Peculiar WET610N problem

[Crawdad]

I got a WET610N last Saturday to connect some computers upstairs to the house net through the existing D-Link DI-624 access point downstairs. Setup of the SSID and key was pretty easy. I have used the 610 by connecting a single computer with Cat-5 and by connecting it to a little 5-port switch and two computers. Either way the same problem is manifest:

I can reach the majority of sites on the internet, but there are several I can't reach. Those include two banks, a couple of major social networking sites, and Amazon.com.

A long, long investigation shows that the computers using the 610 bridge receive packets with TCP checksum errors when attempting to access those sites! Computers on the other side of the bridge - including one of the same computers, when attached elsewhere to the net - do not see checksum errors.

There have been NO IP header checksum errors. Sites that are not afflicted with this problem seem to work fine. It's hard to imagine, but something about the packet options or addresses of the affected sites may be tickling a bug. Has anyone heard of this? I upgraded to the latest available firmware (1.0.03) with no improvement.

 

[Crawdad]

diagnosis

Replying to my own question ...

I found that the WET610N is recomputing the TCP checksum. (I can't imagine why.) When the packet is shorter than the ethernet minimum (64 bytes total, 46 bytes IP+TCP+payload), the 610 includes the ethernet padding in the checksum. The checksum differs from the pre-bridge packet's checksum by exactly the contribution of those bytes.

The sites I cannot reach are those sites which use few or no TCP options, resulting in IP packets in the range of 40 to 44 bytes.

Now if only there were some discoverable way to communicate this to a Linksys engineer! Tech support and customer service have no concept of a bug report, and only offer to replace the unit. They can replace daily it from now til christmas and I'm sure it won't help!

I wrote to a friend who is a big wheel inside Cisco and he's having no better luck finding someone in Linksys who cares.

 

[jdibber]

I thought I'd bump this post to see if anyone has the same problem? Though Crawdad's explanation is beyond my understanding, it seems there is no resolution. I recently upgraded to a wndr3700, used as an AP and configured the wet610n but cannot access certain sites (like amazon, ebay and linksys!!). I can't imagine this is normal behavior (nor acceptable from a consumer's POV). Is there anyway to troubleshoot the problem...i'm getting the runaround w/ Linksys cust serv ?

TIA...jd

 

[jdibber]

Update:

On a whim, I disabled the Netgear and turned on the Actiontec wireless. Connected the WET to the Actiontec and had no issues connecting to any website. So, the problem appears to be with the netgear and actiontec talking to each other.

I followed the article of how to turn a router into an AP and have the following in place:

- Actiontec router set 192.168.1.1
- Actiontex dhcp range from 192.168.1.100 - 192.168.1.249
- Actiontec wireless off
- Netgear at 192.168.1.2 (dhcp disabled)
- WET at 192.168.1.17
- WET and AP using WAP2

The AP WAN port is not used and dhcp disabled.

Is there other settings I should be looking at? thanks

 

[Iversen]

Update:

On a whim, I disabled the Netgear and turned on the Actiontec wireless. Connected the WET to the Actiontec and had no issues connecting to any website. So, the problem appears to be with the netgear and actiontec talking to each other.

I followed the article of how to turn a router into an AP and have the following in place:

- Actiontec router set 192.168.1.1
- Actiontex dhcp range from 192.168.1.100 - 192.168.1.249
- Actiontec wireless off
- Netgear at 192.168.1.2 (dhcp disabled)
- WET at 192.168.1.17
- WET and AP using WAP2

The AP WAN port is not used and dhcp disabled.

Is there other settings I should be looking at? thanks

I'm not quite sure how your network is hooked up.
The way I understand it you have an Actiontec router (WAN disabled) and use the Netgear as an AP (WAN enabled) wired to the router and finally the wet610n is used as a wireless bridge, correct?

Since you have no trouble connecting the wet610n to the actiontec part (I assume you're using the same settings as you were when trying to connect to the netgear, n, WPA2 etc.) it would seem it's the netgear that's messing up your connection.

Oddly enough that seems to conflict with Crawdads theory, that the wet610n is bugged. I found a few other posts on the linksys forums where the wet610n was causing trouble with non netgear routers.
Is it possible for you to try out the setup with the actiontec router completely out of the equation?

Either way I think you ought to contact netgear and linksys and confront them with the issue. I only have the WNDR3700 so I can't test your setup myself, but I was considering getting the WET610N further down the road. -So please post your findings.

I find the whole issue quite strange, the WET610N is selling quite well (AFAIK) and yet I've only seen around 5 reports about people not being able to visit amazon.com and other pages, rather strange if it's a design issue.

EDIT: what happens when none of the parts are using encryption? also I presume only the routers (actiontec) NAT firewall is running?

 

[jdibber]

UPDATE: Well, I happened to have a Linksys WUSB11 wireless adapter connecting to my TIVO. So I used that in place of the WET...and everything worked fine. It is clearly a WET issue...so it seems.

I've tested with no encryption and still had problems. Not sure what you mean by NAT Firewall. The Actiontec has a firewall setting of "Typical Security(Medium)". I've set it to minimum and still had problems.

You are correct with the setup. I think I need the actiontec in the loop b/c of MOCA (its used for cable and internet). I've read some ways of swapping out the actiontec, but its not supported by Verizon. I've spent so much time debugging the WET that I feel Linksys should be paying me. Linksys now wants me to return the item for a new one....I think I may just forget about it and buy an N USB adapter.

