Draytek router dropping traffic frequently

Ironic Namesake

Ironic Namesake

Ironic Namesake

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
We've been having issues with our Draytek router (2960) in our office dropping out recently and I've been trying to figure out what's causing it without much luck so far.

Each time it happens everything comes back within 30-60 seconds, but it occurs sometimes once an hour, sometimes only once or twice a day. I work remotely so my VPN session (usually just RDP) drops as well.

The WAN connection itself is fine - VOIP which runs through the same connection (but not this router) stays up, the Draytek can't be pinged during these short outages either so I'm sure the fault is there.

There is no activity on the logs during these drops, only a few of the below entries each time (just with different IPs of course)

[ip_route_input_slow:2426] set reply 31.13.92.14192.168.40.18 oif=13 and NO ROUTE

Manufacturer support hasn't been of much help so far, and I haven't been able to find much on Google either.

FWIW, CPU and Memory load aren't high (<50% mostly), only myself connected through VPN. Restarting the router doesn't help unfortunately.

Any ideas? I hope I'm at least on the right track and those log entries are related :o
 
bledd said:
On latest firmware? (August 2016)

My experience in Draytek has always been 100% uptime
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Yup - on the latest 1.2.1 firmware.

I've been trying to use the logs to figure out the issue - at first I thought the logging to PC was stopping as the connection was being dropped, but logging to USB has the same gap during that period (so I guess logging is correct, and traffic just isn't being passed through at that time)
 
bledd said:
Can you ping the router during these times?
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I've tried running 3 constant pings :

1. To other machine on network (works fine, connected to different switch)
2. To router (this gets no response during the downtime)
3. To Google DNS (no response during downtime)

So I'm sure it's the Draytek causing the issue, as our VOIP calls run through the first router (Cisco, managed by ISP)
 
We're getting something similar with our 2920n, well it all points to the Draytek rather than something (DNS server etc) else, on the latest (3.6.8.5) firmware were it randomly drops traffic. It seems to affect the built-in WiFi a little more than the LAN connections but it's very sporadic in that it'll happen only once one day and a handful of times the next and as you mention, the logs aren't particularly useful in determining the issue.
Annoyingly the drop here only appears to last a second or two which is just enough for some of our systems to think they've been disconnected.

Have you tried downgrading the firmware and/or doing a complete reset with the latest version?
That's the only options i can think of doing with ours but it's finding the time to do it where downtime won't be an issue.

Prior to this, our Draytek has been running solidly for a fair few years.
 
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What interface are you pinging when you have issues? Does the WAN interface stop responding at the same time as (one of) the LAN interfaces?

Start a syslog server and point the router at it, so at least you can capture what's going on if the router misses a beat.
 
Aha, does sound like a similar issue - I haven't tried downgrading the firmware, I guess we're in the same boat that I can't just take the network down (other than a reboot maybe) and configuring all the VLANs etc from scratch would probably take a bit of time so I'm trying to find a solution without doing this.

The router just seems to stop / drop any traffic during the period so the Syslog has a gap for 30-60 seconds or however long the drop is and stops responding to pings during this time too. I guess I could try constantly pinging the WAN Gateway, but this passes through the Drähten first?

As the connection was dropping I assumed Syslog wasn't able to send updates to the Syslog server and that's why the log was empty, but logging to USB directly from the router doesn't seem to make a difference - still those same gaps in the logs.
 
Anyone running a bit torrent client? I had Vigors many years ago struggle to manage 'high' numbers of connections.

You may also want to do some packet sniffing on your network to ensure there isn't some kind of storm going on.
 
ov_sjo said:
Anyone running a bit torrent client? I had Vigors many years ago struggle to manage 'high' numbers of connections.

You may also want to do some packet sniffing on your network to ensure there isn't some kind of storm going on.
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Well there's a filter to block BT traffic, and our session usage isn't high - we're normally at 1000-2000 sessions (router limit is meant to be 80,000)

The latest firmware does have packet capture built in but that's limited to 10k packets unfortunately so it can't keep running. I'm going to see if we can get 1 of the LAN ports freed up by connecting part of the network through a different switch, that way I'd be able to use LAN mirroring to see all the packets.
 
It's worth less than the time you have spent on it so far. If the support just shrug then it's time for a different vendor.
 
Before you bin it, check the power plug. Is it loose? Is the router placed where someone can accidentally move it / step on it / whatever while walking past?
 
Might be the best solution -main reason we went with Draytek is familiarity with the interface / configuration as we'd had them for quite a while and not had any major issues.

If I don't manage to get this resolved - any recommendations? We're a small outfit without a dedicated IT dept so nothing too complicated to set up.
 
Quartz said:
Before you bin it, check the power plug. Is it loose? Is the router placed where someone can accidentally move it / step on it / whatever while walking past?
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Nope - that's all fine, it happens during odd hours also when there's no one in the office or nearby the unit and is always resolving by itself.
 
Ironic Namesake said:
Might be the best solution -main reason we went with Draytek is familiarity with the interface / configuration as we'd had them for quite a while and not had any major issues.

If I don't manage to get this resolved - any recommendations? We're a small outfit without a dedicated IT dept so nothing too complicated to set up.
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See how much a Meraki MX65W costs where you are, assuming it's available.
 
Small outfit and Meraki don't belong in the same sentece.

Go Ubiquiti their EdgeOS is simple to use from a routing perspective. Hairpin NAT bug is not very nice however.
 
Really - a cloud-managed device with support you can phone to walk you through the setup and automatic firmware updates sounds inappropriate for this requirement?

Ok. You're assuming 'small outfit' means 'can't afford Meraki', the OP has made no comment on budget.
 
Caged said:
Really - a cloud-managed device with support you can phone to walk you through the setup and automatic firmware updates sounds inappropriate for this requirement?

Ok. You're assuming 'small outfit' means 'can't afford Meraki', the OP has made no comment on budget.
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I mean sure you're probably right, an incorrect assumption. Meraki is a very nice and easy to use platform and if the budget can stretch then yes it's probably a great choice, it is however prohibitively expensive to many organizations.
 
With everything, you pay for convenience. I wouldn't spend my own money on Meraki because I don't need to. I'd definitely spend my employer's money on it though if we needed to service branch locations.
 
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