Intermittent connection issue
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Moving the WAN to another interface should just be a matter of assigning a new interface. Any settings specific to that interface might have to be redone, but it shouldn't be that complicated. Mostly copy and paste. Makes sure you save the config before doing anything and take plenty of screen shots of any custom settings for the WAN interface.
You mentioned gateway monitoring. Does the gateway monitoring not indicate any issues? Based on your pings, some are getting through so as it averages over time, it may not be bad enough to trigger the alert or failure. If you look at the graph though, it should indicate some packet loss. The monitoring should catch these failed pings when it's occurring.
I also wouldn't rule of the possibility that the ISP gave you another bad modem. In any case though, it would be their issue. Either their network of the device they provided. It's up to them to figure out which since it doesn't seem like it's on your end.
Raffi
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@Raffi_ said in Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation:
Moving the WAN to another interface should just be a matter of assigning a new interface. Any settings specific to that interface might have to be redone, but it shouldn't be that complicated. Mostly copy and paste. Makes sure you save the config before doing anything and take plenty of screen shots of any custom settings for the WAN interface.
You mentioned gateway monitoring. Does the gateway monitoring not indicate any issues? Based on your pings, some are getting through so as it averages over time, it may not be bad enough to trigger the alert or failure. If you look at the graph though, it should indicate some packet loss. The monitoring should catch these failed pings when it's occurring.
I also wouldn't rule of the possibility that the ISP gave you another bad modem. In any case though, it would be their issue. Either their network of the device they provided. It's up to them to figure out which since it doesn't seem like it's on your end.
Raffi
Yeah, that's what I thought. I mean, I can do it easily, I just thought there's an easier (lazier) way to do it.
I was trying to check the graphs just now and I accidentally clicked "reset data" and lost all RRD data :( I don't know why I thought it was reset settings or something. Oh well, I guess I have to wait for the issue to happen again. It's very exhausting to troubleshoot a randomly occurring problem.
Yeah, I just need to have concrete proof. They don't seem to want packet captures (I sense incompetence). They told me to do the tests without pfsense involved at all, so all clients directly connected to the modem either via cable or wireless. I'm doing that now and so far I cannot reproduce the issue.
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Ouch, yea intermittent problems are annoying to nail down. If you have another off the shelf router, try that for a while. Do a factory reset on that off the shelf router to make sure it doesn't have any funky settings. Set that up with a new Ethernet cable going to the WAN. If that's still giving you trouble, then let the ISP know. You might want to bend the truth and tell them the test was done with the PC directly connected to the modem.
Do you have access to the modem webGUI? That might let you see what the signals at the modem look like when this is happening.
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@Raffi_ said in Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation:
Ouch, yea intermittent problems are annoying to nail down. If you have another off the shelf router, try that for a while. Do a factory reset on that off the shelf router to make sure it doesn't have any funky settings. Set that up with a new Ethernet cable going to the WAN. If that's still giving you trouble, then let the ISP know. You might want to bend the truth and tell them the test was done with the PC directly connected to the modem.
Do you have access to the modem webGUI? That might let you see what the signals at the modem look like when this is happening.
Yeah, well the switch that I use is an off the shelf router (ASUS RT-AC66U) that's running in AP mode so that's one of the tests that I can do. I thought of bending the truth and just say I did what they asked me to do and give them the ping results and packet captures but the problem is they have remote access to the modem GUI and they can definitely see the clients (pfsense or PC) connected to their modems.
And yes, I do have access to the modem GUI and all signals are fine there. And they already replaced the whole fiber cable from the modem to the building cabinet.
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We have the exact same Asus router for Wifi on a seperate network. See what you get with that setup in router mode in place of pfSense.
On a separate topic, that Asus router stopped getting updates long ago. If you're using it as a switch though, it probably doesn't matter. But in case you're interested, I've been pretty happy with the Asuswrt-Merlin Fork below. It helps at least get some kind of patching support since Asus no longer wants to.
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/fork-asuswrt-merlin-374-43-lts-releases-v39e3.18914/We mainly use this router for guest Wifi access, smartphones, and laptops. It's definitely not a primary network but the firmware has been solid.
