Hub One LAN setup issues - switching from Sky ER115

[#1]

I have issues with half of my home network having disappeared after switching from Sky to PlusNet

I received my Plusnet router on Monday and my "Your fibre broadband's ready to go" email at 20:23 last night.

So I unplugged my Sky ER115 ADSL router and plugged in the Hub One to ADSL (not fibre).  

I have around 30 devices; 20 or so of which are hard-wired and 10 or so using the WiFi.  All working fine with the Sky router.

Firstly, I confirm broadband connection works, albeit the datarates are a bit low. 

Secondly, the wifi connection direct to the Hub One works.

But I have big issues with devices missing from the LAN.

I thought the switchover would be pretty painless as most of my network is hard-wired, so it should have been as simple as moving the one RJ45 over to the Hub One.

To explain my system:

I have a centralised rack for AV throughout the house.

For LAN expansion I have two 8 port unmanaged switches: an 8 port Netgear FS108 and an 8 port Netgear GS308v3.

For Wifi expansion around the house, I have three hard-wired LinkSys E900 wifi routers set to bridge mode (still set to repeat the Sky SSID).  These are working, but only one appears in the DHCP table, so I haven't cloned the PlusNet SSID as yet.  Obviously, DHCP is disabled on those "extenders".

I also have devices hard-wired and devices wifi-connected to those LinkSys routers,  Some appear, some don't. 

So, where to start?

When I first swapped the router, I simply shifted over the LAN link to the 8 port switch from the Sky to the Hub One, thinking it would fly.  But it found only about three hard-wired devices.  

Then I bypassed the switch with one of the ethernet cables and I got a few more.

I have read various questions about maximum device numbers for the Hub One on this Community forum, thinking perhaps this was an issue, but saw a reply from a moderator stating that he had about 40 devices working without problems, so this is perhaps not the explanation.

Hard-wired devices missing from the DHCP table are:

- NAS

- Sonos Connect Amps (three missing - the first found)

- Blu-Ray player

- two of the three LinkSys Wifi routers

Some devices hard-wired to the LinkSys bridge-mode routers are missing.

Some devices wifi connected to the LinkSys bridge-mode routers are missing (and some work, like my posting of this message).

I have four Sonos Connect devices which have switches inside so that Ethernet can be looped from one to the next.  Initially, none were visible, but now the first appears in the DHCP table after having wired it directly to the Hub One.  So there seems to be an issue with discovery with the HubOne.

I have manually entered IP addresses not in the DHCP table to try to locate the LinkSys routers (which are passing traffic), but without success.

I have the various advanced options of the HubOne, without success.

I checked testmyipv6.com and it seems the HubOne is only using ipv4 and not ipv6.  I previously had an issue with the latest Sky router which was incompatible with my previous Powerline adaptors as they were only ipv4 and wouldn't work, which is when I changed to hard-wired WiFi bridges.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

It seems there may be issues with discovery through switches (whether the unmanaged ones, the sonos ones or the LinkSys ones).

Is ipv4 the issue? 

The Hub One software version is 4.7.5.1.83.8.263 which seems to be the latest.

Thanks for your help

[#2]

Are these 'disappearing devices' actually working/able to route to/from the Internet?

I'm trying to establish whether or not what you're reporting is an aesthetic issue with the Hub One management interface, or an actual issue affecting your Internet connectivity.

The network map in the Hub Two GUI can be temperamental, particulalry on the firmware build you're running.

From personal extperience I can tell you that I have used a Hub One previously on my own network that has 1 x 5 port unmanaged switch, 1 x 5 port managed switch and 1 x 8 port unmanaged switch to extend the LAN without any issues. There are over 40 devices on my LAN (I suspect it may have been me you were referring to in your post).

No idea if it will help your situation, however I've updated your hub to the latest firmware so we can at least rule that out. You'll need to restart the hub to apply it.

One other obvious difference between Sky and Plusnet hubs, is probably the IP address of the hub itself and the DHCP range it dishes IP's from.

[#3]

Thanks for your reply.  Got to know that it should work.

The NAS, the three SONOS players, the Blu-Ray, the printer neither appear in the DHCP table, nor do they work.

For these,  it's not a cosmetic issue.   SONOS's own discovery process doesn't find the three amps cascaded behind the first one.  The RJ45's are all happily flashing away.

The LinkSys bridges all work (I'm connecting to the old Sky SSID that they are currently still "cloning"), but only one appears in the DHCP table (I can access its webpage at 192.168.1.77).  I have manually typed in 192.168.1.75 up to 192.168.1.255 (the IP range set in the hub one) and cannot find two of them (usually their webpage would pop up, but that only works for 77).  

For this it might be a cosmetic issue, but for the fact I don't know their IP addresses, so can't access them to change their SSID.  

I've tried the advanced option to match the IP address range to SKy's without success.

I've tried arp -a at a command prompt and the list is similar to the DHCP table of the Hub One, so no enlightenment there.

Thanks for the update.  Someone is currently on a zoom session, so will reboot once that's finished.

