No Internet after power failures or reboot (Newifi)

[trust_in_wrt]

Hello. My Newifi router does not find the internet when there are power failures in my home or when I reboot the Newifi router. If I connect a laptop directly to the modem using a wired connection, I do HAVE internet from the modem. In fact, both the modem and router have Internet (globe) LEDs working, but end devices claim there is no Internet (including Wifi devices and Wired devices).

I’ve tried power-cycling the modem and router in different order, but that doesn’t solve the problem. The only way I can solve the problem is by disconnecting all the ethernet cables, power-cycling the modem and router, and then connecting the single ethernet cable between the modem and router. For some reason that approach has worked.

The impact is that my home security and surveillance cameras are useless when the Internet doesn’t come back up automatically. Since I may be travelling, I cannot fix the connection until I am physically back home. Please advise on how we can troubleshoot and fix this. Thanks.

[Rocket88]

This might be an ethernet configuration problem. Does your router have setting for speed, duplex, etc. If so, try setting it to Auto. Also, while it makes no sense, possibly try another Ethernet cable just to be sure.

Presumably you may have solved this already, but it would be great if you share the solution (if you still remember LOL).

[trust_in_wrt]

Thanks. No I never solved the problem. PCWRT Support was quick to help in the past, but somehow not on this post. I’ll look into see if there are any modem handshaking settings.

[support]

@trust_in_wrt Sorry we missed your post. Do you still have the problem? Is your modem a cable modem?

[trust_in_wrt]

I tested powering down the modem and router several times today including disconnecting all their data connection cables as well. Power-up restored connectivity so things seem okay now. Yes, I use a cable modem — Motorola SurfBoard model SB6141. Are there any settings that I should adjust?

[support]

Cable modems tend to remember the MAC address of the last connected device and refuse to connect when a new MAC address is seen. If you configured the pcWRT router to use random MAC address for Internet, the router may lose Internet connection when it reboots.

[trust_in_wrt]

Thanks. Under Settings > Internet, the only field that is set is Protocol and it is set to DHCP client. Override MAC address is empty.

I just had another major reconnection outage. It occurred when I was testing using my iPhone as a hotspot. To do that, I had to turn off WiFi on the router on the 2.4 GHZ and 5 GHz bands. When I reenabled each band, it didn’t allow any traffic through. I power-cycled the cable modem, pcwrt router, PC dock, PC, etc. All LEDs on modem and PCWRT said there was internet, but my computers couldn’t connect by LAN or WiFi. Here is what ChatGPT said on analyzing some of the logs:

Key observations from your log:
1. WAN interface flapping (up/down repeatedly):
2. netifd: wan (…) udhcpc: started
3. udhcpc: sending discover
4. …
5. udhcpc: received SIGTERM
6. netifd: wan (…) Command failed: Permission denied
7. netifd: Interface ‘wan’ is now down
8. kern.info kernel: mt7530 … wan: Link is Down
o The WAN interface (wan) comes up (link detected, 1Gbps full duplex), but as soon as DHCP (udhcpc) tries to get an IP from your ISP, it gets terminated.
o This repeats in a loop: link up → DHCP discover → SIGTERM/Permission denied → link down.
9. LAN & WiFi are fine:
10. dnsmasq-dhcp … DHCPACK(eth-lan.10) 192.168.10.201 …
o Your LAN/WiFi clients are getting IP addresses from the router with no issue.
o So DHCP/DNS internally is working; the problem is only between router ↔ modem.
11. The critical error is:
12. netifd: wan (…) Command failed: Permission denied
o That’s unusual — it suggests either:
 A permissions/config error inside OpenWrt/pcWRT (netifd can’t control udhcpc correctly), or
 A firmware bug that kills the DHCP client process prematurely.
13. ISP DHCP not reached:
o I don’t see any successful DHCP offer from the ISP.
o Compare to when you plugged your laptop directly: it worked, so the ISP will issue an IP — but it may only allow one device at a time by MAC address.

I can send you a log separately if that would be helpful.

I plugged in my PC directly into the modem with Ethernet (bypassing pcwrt router) and the PC worked fine. I turned off the modem for a few hours. Then I powered up the modem, connected the router to the modem, and the PC to the router. All was okay.

Thoughts?

[support]

The router will try to restart the WAN interface when an IP address cannot be obtained from your ISP. That’s why you’re seeing the WAN down and up cycles. You might want to clone the MAC address from your PC to the “Override MAC address” field. See if that helps.

[trust_in_wrt]

Thank you. I’ve done that. Fingers crossed.

[Author]

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