Router spontaneously stops working across all devices

Hello,

Yesterday afternoon, my internet appeared to have gone down. I attempted to fix it in the usual way (turn it off and on) but to no avail. I assumed it must be on the ISPs end and continued on with my day.

The internet was still not working this morning, so I checked to see if it might be the router that is causing the issue. Lo and behold, I can access the internet through the modem. Great, router is bust.

Reconfigured it, I updated the firmware, and then did a series of ping tests.

Ping test to google through the ethernet was successful. Ping test to router IP address through the router was successful. Ping test to google through router was unsuccessful.

Does anyone have an idea what the problem might be? Just to reiterate, this is an issue across all devices (Mac, PC, iPhone/iPad, Android, PS3, etc... )
 
Hopefully, you know and can still log into the router.
find the WAN side, specifically Router Status or that display that
shows:
  • IP Address (the public address, not 192.x.y.z)
  • Default Gateway (your connection to the ISP)
  • DHCP Server (will not be one of your lan addresses)
  • Subnet Mask
  • DNS Server
  • Lease Obtained
  • Lease Expires
if any of the first three are missing, then the modem did not feed the information to the router
OR the router did not save it.
  • disconnect the modem->router
  • power off both
  • wait one minute
  • power on the modem
  • connect the router (but still powered off)
  • when the modem is fully sync'd with the ISP
  • power on the router
from your computer
  1. ping 8.8.8.8 (a ping by address)
  2. nslookup google.com (a dns request that should resolve to an address)
  3. ping google.com (a ping that requires nslookup to work)
 
Thank you Jobeard for your prompt response!

When I checked the WAN, I did not find any of the information to be missing (I.e. nothing was blank or 0.0.0.0.).

I followed your instructions as to rebooting the modem and router, but any and all pings were timed out (100% packet loss). I'm not the most tech-savvy person and I'm not sure what nslookup is but I assumed it was a command for terminal which gave this prompt: ";; connection timed out; no servers could be reached". Which, of course, means that I could not ping google.com.

Is there any help for the router? (It was not an inexpensive one, so I am hoping that I will not have to repurchase)
 
One last try; get the command prompt again and issue
  • ipconfig /all >myTCP.txt
then open and read with
  • notepad myTCP.txt
your Ethernet on the PC should look like
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : yourISPdomain
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : aa-bb-cc-dd-ee-yy
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::7039:54d7:8868:7fc7%16(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.5(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, March 07, 2015 6:26:35 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, April 17, 2151 5:24:44 PM
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 438613757
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-09-68-52-B2-24-B6-FD-17-2B-97

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 209.18.47.61 << these are
209.18.47.62 << my isp dns'​
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled​
 
When I enter "ipconfig /all >myTCP.txt" the prompt I get is:
"usage: ipconfig <command> <args>
where <command> is one of waitall, getifaddr, ifcount, getoption, getpacket, set, setverbose"
I assume I did something incorrectly!
 
Hmm; take this path
Start->Search
enter CMD and hit enter
then type IPCONFIG >myTCP.txt and enter
then NOTEPAD myTCP.txt and enter​
 
So, I failed to mention that I would be attempting to fix the router on my MacBook, which requires different commands than Windows (I.e. ipconfig = ifconfig). It also appears that I can't (or don't know how to since I am a terminal noob) access any TCP summary file.

But, on a lark, I wondered if maybe my ISP was blocking the router's MAC address. I cloned my mac's MAC address to the router and also chose to manually input the primary and secondary DNS. I unplugged everything and followed your method to reboot and it is fixed. At least on my MacBook, iMac, and Samsung Core.

But thank you, Jobeard, for your help. It was very much appreciated. :)
 
V E R Y G O O D!! Your ISP is using "hardware provisioning" which says the very first time you got a connection to that ISP, they recorded the MAC of the NIC. From that point forward, you only get service *IF* they see that MAC and cloning it to the router is PRECISELY how you handle the situation.

AH yes, ipconfig vs ipconfig very different animals.

btw: on a Mac Finder->Applications->Utilities->Terminal :)
and the Mac taskmgr is there too by the name Activity Monitor
 
Fyi for those following the subject:

I will note
When I checked the WAN, I did not find any of the information to be missing (I.e. nothing was blank or 0.0.0.0.).
is contrary to the effects of Hardware Provisioning. If active and the MAC addresses don't match, then the typical condition is NONE of the DHCP values get fed to the downstream device (aka the router) and thus the user gets no service.
 
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