Packet loss following WAN link loss

[Mike5906]

I have a pfSense box running on the latest version that has a weird issue I cannot seem to fix.

The problem is if the WAN link goes down even for a few seconds, when it comes back up pfSense experiences about 50% packet loss after the link is re-established.  I am connected to Frontier FiOS (Verizon Fiber).  The pfSense WAN port is directly connected via Cat5 to the ONT.  Where I live we lose power for a few minutes pretty much weekly.  When this happens the ONT drops link.

Putting a switch between the ONT and the WAN port solves the problem, but I hate having this extra failure point in the middle.  The switch keeps link up on the WAN port even though the internet connection is down.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here's the hardware I am running if you need some additional information on it.  It's just a MiniITX box with 4-core J900 CPU.
https://www.amazon.com/Solana-Tech-pfSense-firewall-router/dp/B01D6I5VV0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470062491&sr=8-1&keywords=solana+tech

Mike

[Mike5906]

Well, I went ahead and wrote an article on this problem at my website:

pfSense not recovering after WAN outage

And this is how I resolved it:

Using a WAN VLAN with pfSense

I created a WAN VLAN and plugged my Internet into that, and then pfSense into another port.  This keeps pfSense from losing link in the WAN port when we lose connection with the ISP. In my case I have FiOS, so put the ONT on Port 1 and pfSense on port 2.  Both untagged ports with the WAN PVID.  Works like a champ.  I sure wish I didn't have to waste two ports on my switch though.  ;)