Any Known Gateway Issues In ELP TX? Frequently Loosing Association

[cybo54]

Is there any known current issues with the El Paso TX gateway? We're on beam 49 gateway 11

Seems like this is our issue, we keep loosing association with the gateway.  This keeps happening numerous & repetitive times over the past two days, more often in frequency during the afternoon and evening.

I checked weather there today, today there was a tiny storm in the area but not exactly there, unsure about yesterday.

[cybo54]

It starts out looking like turbo page is being lost/reset, then it devolves into gateway and association lost and it seems regaining that back always takes 3-5 minutes or more when this happens (sometimes 10-20 minutes).

Disabling turbo page doesn't help, status stays degraded when this is happening due to the lost gateway I assume. Signal strength good during all these times (115-118 etc)

This happened probably 20+ times yesterday and has already happened at least 3-5 times today while simply trying to post this inquiry.

I thought maybe yesterday was a fluke and engineers were adjusting things, but I'm starting to think maybe that's not the cause now since it's carrying on today too.

We'd like to in case it would help, but have not reset the modem manually in case someone needed to look at logs/stats.  It took 20+ minutes of trying just to add in this edit/follow-up

[Liz]

Hello cybo54,

Thank you for posting and providing these updates. I've run diagnostics and there isn't anything significant happening with your gateway. Is the intermittent connectivity happening still today?

[cybo54]

Hi Liz, and thank you for your reply! 

I was trying to post an update here over past 20 minutes or so but had the same issue so yes it's still going on. 

* Update - And happened again multiple times just now (3:04PM ET + 3:28), now 5 times since I got online today (about 1:20PM ET). 

Quicker resolve this last time, but it's not always like that, sometimes 5 minutes or more before it resolves.

Also followed up with numerous extended periods of 30.1.1 today with pages working sometimes and sometimes not, reseting turbo page only helps a short time.

(Was in process of adding) Not meant as a bump, just updating this is now happening three straight days in a row, and I checked no weather issues here or there.

If there is not some known issue, can we maybe get moved to a more stable gateway?

[Liz]

Hi cybo54,

You're welcome! Can you please double-check the coax's connection to the modem? If it's not tightly screwed in, please secure it and let me know once that's done.

Your cooperation, patience, and understanding are much appreciated.

[cybo54]

Thanks Liz! 

Yes, I checked and all cables were already tight, but gave them a firm re-tightening just in case.

[cybo54]

Initial update for the day, hopped online and already happening for the day (1:41PM ET through 1:53PM until it finally re-connected, then right back down @1:55-2:02).

I'm unsure how many times it's happened for others during the day, or how many times it's happened when no one was using it, but you can see in the error summary it's adding up.

21.1.15 + 30.1.1 + 20.2.1 (also 12.7.1 + 12.1.9 - the later of which I've mentioned here as far back as Feb with our initial install (on the 12.7.1 thread) and it's made a constant appearance since install)

Maybe rebooting the modem would/might help, but we haven't tried because I know leaving the stats in there for now may help you have a look at things.

[Liz]

Hi cybo54,

Thanks for the update. While I have you here, I want to dispatch a tech to your site. Are you available for a site visit Monday? If so let me know which of these time slots work for you:

08:00 AM
-11:00 AM      

11:00 AM
-02:00 PM                            

02:00 PM
-05:00 PM

[cybo54]

Hi Liz and thank you!

Yes, we will be here anytime on Monday, but may one of the latter two would be better for us.  If the earlier one is better for them that is fine too though, so whatever works best for them but we'll be here.

We wont be charged for this?  I surely hope not since we just got this setup 2 months ago.

Should we not reboot the modem until then, so he/you can continue to look at the logs?  If we shouldn't I'll make sure everyone knows.

[cybo54]

I thought I should add, but assume you know this, the issue is not reproducable at will.  I mean, it happens when it happens and it's random, sometimes 10 times in an hour, other times only once or twice. 

Sometimes constantly all afternoon/evening and other times only a few times throughout the afternoon/evening.  Sometimes last 10-20 minutes each instance, other times only few short minutes.

