address.. Normally devices that did not get a IP address from dhcp will give themselves an address in this range.

Pfsense has zero to do with stuff talking on your network in your drawing.. Pfsense is used to get off the network, devices talking amongst themselves have nothing to do with pfsense.

Now maybe devices are not getting an address from pfsense dhcp? You would need to look in the log on pfsense to see if you see the dhcp discover from them, etc. But devices on the 192.168.1 network have zero to do with pfsense talking to other 192.168.1 devices. And 169.254 address just are not going to go anywhere.. This is normally a sign of a device not getting an address from dhcp.

taldiia

@johnpoz Thanks for letting me know, I think I figured out what that odd address is, and I got that solved.

However I'm still having issues with getting my google homes, I thought it might be a outbound traffic issue so i set each of the homes to static IPs and then gave them an alias and allowed all traffic through the firewall but I'm still having issues with them. They keep giving me the "Hmm, something went wrong" error.

The only reason i bring this up is that the only change I've had on my network is setting up the pfSense box. Am I totally off base on what could be causing this? I don't see anything going on in the logs for anything comes from any of their IPs. The only thing I can think of is duplicate IPs on the network but nothing else is handling DHCP (to my knowledge.)

johnpoz

@taldiia out of the box pfsense has a default any any allow rule from your lan - all traffic outbound is allowed.. There would be not reason to create any specific rules. So unless you modified or added rules or turn on block rfc1918 or bogon or something on your lan interface.. All outbound traffic would be allowed.

If you set devices IP static - maybe you messed up the mask or didn't setup a gateway pointing to pfsense, or their dns is not working which should of pointed to pfsense IP as well via default dhcp..

taldiia

@johnpoz Understood, so i guess then I should probably ask. When I was originally setting up pfSense it was only pulling a IPv6 gateway and I hate to manually add a IPv4 gateway I don't think this is causing any issues as I'm able to resolve DNS and browse the internet on 2 separate desktops and a laptop but I know that generally having 2 gateways can cause issues.

Would that be causing any of the issues I'm seeing?

johnpoz

@taldiia You shouldn't have had to manually setup a IPv4 gateway, unless the wan of your pfsense isn't plugged into something that would hand that address over.

But maybe your PC are working because your IPv6 is what is working, but your IPv4 is not, maybe your other stuff that is not working isn't working via IPv6?

from your pc can you ping say an IPv4 address, like 8.8.8.8 or something out on the public internet.

taldiia

@johnpoz So I can ping both 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 with no issues and resolve both google and cloud flare via dns

C:\Users\USER>ping 8.8.8.8

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=119
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=43ms TTL=119
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=119
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=45ms TTL=119

Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 42ms, Maximum = 46ms, Average = 44ms

C:\Users\USER>ping 1.1.1.1

Pinging 1.1.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=44ms TTL=59
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=59
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=59
Reply from 1.1.1.1: bytes=32 time=43ms TTL=59

Ping statistics for 1.1.1.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 43ms, Maximum = 47ms, Average = 45ms

taldiia

As for why I think it was because initially my modem was holding on to the MAC of my old router (which i'm currently using as an AP). So when I cold boot'd the modem it was able to pull the "dynamic" settings that I setup for the gateway and everything looks good.

I think this is probably just something on google's end being odd, but I'm not proficient enough with networking (or pfSense) to be able to say that without asking questions. I have a feeling that everything is setup (mostly correctly) and I'm just gonna have to figure out what's up. Cause it looks like everything else is good.

kteach

Hello. I found this thread through search. I am experiencing exactly the same issue. I ha e multiple Google Home devices. After changing to a pfsense router they mostly do not work. Sometimes if I keep requesting thee will work again. Otherwise the same error mentioned here. I cannot figure out why. Some specific request being blocked. Just not sure.