Google wifi router setup with vigor 130 (ADSL)

[#1]

I have a Google wifi mesh, a Vigor 130 modem, and a plusnet ADSL broadband service.

This afternoon I did a factory reset on all the Google router and wifi points in the mesh, so I could do a clean reinstall, but I can’t get the router set up again.

I get as far as the app asking me to connect the Ethernet cable to the modem, which I do, and pressing ‘next’. It then says ‘connected’ for a few moments while it does some thinking, before returning with the error ‘Connection failed’

I’ve tried rebooting the router and modem, different cables, a different Google unit as the router, running the app on a different phone, not using the QR code to set up the router - and probably half a dozen other things - but always the same outcome.

Two thoughts:

I’ve read that Google doesn’t support vlans. Plusnet don’t use a vlan on their ADSL service, do they?

The modem requires PPPoE, but the router setup never asks about that (router’s default is DHCP) and doesn’t ask for PPPoE credentials. Could this be the problem. Does anyone know whether Google wifi should handle this automatically? Does anyone know how to force the Google router to ask for PPPoE credentials?

Any other ideas??!!!

[#2]

does this help https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/6246630?hl=en-GB

[#3]

Hi MisterW,

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately, as I haven’t yet managed to set up any Google wifi points, that doesn’t work.

Trevor

[#4]

@trevorb 

Did you follow these instructions for the router?

HTH

[#5]

Hi Dan_the_Van,

Thanks for joining the discussion.

Those instructions are for changing the settings on an existing network. Because I haven’t managed to set up the first wireless point (the router), there is nothing in my Favourites and no WiFi settings to be altered. All of that was wiped when I did the factory reset.

I did find a YouTube clip that showed how to force the setup to request PPPoE credentials when setting up Google Nest WiFi, by declining to use the QR code. But that doesn’t seem to work on plain old Google WiFi.

Strangely, when I plug a laptop into the router while it’s connected to the modem and interrogate the api for status, one of the returned results says PPPoE detected, but I don’t really know how to interpret the read out.

Trevor

[#6]

@trevorb 

I can offer generic assistance which would be true for all modem and router setups.

Somewhere in the settings of the router you should have choice for the WAN port for DHCP, Static IP or PPPoE, as you are aware you need PPPoE.

I take it you did not reset the Vigor 130?

Posting a screen shot of the message might help others, use the icon to the left of the camera icon above, if you are using a tablet or smart phone you need the browser to view the page in 'desktop mode' otherwise you will not see those icons.

[#7]

Sorry not to have got back to this thread sooner. I did write a long message yesterday crowing that I'd sorted it, but I included some JSON in the message and that failed to send. The internet then promptly went down!

I don't think it's entirely stable now, but it seems to have more or less settled.

So, I cheated. I put in an Archer modem/router in place of the Vigor modem. This talks DHCP to the Google router (and maybe hides VLANs?), and hey presto, the Google app is happy. I could go ahead and set up the mesh.

I then disconnected the Google router from the Archer router,  change the WAN settings to PPPoE, and put the Vigor back ... but the PPPoE settings wouldn't save! Searching the internet shows this is a common problem, and the only solution seems to be to reset the Google router and do a clean install!!! So, that's back to square one.

Now I've put the Archer modem/router back in, and it's sort of working, though it does seems to drop periodically. There's a double NAT, but that's not the end of the world (I don't game). When I've got some time, I might try putting the Archer into bridge mode, resetting all the devices and reinstalling the mesh again, to get rid of the double NAT (and in the hope that it'll be more stable). But will Google recognise that it has to talk PPPoE to the bridge? Who knows!

I spent a long time on the phone with Google yesterday about the original setup with the Vigor. In the end they said they'd exhausted their diagnostic tests, which consisted of following the instructions for installation multiple times with different things rebooted and different bits of kit swapped in and out. They did ask for the status report from the router, which is some thing I'd already looked at but didn't really know the significance of. I don't think they did either! You get it by either plugging your laptop into the router ethernet port or being connected to the router by wifi, opening a browser, and querying:

http://192.168.86.1/api/v1/status (or possibly 192.168.84.1)

I've attached the result I got at the time of my call to Google.