It hasn't seemed to happen at all during the night (10PM-7AM, that I've noticed anyway)

[Liz]

Hi cybo54,

You're within warranty, so there's no charge for this site visit. It's currently scheduled for Monday, Apr 17, 2017 between 11:00 AM-02:00 PM. You don't have to worry about not rebooting, you can if you need to. We won't need to look at logs for now. Please let me know how the site visit goes and if the issue persists afterwards!

[cybo54]

OK, thanks Liz!

So, what do you think the issue might be, modem or radio?

And thank you again for the quick replies and helping to hopefully solve this!  At first I thought we could deal and it was a minimal issue, but it kept getting more frequent and prolonged so we had to reach out.

I'll reboot the modem now then, maybe that will fix the problem?  If it does seem to fix it, which I may not know for sure until over the weekend, what should we do Monday?

[Liz]

You're welcome, cybo54. It's a little bit of both, haha. I'm having the modem and radio replaced, as well as making sure your dish is re-peaked for optimal signal, so let's stick to having the tech do that on Monday. 🙂

[cybo54]

Ahh, OK then, sounds like best plan no matter what! 

We do have good signal strength now, at least I think, usually between 112-118 so I thought they initially set it up pretty good. 

OK, well I will let you know how things go after the replacements get put in.  Thanks again, and I hope you have a great Easter weekend!

[Liz]

Thanks, you too! 🙂

[cybo54]

Hi Liz,

I know you're not here, and I know you said go ahead with the switch out no matter what, but I wanted to give todays update anyway.

No issues today, especially when expected like normally the past 3-5 days starting right at 1-2PM (Possibly earlier but I never get online before then). I looked at the state code summary too since reboot and nothing at all except 12.1.9 for 2979 seconds at 3.55%. So it's possible that it simply needed a reboot, but I guess issues like that shouldn't be compounded and more frequent like that just because it hasn't been rebooted. So maybe that in itself is an issue, maybe not and just needed rebooted can be normal? I supposed it's not expected that we have to reboot every week or three, but maybe it should be the suggested norm?

Of course, once I reach out and you put in a truck roll the issue goes away. I think the reboot fixed it, but didn't want to do that before so you could see the state codes built up.

Will add in an update tomorrow as well.

[cybo54]

Update for Sunday - same as yesterday, I think a reboot fixed whatever the problem was unless somethings changed on your end
More 12.1.9 though, now at 7505 seconds = 4.5322%

[cybo54]

Waiting on the installer now.  Still no issues, and only those two things mentioned previously in the state code pages, big change from the 25-30 noted items before.

We wondered if sun glare could possibly be the cause of some of these issues?  Since Friday one of our vehicles is moved from it's previous usual location which could be glaring directly onto the dish during daytime hours and it made me wonder if maybe sun glare could have any effect on connection reliability?  I plan to test this after they redo everything today, by putting the car back and seeing if same issues pop up in next few days.

[C0RR0SIVE]

Sunlight wont affect the signal, only high frequency radio waves would.

[cybo54]

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@C0RR0SIVE wrote:

Sunlight wont affect the signal, only high frequency radio waves would.

---

Thanks!  I wasn't sure and that's the only thing that changed on our end while everything magically worked over the weekend.

I did read heat from the sun can cause LBN related issues, so maybe if not the glare directly interfering the heat from the glare itself maybe making some part of the setup get too hot that was already partially going bad.

* I did just notice two more entries added into the state code logs, so maybe it just hasn't had time to build up and start causing problems again.

Both trasmit/receive related - 11.3.1 + 12.3.1 (along with now 3.5% total of 12.1.9)

I guess the uplink errors speak for themselves - thanks for getting this fixed Liz!

[C0RR0SIVE]

Heat can affect the transmitter, but it would have to be an incredibly hot day with no wind at all for the thing to overheat... They did design the out door equipment to work on a typical day in the harshest of environments, from Alaskan cold, to the deserts in the south-west.