After storm wifi devices wont stay connected

DaHai8

I know this sound like a WIFI issue, but all the digging I've done points to DHCP as a possible culprit.

We had a storm last night, and while my internet is on UPS, the Wifi devices (switches, plugs, cameras are not). Half the cameras starting glitching (connecting and disconnecting) so I rebooted them. No joy. Just a few light switches and plugs would not connect at all. So I tried rebooting the WIfi router (in Bridge Mode). That only made things worse. Now none of the lights or switches will connect, or they do so randomly and for just a minute or two.

All my wifi devices have static IP addresses in pfSense with DHCP Server service with static ARP table entries. So just to see if they are connecting at all, I did 'Clear ARP Table'. They all slowly reappeared with their correct static IP addresses and 'Permanent' status.

The switches and plugs are Tasmota devices and I cannot access their WebUI via their IP address, so they are definitely not connected.

I look for help on where to look for clues as to why this worked before the storm and now not.

Is there a log file with detailed DHCP requests in pfSense?
The standard Status->System Logs->DHCP does not show any details

Is DHCP even an area to look into, or am I going down the wrong path?
Where should I be digging?

I could try rebooting pfSense as a Hail-Mary, but with my luck it'll probably hang.

Thanks.

Gertjan

@DaHai8 said in After storm wifi devices wont stay connected:

Is there a log file with detailed DHCP requests in pfSense?
The standard Status->System Logs->DHCP does not show any details

Plan A)

Let's say you want to see all DHCP transaction on the LAN interface.
You have a pfSense so it's two clicks away :
Diagnostics > Packet Capture

and hit Start at the bottom of the page.

From now on, you see the DHCP requests coming in, and pfSense answering.

Plan B ) see here, a couple of hours ago, I mentioned it about it.

So the plan is : ask kea to create the DHCP Leases log for you. These logs will have only have the leases. Here it is :
DHCP Lease Pool Exhausted and Disabled Leases not deleted

Be ware : you can't see these logs in the GUI, you have to visit /var/log/kea/ to see them.
( activated the SSH access, use WinSCP and you can explore the pfSense file system )

@DaHai8 said in After storm wifi devices wont stay connected:

I could try rebooting pfSense as a Hail-Mary, but with my luck it'll probably hang.

That's not a thunder storm or power issue, and should be solved first.
Rebooting is really only needed because parts of the OS, like the kernel, were upgraded.

@DaHai8 said in After storm wifi devices wont stay connected:

Is DHCP even an area to look into, or am I going down the wrong path?
Where should I be digging?

From here, me observing, it looks like some device had settings applied, but not saved, so during power up the device came online with 'other' settings. Something like that.

elvisimprsntr

Are you in close proximity to neighbors’ WiFi?
Did the power interruption boot your or neighbors WiFi, and possibly affect the WiFi channel selection resulting in channel overlap or different channels?
Might want to look for an app to scan for WiFi signals and their channel usage.

https://www.netspotapp.com

DaHai8

I left it along for nearly a day and tried rebooting the modem one.last.time....and AMAZINGLY it worked! All the Tasmota wifi devices are now connected and working properly.
No idea why....

but as @elvisimprsntr suggested, I will look into neighborhood wifi overland/interference. I could be this last reboot had the wifi router randomly choose an open frequency.
Thanks!

@Gertjan : Thank you so much for that information. I know that will come in handy sometime soon. Always wondered how to view that info, and now I know. Great to have.
Thanks!

Gertjan

@DaHai8 said in After storm wifi devices wont stay connected:

tried rebooting the modem one

A modem would be a device connected to the pfSense WAN interface.
Your issue is (was) : No leases on the pfSense LAN network.

pfSense LAN and WAN don't have much in common, for example, the pfSense LAN DHCP (IPv4 ! ) server works just fine, leases are being handed out etc.
True : the uplink interface, the gateway, the traffic that should go out to the Internet over the pfSense WAN, goes no where. things seem not to work, ok, but that has nothing to do with DHCP.
And yes, you could say 'not connected', but that's to way generic.
There could be an issue with the SSID, or wifi password, or no accurate time (so no more TLS), no DNS (it's always the DNS ^^), or a LAN cable somewhere, a new firewall rule that wasn't so great after all, etc etc. All this will produce "no connection".

Anyway, you know now how to check if DHCP works.

DaHai8

@Gertjan said in After storm wifi devices wont stay connected:

A modem would be a device connected to the pfSense WAN interface.

Yeah, bad habit of mixing terms. Meant Wifi Router. Ugh. Sorry.

Gertjan

@DaHai8 said in After storm wifi devices wont stay connected:

bad habit of mixing terms. Meant Wifi Router.

I really hope for you that your LAN based access point isn't a router.
It should be just an access point, and you can see it as a 'switch' where one of the interfaces is an RJ45 Ethernet plug and the other interface is a radio device tthat sends and receives 'Ethernet packets'.
This device, normally (nearly always), doesn't route (doesn't do NAT, doesn't route, has no firewall, no DNS facilities, no DHCP server. etc).

DaHai8

@Gertjan said in After storm wifi devices wont stay connected:

I really hope for you that your LAN based access point isn't a router.

That's why its in Bridge Mode, like I said in the original post. So, yes, the pfsense router is handling all the DHCP, DNS, firewall stuff.
It's all good. Thanks!

johnpoz

@DaHai8 said in After storm wifi devices wont stay connected:

I could be this last reboot had the wifi router randomly choose an open frequency.

Why would not set your wifi to the channels you want to use? Look at the other signal strengths around and pick appropriate best channel for 2.4 and 5ghz

DaHai8

@johnpoz said in After storm wifi devices wont stay connected:

Why would not set your wifi to the channels you want to use? Look at the other signal strengths around and pick appropriate best channel for 2.4 and 5ghz

I've found from all the places I've lived, that it's never that simple. Almost nobody sets their channels on their wifi systems and these 'smart' wifis regularly hop around automatically themselves to find the 'best' one.
So, most of the time, it really is just a game of wack-a-mole: find a clear channel, set your wifi to it, then in a month (sometimes less) you gotta do it again, because the neighbors' wifi has jumped again and now interfering - again.
In dense apartment buildings, there are no clear spots, so the only good solution I've found is to overpower your own apartment and live with it.

Running Ethernet everywhere is one solution, but its hard to do when the walls are concrete and/or its not your forever home.

johnpoz

@DaHai8 so out of curiosity - what are you running on? What vht are you running? Most of these routers don't pick correct channels, for example they might pick 2 or 7 on 2.4 vs the 1,6,11

tgl

@DaHai8 No, you can't do anything about the fact that your neighbors are using equipment with bad auto-channel logic. But you don't have to make the situation worse by jumping channels yourself: then you're just playing radio musical chairs. Pick a good channel choice and camp on it, and hope that over time your neighbors' gear will stay off that channel.

BTW, depending on where you live and what gear you have, choosing a "DFS" channel might be a feasible option. Most auto-channel logic will not consider those.

johnpoz

@tgl yeah I would be a fan for dfs - but what sucks is many devices don't support them.. Or I would prob run all my 5ghz stuff on dfs.

On my wish list is iot that does 5ghz, support dfs channels and here is the big wish support enterprise auth.. Or wpa3 at min.

What we are stuck with is iot that only does 2.4, and no modern auth methods - I would love nothing more than to be able to do tls auth on my iot stuff ;)

As of late I trimmed down my ssids for my multiple vlans and use ppsk. Depending on what psk you use puts you on a different vlan.