They said the fact that the report said "ipMethod": "dhcp" meant there was no need for PPPoE credentials. I forgot to point out that the report also said "pppoeDetected": true. Of course, I don't know whether that's actually significant.

Google then said I should contact Plusnet, because they may need to refresh or resend something to the modem(???). I did that, but then missed their call (I don't get good mobile signal where I live, so we rely on wifi calling - not helpful when your internet is down). In the end, I just gave in and replaced the modem.

Incidentally, I did find other methods for the api, including one called wan-configuration. If I set myself up to be able to POST to the api, in theory, I could use that to configure the PPPoE settings. Another method is diagnostic-report, which is a very full report, including some kind of data dump - nearly 4 MB in all. You can open it in Notepad to read the text part but, obviously, the data part needs a particular tool to read.

To tie up loose ends, and answer Dan, I didn't reset the Vigor (though I did reboot it), and I'm afraid I wasn't able to get screen shots of the error messages, as they were too fleeting. They didn't, in any case, contain any more useful information. I did, eventually, manage to read the error that was shown for under 1 second. It read: 'Checking internet connection'. This was followed by 'Connection failed', and then the app returned to a page asking me to connect the Ethernet cable. I could and should have got a shot of that, but I didn't.

One of my original questions was, do Plusnet use VLANs on their ADSL product. Plusnet have answered that, saying that all their products use VLANs. On the other hand, their help page strongly suggests that they don't use VLANs on ADSL. Google's documentation says that they only support VLANs with the following tags: 2, 7 & 10. Plusnet haven't yet told me what VLAN tag they use on my service. However, their help page says the tag is 101 or 0. Minefield!

My only real conclusion is that Google WiFi, DrayTek Vigor 130 and Plusnet ADSL don't play together well, despite my having had them working for 5 years until I stupidly decided to do a reset!!

[#8]

According to the Vigor 130 guide it comes preconfigured for most UK ISP so some auto detection must happen, the guide is very clear no further setup is required. It continues to read that the WAN of any router connecting to the 130 should be set to PPPoE adding your broadband username and password. I very much doubt a VLAN is required as this is ADSL and may be where VDSL is detected the Vigor might set that up.

I would go by the help pages or the forum rather than first line support for confirmation of ADSL and VDSL settings.

ADSL settings are

Virtual Path Identifier (VPI) 0
Virtual Channel Identifier (VCI) 38
Multiplexing method 'VC Based' or 'VCMUX' or 'VC-Multiplexing' <<< this is depends on the options given.

[#9]

Usually the encapsulation needs to be LLC rather than VCMUX for PPPoE passthrough I.e the router is doing the PPPoE

[#10 · Accepted solution]

Once again, apologies to all for having abandoned the thread and taken so long to come back.

Problem fixed! The short answer is reboot the Google WiFi router after changing the WAN setting to PPPoE. Longer answer below:

The problem I was left with at the end of the last message was that I couldn't reconfigure the Google WiFi router to talk PPPoE to the Draytek modem. After making the change to PPPoE in the app, the internet connection wasn't established, and the app consistently showed that the setting had reverted to DHCP.

However, I found that Curl is installed on Windows boxes, and I used that to query the Google WiFi api after making the change. I found that, while the app still said the setting was for DHCP, Curl said it was PPPoE. I decided to try rebooting the Google router after making the change, and low and behold, everything worked! (And the app now said the setting was PPPoE).

So, overall, there were three issues:

1) After resetting the Google WiFi, it failed to recognise that it had to speak PPPoE to the Draytek modem.

2) There was no way to change the setting to PPPoE because the factory reset meant there was no existing network to edit.

3) Having re-setup a network (by using the TP Link router-modem instead of the Draytek modem), changing the WAN protocol from DHCP to PPPoE didn't seem to work: no internet established, and the app said the setting had reverted to DHCP.

Rebooting the Google WiFi router after making the change from DHCP to PPPoE has solved the problem.

Caveat: I have not gone through the pain of recreating the issue and re-solving the problem by following the same steps again(!), so I can't guarantee that this is an accurate description of the fix.