[#4]

@lewesian 

To save reconfiguring all wireless devices why don't you make the Hub One SSID that of the Sky device? You could also change the IP addresses of the Hub One DHCP to match those of the Sky device.

192.168.1.255 with a class c network mask is the network broadcast IP address and as such will not respond to a ping.

Dan

[#5]

Thanks, Dan.  Yes, it had occurred to me to do that, but it wouldn't solve the DHCP table issue which is the pressing one for now.

I meant I had manually typed every address up to 255.  Ok I shouldn't have bothered with 255, but hey ho.

[#6]

PS: I already tried to match the IP address range of the Sky, but may revisit this if the fw upgrade doesn't help

[#7]

Updated firmware to 4.7.5.1.83.8.289.1.3 and the issue is still the same.

[#8]

Have you setup any of the devices to have a fixed IP Address rather than a DHCP allocated address? The HUB One sometimes does not show a device which have been setup with a fixed IP address, but it does show devices which have been allocated a fixed IP address by DHCP.

When a network is changed in some way it is always advised to restart everything rather than trust on luck everything will work.

This might help checking for IP addresses  https://www.advanced-ip-scanner.com/ its a Windows application.

Dan 

[#9]

If any devices are configured with a fixed IP, then I'd warrant the gateway address is probably wrong on them as well (Sky use 192.168.0.1 for their routers don't they?)

As painful as it may be - if I was in this scenario, I'd probably be close to restoring all network devices back to default and reintroducing piecemeal, checking connectivity each step of the way.

Going to hit you with the cliche too - I assume you've tried powering off each network device and switching them back on in a logical order?

[#10]

Dan, thanks for the link to advanced IP scanner - very useful - I was looking for something like that.

Thanks, to for the suggestions Bob - yes I had to roll a few devices back to ex-factory state and have almost everything back up now.

The third Linksys was a real pain - no idea why it should have behaved differently from the other two.  I had to roll it back and then use only the Sky router to force an IP address that I could then use to access it.  What a pallaver.

The second Linksys had switched out of bridge mode at some point - possibly when I was trying things or perhaps it had been "working" like that for a while.  Perhaps the dhcp conflict could have accounted for the loss of Sonos devices as they reappeared after setting bridge mode on that one.

The only issue now seems to be that the MyBookLive NAS has disappeared.  It popped up in the dhcp table momentarily, about the same time that the SONOS devices reappeared.  I could see its webpage (at 192.168.1.81), but not long enough to investigate e.g. if the IP address was static (it was .0.37).

Now it doesn't show up however I try to connect to it, even going back to the Sky router only.  The Hub One dhcp list has a gap for .81 but there's no reply from that IP.  It's a bit weird as the NAS had been fine up until this router switch and it's not like it's been dropped.

I tried forcing IPv4 etc but without any success.  I also note that the Sky uses MER/PPoE, but don't know if that has a bearing.

AdvancedIP Scan is still picking up three IP addresses in the 0 range of the now disabled Sky router.  Is that because they are cached somewhere?

[#11]

Regarding the IP scanner is the PC status icon blue or black, if it's black the device is not live. If it is black you can right click the name and delete the device.

I'd suggest using a wired connection giving a PC a fixed IP address in the 192.168.0.0 network and run the IP scanner to see if it can find the NAS drive. Just have the PC and the NAS connected to a switch.

Dan.

[#12]

Thanks, Dan.  The three 0 range devices found by IPScan are black.  I hadn't appreciated the significance of the colour scheme, so thanks for that.

I tried earlier with only hard-wired PC + NAS + Sky router with no broadband and PC Wifi disabled and it couldn't find it.

What's puzzling me too, is that the front panel LED now also seems to be off, which is not a valid state according to the WD manual.  The power is on, as I can hear it spinning up.  There are some other WD user posts about the LED.  But it all seems a bit too much of a coincidence though to me.  

Will retry the PC+NAS+Sky again later

[#13]

No luck - nothing found.  It looks dead to the world.  That's an expensive broadband change!

[#14]

I had a similar issue with a Seagate NAS some years back, I would check if the device interface can be reset without deleting the data from the disk, I would expect a reset button hole near to the power or network port. What is the model of your NAS?

Dan

[#15]

Thanks, Dan.  Yes I've tried the 4s push/hard reset on the back which is supposed to reset it without losing the data.  The full factory wipe is only accessible through the web access that I can't get to.

I've tried it a few times without success.

The NAS is a WD MyBookLive WDBACG0020HCH-00.

This is one of the drives that had hackers exploiting a vulnerability and forcing a factory reset from the web.  Mine has never been exposed to the internet, although I was contemplating whether the switch to the new router somehow exposed it, although the setting for that is in the drive's settings webpage, I believe.

It's good that you made me look for the model number as I noticed that its MAC address is printed underneath.  I wondered if I could try to assign an IP to it using arp by connecting PC and NAS on to the same switch, but it failed... requires elevation?  see screenshot.