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@Raffi_ said in Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation:
We have the exact same Asus router for Wifi on a seperate network. See what you get with that setup in router mode in place of pfSense.
On a separate topic, that Asus router stopped getting updates long ago. If you're using it as a switch though, it probably doesn't matter. But in case you're interested, I've been pretty happy with the Asuswrt-Merlin Fork below. It helps at least get some kind of patching support since Asus no longer wants to.
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/fork-asuswrt-merlin-374-43-lts-releases-v39e3.18914/We mainly use this router for guest Wifi access, smartphones, and laptops. It's definitely not a primary network but the firmware has been solid.
Yeah. Let me monitor the RRD Graphs first and see what comes put. I also replaced the cable to see if that's the culprit.
I beat you to it. I've been using the latest merlin firmware for this router for a long time now :)
My network here is a very simple flat network but I experience this issue. My other network in my other residence is more complicated with all Ubiquiti switches, AP's, CCTV's, same pfsense box, Guest wifi too, and I use the same ISP (though with a higher plan and a static public IP) yet it's working flawlessly over there. So yeah, you can say I'm scratching my head big time with this intermittent issue.
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That's definitely a good idea. See what the graph say.
Why didn't you tell me about it?! :)
Good luck
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The quality graph can be very useful for sure..
Here is example of resent issue I was having
So you can see when the trouble started, but I didn't really notice it until the first big outage.. After that never came back to full upload speed, down was fine 500+, but was seeing packet loss.. Was working with them at the second outage. Reset modem, move box to just modem and not behind pfsense - you know the typical level one shit... They said would have to call them.. Gave it a few days there was a weekend in there for sure.. But it seemed to be getting worse - wasn't really a problem for me but since download was fine, but upload was really in the dirt at this time 5 when it should be 50.. And was just seeing constant packet loss... That first bump in the cluster is me calling them - them resetting the modem yet again, etc. Then they scheduled tech to come out, thos next two bumps are techs out on the line behind house... Then the final drop is when there were 2 trucks out side my house on my way to work, and 2 guys redoing lines.. After that fixed..
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@Raffi_ said in Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation:
That's definitely a good idea. See what the graph say.
Why didn't you tell me about it?! :)
Good luck
@johnpoz said in Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation:
The quality graph can be very useful for sure..
Here is example of resent issue I was having
So you can see when the trouble started, but I didn't really notice it until the first big outage.. After that never came back to full upload speed, down was fine 500+, but was seeing packet loss.. Was working with them at the second outage. Reset modem, move box to just modem and not behind pfsense - you know the typical level one shit... They said would have to call them.. Gave it a few days there was a weekend in there for sure.. But it seemed to be getting worse - wasn't really a problem for me but since download was fine, but upload was really in the dirt at this time 5 when it should be 50.. And was just seeing constant packet loss... That first bump in the cluster is me calling them - them resetting the modem yet again, etc. Then they scheduled tech to come out, thos next two bumps are techs out on the line behind house... Then the final drop is when there were 2 trucks out side my house on my way to work, and 2 guys redoing lines.. After that fixed..
Ok, so I replaced the cable and it didn't solve the issue. One thing I noticed though is this:
I don't know if it's just coincidence but it happened a couple of times already since this issue started. Most of the times the issue happens when I after booting my laptop or desktop either from sleep or shutdown, immediately after the clients connect to either the wifi or wired network.
It happened just now. When I woke up I immediately browsed my phone and nothing seems to be abnormal. And when I decided to use my laptop that's when the issue happened. Ping to google.com and 8.8.8.8 from my laptop AND from the pfsense tool (with either source IP set to auto, WAN, or LAN) failed. The weird thing is that the graph for gateway monitoring did not catch that occurence (gateway monitoring is set to monitor 8.8.8.8):
It happened at around 7:38 to 7:40 and you can see that the graph is smooth as pie. And then it started working again. Any other ideas? What I know is that when I was trying to ping google.com from my laptop when the issue is happening is that it cannot resolve the name (probably because of the DNS packet loss as well).
