An unsettling outage

piperspace

My usually reliable internet went down at 1am. At 6am I noticed and began troubleshooting.

Reset modem no joy.

Reset router no joy.

Checked Comcast outage map no joy.

Then I unplugged the modem cable and re-inserted it. Problem solved.

I will replace the modem cable because - why not. But does anyone have a theory why this happened?

Thanks

awebster

I can't comment specifically on Comcast, but I do know that providers will update the firmware in their cable modems from time to time, and I have seen exactly this issue where the cable modem doesn't come alive again after the update.
Rebooting it generally solves the issue.

stephenw10

Mmm, rebooting the modem and pfSense I would have expected to solve most things that might happen like that. Could have been actual bad hardware like a failing port or cable. You see any errors on the connection in Status > Interfaces?

Steve

piperspace

@stephenw10 - No errors showing now on the interface. Inspecting the failing cable closely I do see a thin dark line on the inside edge of the connector pads. Could the modem port have been arcing and oxidizing the copper?

Thanks

JKnott

@piperspace

If there's arcing, you've got power where it isn't supposed to be. The signal levels on the coax are on the order of millivolts.

piperspace

@JKnott - Thanks. I will check to be sure the coax is still grounded and that my modem power supply hasn't gone wonky.