Can't get ports to open

[whitenack]

Hi all,

I have a piece of smart home tech that keeps dropping connection to the internet. I spoke with tech support and they say I need to make sure that a few ports are open. So, I have created some port forwarding rules for those ports to go to the hub's IP address, but I still can't get it to work. When I check those ports on yougetsignal.com, it shows the ports still closed.

Not sure what I am doing wrong. I'm sure you all will need more information. I can post screenshots if needed.

 

[ColinTaylor]

You can almost certainly remove the port forwarding rules. Those are for unsolicited incoming connections, to servers and the like. All outgoing ports are open by default so there's nothing that needs to be done.

That is the reason yougetsignal.com shows the ports as closed, because it is testing incoming (to a server on your LAN) connections, not outgoing (to the internet).

What is the hub in question? How are you determining that it has "dropped" the connection to the internet? Is there anything in the logs (on the router or the hub)?

 

[whitenack]

Thanks for the reply.

The hub is a Chamberlain MyQ (for garage door opening). When it is on an connected to the Chamberlain servers, I am supposed to get a solid green led light. However, my led is flashing, which means it is not making a connection with the servers for some reason. I have tried playing with the router firewall, which gave temporary success, but it keeps losing connection and I can't figure out the cause.

You can read my back and forth with tech support and see the steps I have taken here...

Thanks again for the time.

 

[ColinTaylor]

OK. I've also found this which has a slightly clearer explanation of the ports than in your chat. Was your product one of those made before Sept. 1, 2015?

But before we get into that, is this problem something that is new? i.e. The system was working fine for months/years and then suddenly it's started playing up? Or has it always had this problem?

 

[whitenack]

But before we get into that, is this problem something that is new? i.e. The system was working fine for months/years and then suddenly it's started playing up? Or has it always had this problem?

I am not sure if it is a new problem or not. When I first installed the door openers (a couple of months ago, the hub connected right away with no problems. It worked for a few days after that because I was still playing around with the features. Fast forward until this past week and I started working on setting up some automation rules with my Wink hub and noticed my Chamberlain hub was offline. I don't know when it stopped working in the few months between when I first installed it and when I noticed it wasn't working last week or so. I flashed the Merlin firmware at some point during that process. Not sure it that was the cause or not.

The products were before Sept 2015. I purchased them at a big discount and had them in storage while our house was being built.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Are you using any non-basic settings on your router; parental controls, network services filter, VPN, etc?

I'd be tempted to do a factory reset on the router, reconfigure it manually with just the basic settings and try connecting the hub again.

 

[martinr]

We recently had a topic on the Chamberlain system. https://www.snbforums.com/threads/l...lin-garage-door-connection.39907/#post-362098
but the trail seems to have gone cold since then. Nothing in those postings of any help?

 

[whitenack]

Thanks for the responses. I might try the factory reset. I initially installed Merlin because I was trying to connect our work server with a backup server clone we keep in my basement. I am using OpenVPN and was hoping the Merlin firmware would allow me to connect them directly, easier than my existing set up. It did, but I ended up not being able to set it up exactly the way I wanted, and found a different (and probably better) solution. Anyway, now that I don't need the Merlin firmware, I could see if things work better by flashing back to stock firmware.

On a possibly related note, I checked the VPN settings on the router and it looks like I still had some of my old VPN settings enabled. I disabled them this morning and things are currently working. Maybe that was it. If it continues to stay connected for the next few days I'll feel more confident. If not, I'll try flashing back to stock firmware.

Thanks again folks.