P.S. Don't mind those minor dips on the lefthand side of the graph because those are minor packet losses.
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I'm confused, why would monitoring not catch packet loss? Is it possible the ping response is getting back to the WAN for monitoring, but not to your LAN devices? I'm not sure how that works. That still wouldn't explain why a ping to 8.8.8.8 doesn't work from pfSense with the WAN as source.
Some more suggestions on troubleshooting.
https://serverfault.com/questions/12341/how-to-tell-if-its-your-problem-or-your-isps-problem -
It would catch packet loss ;) This thread is all over the board - what the F does he think will happen if there is packet loss? For example his blips on the left of his graph - that for sure could cause issues with dns resolving..
He is all over the place - and to be honest not actually even sure what his issue is or if there is even one..
Yes if your ISP is dropping traffic - you prob going to see some issues.. I was not seeing any sort of issues that stood out, since my downloads were fast, just upload having an issue.. Even though was seeing significant packet loss in the monitoring.. But you have to take that with a gain of salt, since maybe its just the device your monitoring not answering, etc.
If you think your isp is messing with your dns, then log your dns both queries and reply in unbound - and look for issues. But a packet dropped here or there should not really cause that much grief since it will try multiple times to resolve something, and once its resolved its cached, etc. etc. You really would have to have significant packet loss to notice problems with dns unless you were really watching for it.
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@Raffi_ said in Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation:
I'm confused, why would monitoring not catch packet loss? Is it possible the ping response is getting back to the WAN for monitoring, but not to your LAN devices? I'm not sure how that works. That still wouldn't explain why a ping to 8.8.8.8 doesn't work from pfSense with the WAN as source.
Some more suggestions on troubleshooting.
https://serverfault.com/questions/12341/how-to-tell-if-its-your-problem-or-your-isps-problemThat's my confusion as well. You would think that it will catch the packet loss but I'm simply stating my observations here. Those packet losses should appear as -100% blips in the graph but they didn't. It totally doesn't make sense to me at all.
@johnpoz said in Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation:
It would catch packet loss ;) This thread is all over the board - what the F does he think will happen if there is packet loss? For example his blips on the left of his graph - that for sure could cause issues with dns resolving..
He is all over the place - and to be honest not actually even sure what his issue is or if there is even one..
Yes if your ISP is dropping traffic - you prob going to see some issues.. I was not seeing any sort of issues that stood out, since my downloads were fast, just upload having an issue.. Even though was seeing significant packet loss in the monitoring.. But you have to take that with a gain of salt, since maybe its just the device your monitoring not answering, etc.
If you think your isp is messing with your dns, then log your dns both queries and reply in unbound - and look for issues. But a packet dropped here or there should not really cause that much grief since it will try multiple times to resolve something, and once its resolved its cached, etc. etc. You really would have to have significant packet loss to notice problems with dns unless you were really watching for it.
With all the screenshots and info that I gave in this thread, what's making you think "I'm all over the place"? Like I said, I'm simply stating the observations. I'm not making these things up. I wouldn't want to waste anyone's time and ask for help if this issue wasn't confusing as hell to me too.
I can't belive you're still having doubts that I'm having issues here. I mean, did you even think that I made up the packet capture I've uploaded that was showing the issue? I care less about packet drops that happen from time to time as I know those are perfectly normal. But that's not what we're talking about here. When the issue happens, no single device can browse the Internet for 5 to 10 minutes until it just suddenly fixes itself. If you were in my shoes, wouldn't you be pissed and not consider that a problem?
So let's be clear here. I'm not after perfect 0% packet loss in an infinite time period. I want to solve my issue where packets are dropped in a continous 5 to 10 minutes span of interval each time the issue happens. And I was not able to catch that in the graphs, "yet", for some odd reason.
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Your pings to 8.8.8.8 not being answered - ok, contact your ISP about it.. Has zero to do with pfsense, ZERO..
And this again has zero to do with unbound and your title.
"Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation"Unbound could give 2 shits about 8.8.8.8 not answering when it resolves, ie non forwarding mode..