 

[Iversen]

UPDATE: Well, I happened to have a Linksys WUSB11 wireless adapter connecting to my TIVO. So I used that in place of the WET...and everything worked fine. It is clearly a WET issue...so it seems.

I've tested with no encryption and still had problems. Not sure what you mean by NAT Firewall. The Actiontec has a firewall setting of "Typical Security(Medium)". I've set it to minimum and still had problems.

You are correct with the setup. I think I need the actiontec in the loop b/c of MOCA (its used for cable and internet). I've read some ways of swapping out the actiontec, but its not supported by Verizon. I've spent so much time debugging the WET that I feel Linksys should be paying me. Linksys now wants me to return the item for a new one....I think I may just forget about it and buy an N USB adapter.

Both routers have a build in firewall (the netgear and the actiontec) and should both be active it could cause some conflicts, but since other devices can connect flawlessly I doubt it's the issue.

It would be interesting to see if an exchange would act any differently, I'm thinking no, but it might be a wake up call for linksys' support (as much as I doubt it).
The reason I'm interested in the bridge is that I'm sick and tired of the windows WLAN autoconfig that's build into Win7 and Vista. Most adapters rely on this service to connect and for gaming it's absolutely horrible, causing lag spikes every 60 seconds.

If you have no luck getting the WET610N to work, I might go for the older WGA600N instead, it might not have the best reception but I haven't heard anything about it blocking websites.

 

[jdibber]

I have an old netgear mr314 that I thought I could try out as an AP instead of the wndr3700. But for whatever reason, I can't change the 3rd octet. It is currently at 192.168.0.1 and when I tried to change it to 192.168.1.3, it froze and I had to reset it. Is it true that if the Actiontec is 192.168.1.1, then the AP needs to be 192.168.1.xx?

 

[jdibber]

Update: Well, ended up returning the WET610N. Netgear tech support told me that I should return the Netgear and Linksys told me I should return the bridge...well what would that leave me (my 10 year old mr314 and a wusb11)?

I tried removing the actiontec out of the picture without much luck. Not being a guru in the field, this experience has really used up a bunch of time. Too much time, actually.

The WUSB11 can connect to all websites using the netgear as an AP. The Wet610 can connect to all sites using the Actiontec (and no AP). One of these two is not playing nicely in the wireless sandbox.

I thought I was going to buy a wnda3100 adapter until I saw all the problems it was having on the netgear site. Not sure if the wusb600n will fair any better than the wet610n.

 

[Iversen]

Update: Well, ended up returning the WET610N. Netgear tech support told me that I should return the Netgear and Linksys told me I should return the bridge...well what would that leave me (my 10 year old mr314 and a wusb11)?

I tried removing the actiontec out of the picture without much luck. Not being a guru in the field, this experience has really used up a bunch of time. Too much time, actually.

The WUSB11 can connect to all websites using the netgear as an AP. The Wet610 can connect to all sites using the Actiontec (and no AP). One of these two is not playing nicely in the wireless sandbox.

I thought I was going to buy a wnda3100 adapter until I saw all the problems it was having on the netgear site. Not sure if the wusb600n will fair any better than the wet610n.

That's too bad, I was hoping this kind of setup was going to work. Heck, I might order the wet610n anyway and see if it works when the netgear is the router and not an ap. Mainly because I'd have to import the wga600n from the US. -There's too few good n bridges out there atm.

The wnda3100 has a boatload of issues on Win7. I haven't got my hands on the v2 version, but it might have fewer issues.

I don't know much about the wusb600n, but if it is (actually) supported on Win7, it should work fine. Whatever issues the wet610n has are most likely related to it's bridge functionallity and not some Linksys proprietary standard if that's what you fear.

As stated above the reason I shun adapters is because just about all of them rely on the build in windows wlan autoconfig software, which searches for new networks every 60 seconds, causing lag spikes in games and other network reliant tasks.

 

[jdibber]

I went w/ a wusb600n. fingers crossed.

 

[jdibber]

the wusb600n installed in just a few minutes w/o a hitch. so either the WET has bugs or I got a bad WET. glad that's over.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for letting us know how it turned out.

 

[jdibber]

...it was the least I could do.

As much as I wanted to test the WET without the Actiontec, it would have required too much work. There's good info on another site for converting the Actiontec to a bridge. However, since I was an early FIOS adopter, I'm running PPPOE (whatever that means) and not straight ethernet to the ONT. For the bridge to work, I need to drop the IP and PPPOE won't allow that to happen (even on Verizon's end). To remove PPPOE, Verizon wanted me to cancel my service and re-sign, then they would need to transfer my user and email accounts....just wasn't worth the hassle.

 

[kevmeist]

That's odd. I have just replaced a Linksys WMP300N PCI adapter in a desktop PC as it constantly dropped the passphrase for WPA2. Both of us got tired of keying it back in again. I replaced that adapter with a WET610N. My router is a Linksys WRT610N (now about a year old). I have seen no problems at all with the WET610N (which was purchased and put early January 2010). The WET610N "install" process was kinda slick and was done on my PC in the basement which is right next to the WRT610N router. Then I just walked 2 flights up to my wife's PC and plugged it in. I guess time will tell if I get any problems. Right now it's hard to imagine that the WET610N would be worse than the WMP300N adapter card and external antenna.

The WET610N only offered me the N side when I installed it. I could never get the WMP300N to work over N (and used G all the time). While the WMP300N was acting up, a laptop and netbook had no problems talking over G. All of this stuff is why I keep my PC in the basement office next to the router and connect via a Gb Intel PCI card...whichh I have zero problems with. The reality, I guess, is that I really don't like wireless that much!

K