ZenWifi XT8 random crash of node

[SloPoke]

I have an ASUS XT8 setup with the main router in the basement and a node with wired backhaul on the second floor. Latest firmware. I have great coverage throughout the house with no problems except for one. Every few weeks or so, the second floor node will crash or reboot or something, and refuse to connect back to the router until I power it off and on again. Every device connected to it will lose their WiFi signal, and then connect to the main router. On the crashed node the LED is rapidly blinking blue. After a power cycle, it comes back online and works fine for another few weeks.

Anyone see anything like this? Could it be a heat problem? It was sitting on an STB that gets kind of hot, but I've moved it now. Is this what the scheduled reboot of the router/node is supposed to fix?

 

[OzarkEdge]

Anyone see anything like this? Could it be a heat problem? It was sitting on an STB that gets kind of hot, but I've moved it now. Is this what the scheduled reboot of the router/node is supposed to fix?

No, not mentioned here. Yes, could be a heat issue or defective hardware. No, regular rebooting is not an intended fix.

Does the router Log have any clues at the time of the node crash/lockup?

OE

 

[SloPoke]

No, not mentioned here. Yes, could be a heat issue or defective hardware. No, regular rebooting is not an intended fix.

Does the router Log have any clues at the time of the node crash/lockup?

OE

I assume the logs from the main router will cover what happens on the node. I'll take a look next time it happens, if it happens. I can't make sense of what's in there now, but there was a section where the date changed and then went back to the current date. The LED color meanings are not covered anywhere as far as I can tell. What does rapidly blinking blue indicate?

 

[OzarkEdge]

I assume the logs from the main router will cover what happens on the node. I'll take a look next time it happens, if it happens. I can't make sense of what's in there now, but there was a section where the date changed and then went back to the current date. The LED color meanings are not covered anywhere as far as I can tell. What does rapidly blinking blue indicate?

The Log dates reset to the OEM date upon reboot until the router updates it's time and date via the Internet. So, this is normal.

OE

 

[Bandito]

The blinking blue LED indicates that the node is syncing with the router. In your case, it sounds like the sync is unable to complete.

If the date was reset in your log file, I think that indicates that the router itself rebooted as I’m not sure if it would log the time from any of the nodes. I wish that ASUS had full manual out for the XT8, but even if they did it probably wouldn’t go into this kind of detail. I have found that most of the configuration options and their meanings are covered in the support pages on ASUS’ website, so there is that at least.

You may want to consider doing a factory reset and then reconfigure your network if this happens again. It’s possible it could fix this type of issue. The fact that it only occurs every few weeks makes it a bit more mystifying also. My issues have come up every few days. So far, about five days now, since the factory reset everything has been working well, so I’m cautiously optimistic that the reset addressed whatever issue was occurring.

 

[samep]

I think we can agree the blinking blue light on node means it's syncing with router. However, there are times that multiple reboots on node won't sync it with the router. In that case, the router needs to be rebooted to find the node.

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[samep]

I also had a situation where the IP portal on an Ethernet connected PC via MoCa 2.0 Ethernet adapter lost the router along with the node on Ethernet backhaul via another MoCa adapter. Though Ethernet connected devices to router continued to work. Mystery why the MoCa net and WiFi devices were down. I think it may be timing to what happened below.

What I had done was change some settings in the web portal that would have rebooted the main router. I suspect it did not reboot until I manually rebooted it. Until that point, most everything was disconnected and the node couldn't sync with it. Before factory resetting everything, I tried the reboot. It's been fine since but I rebooted it again after replacing the modem. It's only been since Saturday that I replaced the modem; upgraded from Docsis 3 to 3.1 Spectrum has signal conditioning issues of their own they've ignored in the past and they claim they're working again. I saw them out here on the street the same day I was having issues above. I wasn't aware of the time I saw these issues with the blinking blue node but later saw a cable guy at my service location near street in my yard on the video from my cameras later. I wasn't getting motion notifications because most devices weren't connected at the time.

And now that I think about it, the capture of the cable guy in my yard at service location wasn't an event with notification. But rather, it was a random timed capture in the inactivity between active events where I paused the playback to see him at the service location. Spectrum didn't tell me they were there and interrupting internet but I saw his truck near my driveway, pull away and later the guy at my service box. So I have no idea how long he was there and what he did. But I suspect he briefly interrupted my internet connection to modem; however, an Apple TV connected via Ethernet to main router continued to stream while all other devices appeared to be down. Mystery. Must have been the worst timing possible. And very brief interruption.

With Spectrum issues here, it's hard to pin blame directly on my new XT8. After 2 early needed reboots of the XT8 for lost connection, we noticed an orange indicator light on modem for upstream data. They came out and identified the same issue they were supposed to fix more than a year ago. Subscribers in this area are always asking if Spectrum is down. I couldn't use their IPv6 DNS with Netgear Orbi; reports on web say it's unreliable. Still. I confirmed that recently; using theirs causes random loss of internet connection. But around here, their issues run even deeper.

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