DHCP causes Obi to go offline

[PaulG]

Hi,
I'm having an issue similar to this one:http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=334.0

I have an Obi202. My set up is TimeWarner cable modem connected to a Netgear WGR614v8 wireless router; the Obi202 is connected to the router via an ethernet cable out of the Obi's "Internet" port. I'm using GoogleVoice as my "service provider". Everything initially connects correctly and I'm able to make and receive calls using the Obi.

I've been debugging this issue across several days and I think I've narrowed it down to a DHCP issue. What happens is on when the DHCP lease issued by the Netgear expires, the Netgear log shows a DHCP IP being reissued to the Obi. At this point (or within 5 minutes of) the Obi shows status Offline in the web portal and I'm no longer able to make/receive calls.

The problem persists across the following configurations:
- Obi with static IP as assigned by the Netgear (I didn't configure the Obi settings to say "I'm using a static IP"...do I need to?)
- Obi in bridge mode with static IP as assigned by the Netgear.

I'm currently trying without the static IP to see what happens; though I have to wait 12 hours because that's how long the DHCP lease time is.

Some additional info:
When using a static IP, after the DHCP lease expires and the Obi goes offline, I can still get to the Obi via it's static IP. The Obi's SP1 Service Status shows: Backing Off (0s):TCP connection to 125.130.125.74 failed

Any advice?

Thanks!
Paul

[PaulG]

Follow up: this appears to be an ID10T error. I think I was setting up the static IP incorrectly because things appear to be working as expected with the Obi as a  DHCP client.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Paul

[pc44]

Hi Paul,

No inconvenience.  Glad you got the problem resolved!!

Thanks for the update,
pc44

[richard99]

I have same issue with OPi110, in Static IP mode it stays online (Status Grren) in Dashboard. Seems it is bug in firmware.

[JohnBowler]

The problem persists across the following configurations:
- Obi with static IP as assigned by the Netgear (I didn't configure the Obi settings to say "I'm using a static IP"...do I need to?)
- Obi in bridge mode with static IP as assigned by the Netgear.

If you have a working system with The 202 getting its address via DHCP and the netgear assigning the address to the 202 dynamically then you can change to using a fixed IP address simply by programming the netgear router (i.e. the DHCP server inside the router).  You do not and should not tell the 202 anything about this; it doesn't care.

Bridge mode only affects the communication between the two 202 ethernet ports.  If you don't have anything connected to the "LAN" port you can forget about it.  In your case you almost certainly don't want to connect anything to the LAN port; if you run out of ports on the netgear router go out and buy another switch, they're cheap.

I can't see any certain explanation for your original observations or for what might have caused things to start working again when you switched back to DHCP.  The only thing you might have done that would cause this is to set the 202 to use a static IP address and *fail* to set the gateway and DNS server to the IP of the netgear router, but I don't think you did that.

Rather more likely you had temporary connectivity issues with your SIP provider/GV, or possibly with Obitalk.  Such things can make debugging very difficult 

John Bowler <jbowler@acm.org>

[PaulG]

I can't see any certain explanation for your original observations or for what might have caused things to start working again when you switched back to DHCP.  The only thing you might have done that would cause this is to set the 202 to use a static IP address and *fail* to set the gateway and DNS server to the IP of the netgear router, but I don't think you did that.

Actually, I that's exactly what I did. It's been a while since I've done any new home networking (if it ain't broke don't break it, right?). I thought I remembered that the router just tells the device what the info is and the device can be ignorant of the rest. Thinking this through after my first post, I kinda figured it out; when the Obi survived the DHCP expiry I knew I'd done something wrong originally. Hence the ID10T error 

Thanks for all the replies.

Paul