App causing internet crash

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
G

gunnanator

Distinguished
Apr 14, 2011
12
0
18,520
So I have had bad internet for a long time. Finally got techs to come out after a couple months to rerun wires, basically redo our tap. Internet is working great until I notice something very strange.

As soon as a certain phone in our house connected to our wifi our internet would go out.

Now I'm not saying the wifi would crash, or the router couldn't be accessed. Wifi worked, connections were fine, no conflicting IPs. When this Galaxy S6 Edge connects and uses the Weather Channel App we lose internet. Like the router can stay on, everything connected... modem has to reset. I can still access the router page, and it shows it has internet, but we have to reset the modem. It completely crashes our internet. This seems to ONLY happen when this device connects and runs the Weather Channel App. I've never seen anything like it and I hate to admit but I do wifi/networking support and I'm completely stumped.

Internet 10000% perfect until my brother woke up and checked the weather on his phone. Crash immediately. Internet perfect ALL day until he comes home, connects and that Weather Channel App runs. Crash. I've tested it over and over. His phone can be connected but as soon as that app runs it'll be fine for about 30 seconds to maybe a minute and that internet goes down. Router doesn't have to be reset ever. Just the modem... and the modem doesn't indicate that it's offline from the lights or anything.


This is bizarre and I can't find anything online that seems to confirm my supsicions. Any input? Also to note this is on both 2.4ghz and 5ghz.

I'm going to edit in real quick that it's not a bandwidth issue. I can cap the speeds from any device, have 4 or 5 online at once stressing the internet and it's fine. No packet loss, no anything. This is literally only this app that seems to do it.
 
Solution
G


I think I got it figured out. So the App was taking a ton of data, draining his battery and causing havoc. I think the app was sending tons of requests which the router could handle just fine but the modem wasn't able to. The app was...
Sort by date Sort by votes
G

gunnanator

Distinguished
Apr 14, 2011
12
0
18,520


It's at this point not so much solving the problem but if it's actually an app causing full internet crash then I'd like to get it figured out to prevent the issue for other people.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
B

bill001g

Titan
Aug 9, 2012
28,372
2,770
125,640
First I will assume the modem is only a modem and not a router that has wifi of its own ?

Can you get into the logs on the modem. You should be able to access the modem though your router. There generally is a default management ip.

This is extremely strange because the modem does not even know that it is talking to a phone. It only sees the router wan ip and all traffic appears to come from there. The APP is just sending tcp data to some location on the internet. It really looks no different than traffic from a web browser. But the modem does not even care about ip addresses or port number or anything. It pretty much just take whatever it gets from the router and blindly sends it to the ISP device on the far end.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
G

gunnanator

Distinguished
Apr 14, 2011
12
0
18,520


That's why it's so strange. It's a surfboard modem (not a gateway) into a router. The modem logs are clean. This issue has literally only been reproduced by running that app and happens every time without fail. The internet goes down until the modem is reset and it runs perfect until that app is run. If the router resets the internet will not work. The modem has to be reset to fix the problem. My brother left for work and I have been downloading massive files since at full bandwidth without any hiccups. Not even the slightest issue.


Edit: so it looks like it's causing t3 timeouts. Yay.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
B

bill001g

Titan
Aug 9, 2012
28,372
2,770
125,640
Pretty much you only hope is a firmware upgrade on the modem.

Unfortunately most consumer routers and modems are extremely limited in their ability to track traffic flowing though them. You really need to be able to see the traffic that is cause the issue so the modem manufacture can correct it. Only way to really do this is to place a switch that has a feature called port mirroring between the router and the modem so you can capture all the data and see what is actually crashing the modem.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
G

gunnanator

Distinguished
Apr 14, 2011
12
0
18,520


I think I got it figured out. So the App was taking a ton of data, draining his battery and causing havoc. I think the app was sending tons of requests which the router could handle just fine but the modem wasn't able to. The app was bugged and just causing it to crash the modem. I went through the logs and before it was littered with MIMO which were the resets but I spotted a few T3 timeouts during those timeframes and I know T3 timeouts can be caused by high SNR and bad splitters/amps but this was during the exact time he was waking up and checking the weather on his phone.

I appreciate the input, crazy problem for sure. Getting rid of the App.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom