Powerline Ethernet Troubleshooting
Mar. 29th, 2020 07:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenSo, there I was, internetting away (uploading revised images for my Semicolon art, because I'd gotten an idea for improvement while I was falling asleep last night and spent some time today making the new image and wanted to upload it ASAP) and my uploads were all failing with "unknown error" and the uploads would start, stop, reverse, start again...
Doing a ping on the local network was getting between 11% and 100% packet loss, and the indicator light on the closest PowerLine (ethernet over power) plug was flashing between green and red. Interestingly enough, checking with my phone showed that the wireless was working, even though the ethernet was flaky.
I hate messing with the ethernet-over-power devices, not because they are difficult to deal with, but because the location of my power sockets is difficult to access. It involves moving furniture and crawling around on my hands and knees, which my knees do not thank me for. And the reset button does different things depending on how long you depress it for (and which I have not memorised what the different things are), and one of the plugs, when it is plugged in, you can't see the lights at all because they are facing the floor, which means I have to grab a pocket mirror to see what it going on, which means I can't press the button and see what is going on at the same time (both hands will not reach the awkward position). Anyway...
My network setup is this: one plug in one corner of the lounge, connected to the NBN/Router; one plug in another corner of the lounge, connected to my graphics workstation-laptop, and one plug in my study, connected both to my server and my desktop. So I unplugged the graphics-workstation one first, re-plugged it, still flashing red/green. Unplugged the router one, re-plugged it, still flashing red/green. At suggestion of JB, unplugged the router again and waited longer than 30 seconds. Still no joy. Reset router plug to factory defaults, then paired it again with graphics-workstation plug. Both of them still flashing red/green.
Note that I had not unplugged the desktop-and-server one. This is where I was not-clever, not having done this. But I was reluctant because it is a pain rebooting the desktop and everything I may have been in the middle of. Whatever. So then I re-paired the desktop-and-server plug, and I noticed something while I was waiting. Its light was not flashing red/green. It was solid red. So I bit the bullet and unplugged that device. Waited 30 seconds, plugged it back in. Rebooted everything. Green light! Green lights everywhere! Problem solved!
So to cut a long story short, if you have ethernet-over-power and you have three devices, and two of them are flashing red/green and one is solid red, that means two of them are okay and the solid red one is the problem. Good to know. Hope I remember this for next time.
Doing a ping on the local network was getting between 11% and 100% packet loss, and the indicator light on the closest PowerLine (ethernet over power) plug was flashing between green and red. Interestingly enough, checking with my phone showed that the wireless was working, even though the ethernet was flaky.
I hate messing with the ethernet-over-power devices, not because they are difficult to deal with, but because the location of my power sockets is difficult to access. It involves moving furniture and crawling around on my hands and knees, which my knees do not thank me for. And the reset button does different things depending on how long you depress it for (and which I have not memorised what the different things are), and one of the plugs, when it is plugged in, you can't see the lights at all because they are facing the floor, which means I have to grab a pocket mirror to see what it going on, which means I can't press the button and see what is going on at the same time (both hands will not reach the awkward position). Anyway...
My network setup is this: one plug in one corner of the lounge, connected to the NBN/Router; one plug in another corner of the lounge, connected to my graphics workstation-laptop, and one plug in my study, connected both to my server and my desktop. So I unplugged the graphics-workstation one first, re-plugged it, still flashing red/green. Unplugged the router one, re-plugged it, still flashing red/green. At suggestion of JB, unplugged the router again and waited longer than 30 seconds. Still no joy. Reset router plug to factory defaults, then paired it again with graphics-workstation plug. Both of them still flashing red/green.
Note that I had not unplugged the desktop-and-server one. This is where I was not-clever, not having done this. But I was reluctant because it is a pain rebooting the desktop and everything I may have been in the middle of. Whatever. So then I re-paired the desktop-and-server plug, and I noticed something while I was waiting. Its light was not flashing red/green. It was solid red. So I bit the bullet and unplugged that device. Waited 30 seconds, plugged it back in. Rebooted everything. Green light! Green lights everywhere! Problem solved!
So to cut a long story short, if you have ethernet-over-power and you have three devices, and two of them are flashing red/green and one is solid red, that means two of them are okay and the solid red one is the problem. Good to know. Hope I remember this for next time.
