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    Extremely Frustrating Outages

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • JKnottJ Offline
      JKnott @Stewart
      last edited by

      @stewart said in Extremely Frustrating Outages:

      QUIC

      Here's what QUIC is. If you're getting malformed packets, that tends to indicate a hardware issue nearby. Malformed packets shouldn't be passing through routers or switches, as they'd be caught with the CRC check. What MAC address are they coming from? That would indicate the failing hardware.

      PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
      i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
      UniFi AC-Lite access point

      I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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      • stephenw10S Offline
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        Hardware offloading in the NIC can make the checksum appear invalid in a pcap.

        I would disable all hardware offloading anyway in Sys > Adv > Net.

        Steve

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        • S Offline
          Stewart @JKnott
          last edited by

          @jknott said in Extremely Frustrating Outages:

          @stewart said in Extremely Frustrating Outages:

          QUIC

          Here's what QUIC is. If you're getting malformed packets, that tends to indicate a hardware issue nearby. Malformed packets shouldn't be passing through routers or switches, as they'd be caught with the CRC check. What MAC address are they coming from? That would indicate the failing hardware.

          I see the Malformed Packets coming into my pfSense box from the modem MAC address but I also see them leaving my pfSense box going into the modem MAC address. That would indicate that Wireshark is saying that packets coming and going are all malformed. Perhaps that is due to the Hardware offloading that @stephenw10 was mentioning?

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          • S Offline
            Stewart @stephenw10
            last edited by

            @stephenw10

            I've now checked the Disable hardware checksum offload box.

            I did manage to get another packet capture. There are hundreds, if not more, of
            -TCP Retransmissions
            -TCP Dup ACK
            -TCP Out of Order
            -TCP Previous segment not captured

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            • JKnottJ Offline
              JKnott @Stewart
              last edited by

              @stewart

              Can you set up a separate capture using Wireshark? That could help determine source of the capture errors. You'd need a data tap though.

              PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
              i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
              UniFi AC-Lite access point

              I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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              • S Offline
                Stewart @JKnott
                last edited by

                @jknott

                You mean throw a switch in there with port mirroring into a PC and run wireshark on there?

                JKnottJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • JKnottJ Offline
                  JKnott @Stewart
                  last edited by

                  @stewart

                  Yes, just in case the pfsense NIC is the source. If the errors appear in Packet Capture, but not Wireshark that's likely the cause.

                  PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
                  i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
                  UniFi AC-Lite access point

                  I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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                  • S Offline
                    Stewart @JKnott
                    last edited by

                    @jknott said in Extremely Frustrating Outages:

                    @stewart

                    Yes, just in case the pfsense NIC is the source. If the errors appear in Packet Capture, but not Wireshark that's likely the cause.

                    In the first site that had this issue, that's what I thought as a possibility so I swapped the firewall. Can't say for sure that it's the same as this site but at the last site it didn't help. The errors persisted across 2 firewalls.

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                    • S Offline
                      Stewart
                      last edited by Stewart

                      7dd54b6b-2bc2-45b2-af64-ca2c0ce63f81-image.png

                      1ab2bff1-03e5-4ed0-9007-0b93f4685924-image.png

                      Here's a snippet from when things are bad.

                      JKnottJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • JKnottJ Offline
                        JKnott @Stewart
                        last edited by

                        @stewart

                        Can you upload the capture?

                        PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
                        i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
                        UniFi AC-Lite access point

                        I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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                        • S Offline
                          Stewart @JKnott
                          last edited by

                          @jknott I can tomorrow, but wouldn't want it public? How should I send it to you?

                          JKnottJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • JKnottJ Offline
                            JKnott @Stewart
                            last edited by

                            @stewart

                            Please post it here, as others may be able to help.
                            There might be something useful here or here.

                            In addition to the comments in the first link, you might try reducing MTU on the source computer, in case the packets are being fragmented, but not recovered properly.

                            PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
                            i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
                            UniFi AC-Lite access point

                            I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

                            S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • stephenw10S Offline
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              Mmm, that pcap is pretty ugly though.