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@johnpoz said in Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation:
Your pings to 8.8.8.8 not being answered - ok, contact your ISP about it.. Has zero to do with pfsense, ZERO..
And this again has zero to do with unbound and your title.
"Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation"Unbound could give 2 shits about 8.8.8.8 not answering when it resolves, ie non forwarding mode..
@johnpoz from what I've understood is that @kevindd992002 did contact the ISP, but their tech is blaming pfSense and won't take any action. I can understand the frustration there. Even more frustrating is that in trying to prove it's not pfSense, it's only making things more confusing.
I would look at some of the suggestions in that link I sent. Also, putting the Asus in place of pfSense might be another step?
Oh, and something that might also give you more insight then ping is a trace route.
Raffi
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8.8.8.8 not being answered and not really a huge deal with unbound is something that I agree with, ok, but that was just one sample server. As you can see with the packet capture, almost all servers that I was trying to ping had packet loss one way or another. So with unbound (non forwarding), I'm sure the query to the root hints servers is affected too as it seems that all destination servers are affected when the issue is happening.
As for the title, yes I'm sorry about that. I should've created a new thread that is not specific to unbound but it just got derailed and hard to abandon now. But if possible, the mods can put it in the correct forum section and let me edit the title.
@Raffi_ , yes I'll check the suggestions in that link tomorrow :) It's already 1:30AM here and will have to continue tomorrow.
And yes, I didn't forget about removing pfsense from the mix and try either just the asus router or directly connecting to the modem. Those steps will come eventually.
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And show the tech that pings were sent and not answer - this has ZERO to do with what sent them... If the tech will not believe that.. Then they are an idiot..
Still not seeing what the problem is.. Like I said its all over the board.. If X is not answering a dns query.. Where is that listed? Was the dns query sent, then again not anything to do with pfsense..
What else is there to talk about... Simple sniff, if shows traffic being sent, and nothing answered it has nothing to do with pfsense.. There is nothing left to do if you sniff and see traffic being put on the wire, and nothing coming back - its outside the control of what put it on the wire.
You would have another thing if nothing being sent on the wire, or you see an answer but not being processed.
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@johnpoz said in Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation:
And show the tech that pings were sent and not answer - this has ZERO to do with what sent them... If the tech will not believe that.. Then they are an idiot..
Still not seeing what the problem is.. Like I said its all over the board.. If X is not answering a dns query.. Where is that listed? Was the dns query sent, then again not anything to do with pfsense..
What else is there to talk about... Simple sniff, if shows traffic being sent, and nothing answered it has nothing to do with pfsense.. There is nothing left to do if you sniff and see traffic being put on the wire, and nothing coming back - its outside the control of what put it on the wire.
You would have another thing if nothing being sent on the wire, or you see an answer but not being processed.
Again, I'm simply asking help in what to tell the tech in trying to rule out pfsense. They are idiots, I agree, but I don't have a choice but to deal with them and convince them that the issue on their side.
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@kevindd992002 I'm interested to know how the non pfSense experiments go.
If push comes to shove and they don't want to help you fix your problem, you nicely explain to them that you'll switch to their competitor (assuming there is one). You'll be surprised at how they suddenly become more interested in helping you solve it.
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You have already proven the issue is there end, when you show a ping going out and not getting an answer.. Not sure what else you can do.. Do the same thing when just a PC connected to their device..
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@Raffi_ said in Non-forwarding Resolver intermittent operation:
@kevindd992002 I'm interested to know how the non pfSense experiments go.
If push comes to shove and they don't want to help you fix your problem, you nicely explain to them that you'll switch to their competitor (assuming there is one). You'll be surprised at how they suddenly become more interested in helping you solve it.
Yeah, me too. I'll try accomplishing both direct-to-modem and using the Asus router tests this week and will report back. Thanks.
Yeah, I know how ISP's react when you say that. They panic and makes things solved faster. There are competitors, for sure, but in my condo there's only one offering FTTH connections, the one that I'm using now. The others are using crappy phone copper cables which are very substandard. And I just switched from that copper ISP to this fiber ISP since January 2019 so not long ago.
