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    Internal NIC crashes down / no buffer space available

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Virtualization
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    • V
      Vorland
      last edited by

      We had the same problem, our setup:

      Windows Server 2012 (without R2) - Hyper-V host
      pfSense 2.2.6-RELEASE (amd64)
      NIC: HP NC382i DP Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter

      Problem was resolved by installing all windows updates and updating NIC driver.

      Hope this information will be helpful.

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      • G
        Gimli
        last edited by

        What time frame are you talking about Vorland? My servers have always been up-to-date on updates and drivers. Maybe it's one of the December updates that fixed it.

        I'll disable my cron job for a while to see if it comes back.

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        • V
          Vorland
          last edited by

          I've installed all updates on 2016-01-06. I guess updated NIC drivers resolved the issue.

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          • R
            rodymcamp
            last edited by

            I also had this issue running freenas on top of esxi, the only information that I could find hinted that I needed to stop using VMXNET nic do to an issue with the free BSD driver and switch back to using the intel virtual nic. I have not had a crash sense.

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            • L
              LEckley
              last edited by

              Hi Guys,

              Has anyone found a solution to this issue beyond restarting the interface using a cron?

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              • G
                Gimli
                last edited by

                I've disabled my cron job since the 22nd and haven't experienced the issue since. I don't think it's a question of drivers as I've had the same Intel drivers since last October (they're the latest) but I think the December patches from Microsoft may have fixed it.

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                • L
                  LEckley
                  last edited by

                  @Gimli:

                  I've disabled my cron job since the 22nd and haven't experienced the issue since. I don't think it's a question of drivers as I've had the same Intel drivers since last October (they're the latest) but I think the December patches from Microsoft may have fixed it.

                  Thanks! I pushed the last round of MS updates last night, will see how it goes.

                  Cheers!

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                  • S
                    SkinnyT
                    last edited by

                    I've been having the same issue with the connection dropping when running a speed test.  It'll only crash on the upload though.

                    After about 3 days of pulling my hair out, I ended up disabling the Energy Efficient Ethernet setting on both NIC's and also turning off Flow Control.  I also changed the nbmclusters to 1000000.  I tried each of these settings on their own with no luck, but all three together seem to have made a difference.

                    All week I couldn't run one speedtest without dropping my WAN connection and last night I ran a test every 15 minutes for about two hours with no drops.

                    Now that I'm at work, I'm a little more hesitant to remote in and run one for fear of it dropping again, but hopefully in a few days I'll have a bit more confidence in it.

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                    • B
                      bean72
                      last edited by

                      I have running into the same issue, for now I have my network running on a backup router until I can resolve this issue. What's weird is when it drops, I can still ping certain external IP's. My network adapter is a BCM5716, tried updating the drivers and still have the same problem.
                      Anyone seeing anything in the logs on the hyper-V host?
                      It seems that the error starts at the same time as event viewer logs the error: "The network link is down. Check to make sure the network cable is properly connected"

                      I thought it was originally a faulty cable, but after switching the cable 3 times I'm guessing it's something else.

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                      • G
                        Gimli
                        last edited by

                        All I can recommend at this point is to make sure that you're running the latest version of pfSense, your host is fully up-to-date with Microsoft patches and NIC driver updates and that you disable the Energy Saving mode(s) in your host's NIC configuration.

                        If that all fails, try with a different NIC.

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                        • J
                          jsingh
                          last edited by

                          Loosing connectivity with external switch on Hyper-V
                          I have installed 2.3.1 release as a Hyper-V guest on server 2012 R2. WAN is working fine with an External Switch but LAN is connected with other NIC (Connected to the LAN). LAN is loosing connectivity and I restart the LAN interface most of the times or I have to reboot the pfsense guest OS.

                          Even I have tried to use the internal switch on the LAN side and issue still exists. It is for sure not my NIC. It is something to do with the Hyper-V settings or pfSense.
                          I ran similar setup in test lab on VMware Workstation and it works like a charm on it.

                          Any solution guys!

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                          • G
                            Gimli
                            last edited by

                            Is your Windows host fully up-to-date with patches? Have you downloaded the most recent network drivers for your NIC? Have you disabled all power saving settings in your NIC configuration?

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                            • T
                              ttocs
                              last edited by

                              For those experiencing the 'No buffer space available' followed by full NIC failure on the WAN side when running PFsense in hyper-v try the following, it worked for me:

                              • Pfsense Version: 2.4.5-RELEASE-p1

                              • Hyper-V versions tested: Hyper Server 2019 (Core), Windows Server 2019 w/destop experience and hyper-v role, Windows Server 2016 w/desktop experience and hyper-v role

                              • Cable Internet Speed: 200/10

                              • For the USB NIC - I validated it did not matter if it was hooked to USB 3.x or 2.x - same issues occured with the disconnect. Validated there was not any thermal issues, maybe luke warm to the touch (tried 2 differnt adaptors, 2 different chipsets - same issues)

                              • Drivers: Updated every driver and win updates - in the end this did not even matter, but it's still a good idea.
                                Services running on PFSense: I have pfblockerNg running, dhcp server, snort (non-blocking), dnsbl with the resolver, and I redirect my domain dns queries back to my internal DCs for private AD dns routing.

                              • Avg 24hour cpu/memory usage: 7% / 13% (no change even when the issue was occuring)

                              • Correlating errors: Resolver: 'No buffer space available' - Gateways: 'dpinger WAN_DHCP 1.2.3.4: Alarm latency 10331us stddev 2932us loss 21%' [this triggered the default gateway action and causes the issue with hyper-v nic comms]

                              Fix for me:

                              • Make sure you have the Hyper-v host's performance options set to high performance. If you are using a USB NIC on the WAN side also make sure to disable the 'USB selective suspend' setting (advanced settings --> usb settings).

                              • Recommend turning VMQ off in hyper-v and the NIC settings (if available). I cannot see this being needed with Pfsense and might be tricky to get working correctly (if at all) If you have a more advanced scenario where you need to deal with vRSS mapping the VMQs to distribute the packet load across cpus then maybe it's worth diving into.

                              • This was the key for me with Hyper-v: In PFSense make sure to turn off the Gateway Monitoring Action here: System --> Routing --> Gateways --> Edit --> check the box 'Disable Gateway Monitoring Action'. Without this I would get around 20-24 hours max before the gateway alarm action would kick off (probably from junk latency on the cable network providers side), suspend the Nic and then it would never come back -- had to reboot then everything worked fine for another 20-24 hours.

                              Note: I've tried proxmox and esxi and did not experience this issue so it appears to be Hyper-v specific.

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