Perhaps someone here might have a constructive suggestion. Below is a Obi support chat from today:
12:59:30 Erich: My obi202 is no longer acquiring an ip address. I've unplugged the power cord, waited several minutes, and plugged it back in, but the power light continues to blink green and the device report "IP address not available." I then changed the network cable between the TP-Link TD-8616 adsl2+ modem (not router), and still no IP Address. I then plugged my Netgear WNR3500L router directly into the modem, did an IP address release and renew on the router and it acquired a
71.105.xx.xxx address from the modem with full internet conductivity. I then plugged the Obi202 into the router, cycled the power, and it acquired a
192.168.xxx.xxx address and functioned normally. I then plugged the Obi202 back into the modem, power cycled the Obi202, and it again failed to acquire an IP address. I've repeated this several times with identical results. What am I doing wrong?
When the Obi202 is connected from the blue Obi202 port the the LAN port on the router, and the WAN port of the router is connected to the modem, the Obi202 acquires a local IP address from the router and functions correctly. When the Obi202 *blue* port is connected directly to the modem, with no router connected, the Obi202 fails to acquire an IP address, despite repeated power cycle reboots. It may be important to note that for many months up until yesterday this configuration was working correctly. However, the fact that the Obi202 *will* still acquire an IP address from a Netgear WNR3500L router when used as a DHCP test, but no longer from the modem it was working well with yesterday, has me baffled, especially when the router will happily acquire an IP address from the modem.
Per your suggestion of last hour, I've now unplugged the Obi202 power cord, power-cycled the modem, waited several minutes for the ADSL connection to establish, powered-up the Obi202, waited several minutes, and still the green power light blinks slowly and no IP address is acquired. I then tried the reverse, de-energized both modem and Obi202, powered-up the Obi202, waited for full boot-up, power-up the modem and waited for the ADSL connection, and still the Obi202's power light continued to blink. I then tried modem first again, de-energizing both modem and Obi202, booting the modem first to a solid ADSL connection, then the Obi202, and still the green power light blinks slowly. I then disconnected the ethernet cable from the blue Obi202 port and connected it to the WAN port of a Netgear WNR3500L router, did a did an IP address release and renew on the router and it again immediately acquired a
71.105.xx.xxx address from the modem with full internet conductivity. Again plugging an ethernet cable into the blue Obi202 port and the other end into a LAN port of the router and power-cycling the Obi202 resulted in the Obi202 properly acquiring an IP address in the
192.168.xxx.xxx range and functioning correctly. I continue to be baffled as to why the router will acquire an IP address from the modem, but not the Obi202. Your continued assistance will be appreciated.
13:00:59 OBi: i think your DSL modem might need a PPPoE login, and your router has been configured to have this login, correct?
13:01:31 OBi: If so, you need to enter the same info on the PPPoE connection on the OBi in order for the OBI to connect directly to the modem.
13:01:47 OBi: In any case, I think if your obi can happily connect via the router, why change it?
13:04:11 OBi: if you are concerned with choppy voice quality, i have made a pararmeter modification to make the voice quality better on your obi, please try it again
13:13:22 Erich: No. This is Verizon California, and they do not use PPPoE. No password is required and the test router does not have PPPoE configured. This Obi202 was working correctly in this configuration with this modem yesterday and for many months. It ceased functioning this morning without any intervention and the problem was discovered because phone service was interrupted. The QoS VOIP prioritization function of the Obi202 will be lost if it is plugged into the router. This system was configured and working without problem yesterday and for many months with the Obi202's blue port connected directly to the modem, and the router's WAN port connected to the Obi202's yellow LAN port. This way, the Obi202 has QoS priority over all other down-stream internet traffic of our network.
13:23:41 OBi: i dont know exactly the network that you are having.
13:24:10 OBi: however, like I said earlier, we have made a modification to your obi setting to allow the voice quality to be better.
13:24:25 OBi: you should not have to modify your existing network configuration
13:30:12 Erich: I only have a 1Mb/s connection down and .25Mb/s up, and I regularly swamp it, both up and down. When the connection is maxed-out, there's nothing you can do to provide, let alone improve voice service if the Obi202 is plugged in upstream of the traffic. The entire reason I purchased the Obi202 instead of the much cheaper Obi100 was to put it between the modem and the rest of the network. And again, it has been working fine in this position for many months up until this morning. Please assist me in finding and solving the problem rather than just offering a workaround which sacrifices both the value of the Obi202 verses the Obi100 and also my ability to utilize VOIP as a high-quality phone.
14:06:07 obihai: You can bring the OBi to a different network/Modem and observe if it is able to get an IP. If yes, your currently network might be the cause.
14:21:04 Erich: Thank you. You are right. It's time to eliminate the modem/ISP as the potential cause. Of course, the router is working with the modem, so we know the modem is working. And this modem was working with this Obi202 yesterday. But, just perhaps, Verizon could have made a network change that has caused this modem to stop working with the Obi202. I don't see how, and if it's the case, then you'll have a firmware update to write, but we do need to eliminate the possibility. Now to figure out how...
I guess I'd need to buy another modem for one test, and then I'd need to take the original modem to another ISP that doesn't use PPPoE. Neither is easy to do, and neither can be done today. Might you have any other suggestions to try first?
14:22:02 obihai: No