                              No packet loss on the WAN when this happens?

                              Almost looks like asymmetry. I'd still be looking for something on the wifi providing an alternate route somehow.

                              Steve

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                              • S Offline
                                Stewart @stephenw10
                                last edited by

                                @stephenw10 said in Extremely Frustrating Outages:

                                Mmm, that pcap is pretty ugly though.

                                No packet loss on the WAN when this happens?

                                Almost looks like asymmetry. I'd still be looking for something on the wifi providing an alternate route somehow.

                                Steve

                                From inside the network I ping:
                                Switch - No packet loss
                                LAN IP - No Packet loss
                                WAN IP - Some packet loss when the logs show services restarting due to the Gateway going up and down.
                                Gateway IP (modem) - Similar packet loss but also high latency during the issues.

                                From outside the network I ping:
                                Gateway IP (modem) - Packet Loss and High Ping
                                WAN IP - Packet Loss and High Ping

                                In the case of the first client I also had a laptop plugged directly into the modem with a spare public IP assigned to it. During the issues I would see:
                                Gateway IP (modem) - Packet Loss and High Ping
                                WAN IP - Packet Loss which I believe is due to the interface restarting as the gateway goes up and down.

                                If something on the wifi were causing an alternate route, how could that affect me from being able to ping the modem remotely? It would just mess up the packets inside the network, no?

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                                • stephenw10S Offline
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  Indeed it would not.

                                  From that description it looks far more like an upstream issue. A failing modem or whatever that is connected to.

                                  Steve

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                                  • S Offline
                                    Stewart @JKnott
                                    last edited by

                                    @jknott said in Extremely Frustrating Outages:

                                    @stewart

                                    Please post it here, as others may be able to help.
                                    There might be something useful here or here.

                                    In addition to the comments in the first link, you might try reducing MTU on the source computer, in case the packets are being fragmented, but not recovered properly.

                                    I've sent you the link to the file capture. If anyone else would like the file I'd be happy to send it. Over the years I've been here I've seen time and again calls for people to edit out their WAN IP, especially if it's static. I'd hate to just put it out there, along with whatever else the capture may show due to potential security concerns. I'm not adverse to sharing it with others who are willing to help, though.

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                                    • S Offline
                                      Stewart @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10 Which is exactly the conclusion we kept coming to except all the power and signals look good on the modem and at the first site, all the issues went away once we removed the devices from the wireless. At the first site it's 1 of 3 laptops, just not sure which at the moment. All of my diagnostics (at both sites) points to an issue with the modem. What Spectrum is saying is that it is one of our devices causing it to have issues because there is nothing in the logs. (Of course, there's never anything in the logs and one of the first things they do is reboot the modem which clears out all the counters anyway.)

                                      At the second company there is a second modem for the security cameras that is plugged into the same splitterthat I am also pinging which has no issues. Spectrum has replaced the data modem, cable, and splitter and the issue persists.

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                                      • stephenw10S Offline
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        Hmm, yeah tough to diagnose. But ig you still see packet loss and latency with a laptop connected to the modem it can't really be anything else IMO.

                                        Steve

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                                        • JKnottJ Offline
                                          JKnott @Stewart
                                          last edited by

                                          @stewart

                                          I haven't gone through a lot of that yet, but I'm not seeing many errors. In fact, in about a thousand packets, there has only been 1 dup ack and no other errors at all. However, I'm seeing a lot of DNS traffic.

                                          PfSense running on Qotom mini PC
                                          i5 CPU, 4 GB memory, 32 GB SSD & 4 Intel Gb Ethernet ports.
                                          UniFi AC-Lite access point

                                          I haven't lost my mind. It's around here...somewhere...

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                                          • S Offline
                                            Stewart @JKnott
                                            last edited by

                                            @jknott

                                            What I was posting you can start seeing around packet 1190. But yes, lots of DNS. I don't know how normal it is. In fact, to look through the capture I used !(dns) as a filter.

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