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    Gateway Monitoring Daemon (dpinger) issues resolved

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Routing and Multi WAN
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    • GPinzoneG Offline
      GPinzone
      last edited by GPinzone

      I'm sharing my experience with internet connectivity problems on my Netgate 4100 and how I resolved them to help others who might face the same issue.

      My Netgate 4100 kept losing internet access. The pfSense dashboard showed the dpinger service was stopped. Starting it manually restored connectivity, but the issue returned about an hour later. Restarting dpinger didn’t work this time, so I found a suggestion online to reboot the appliance, which temporarily fixed it.

      A few hours later, the problem reoccurred: no internet and dpinger wouldn’t stay running. After more research, I tried enabling the "Disable Gateway Monitoring" option for my IPv4 gateway, which restored connectivity but left dpinger disabled.

      With help from Grok, I identified the cause: the default Monitor IP (my ISP’s gateway) was intermittently blocking pings, causing dpinger to fail. Disabling gateway monitoring was a workaround, but it stopped the Gateway Monitoring Daemon entirely.

      Grok recommended using a reliable Monitor IP like Google’s DNS (8.8.8.8) or Cloudflare’s (1.1.1.1). Initially, I couldn’t find the Monitor IP field because enabling "Disable Gateway Monitoring" hides it in the UI. After unchecking that option, I set the Monitor IP to 8.8.8.8. Since then, connectivity has been stable.

      How to change the Monitor IP

      • Go to System > Routing > Gateways and edit your IPv4 gateway.
      • Uncheck Disable Gateway Monitoring to show the Monitor IP field.
      • Set Monitor IP to 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS) or 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare).
      • Check Disable Gateway Monitoring Action to prevent the gateway from being disabled if the ping fails.
      • Save and click Apply Changes.

      Is gateway monitoring necessary? I only have two gateways, one for IPv4 and one for IPv6, which isn't a possibility with my ISP.

      EDIT: See below.

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      • S Offline
        SteveITS Galactic Empire @GPinzone
        last edited by

        @GPinzone it’s more helpful for multiple WANs. You can disable the action and then it will log the packet loss but not take WAN offline.

        Only install packages for your version, or risk breaking it. Select your branch in System/Update/Update Settings.
        When upgrading, allow 10-15 minutes to reboot, or more depending on packages, CPU, and/or disk speed.
        Upvote 👍 helpful posts!

        GPinzoneG 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • GPinzoneG Offline
          GPinzone @SteveITS
          last edited by GPinzone

          @SteveITS I should have added that step. Disabling the action allows the service to keep monitoring without causing a catastrophic failure.

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