D-Link → DGL-4300 PPPoE connection dropping

Hi,

I've recently received my DGL -4300 but I seems to encountered frequent disconnection when I am using PPPoE and there is 2 computers on the network running Azureus. Below is a description of the problem I am facing.

I've got another D-link ADSL Router/Modem (604T) which I've set it to bridging. The problem is that when using DGL-4300 to use the modem as a PPPoE connection, the line keep disconnecting when there is 2 computers on the network running Azureus. I am suspecting that the line or router is crashing due to the number of simultaneous connection. When only 1 computer on the network is running Azureus, all seems to be fine. I've limit the Azureus connection to a maximum of 100 simultaneous connections for each of the computer (I've tried lower, but it still crashes the router).

Before using the other router as a bridging device, I've tried a double NAT setup which works perfectly well even when there is 2 Azureus running. Is there anyway to solve this problem other than running double NAT? I've flashed the firmware to 1.3 and also 1.2 to tried it out but to no avail. Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. I've spent 6 hours last night trying to solve this problem via numerous configurations in the router but to no avail.

I ran into a similar problem with Gamefuel turned on. I e-mailed D-Link and did eventually figure out a solution.

To prevent Gamefuel from getting overloaded, assign the ports for p2p traffic (to all addresses, ports 1-65535) to priority of 255. You'll have to play with it and check Active Sessions page to make sure it's working right. Or turn off Gamefuel.

As far as I can tell, there wasn't any speed loss, but you'll have to try it and see. Anyway, hope it helps.

I did set it to 255 before but reduce it in the end because it seems like my torrents were just crawling even though nobody was using the Internet. I would need to try it again when I get back home.

Thanks for the suggestion

Even the double NAT route will crash the router too. I am so fed up trying to get it to work. Nobody else experiencing the same problem?

I think you're going to have to take a different tactic entirely.

Between running torrents and two copies of Azureus, there probably isn't a consumer device with enough memory to handle the NAT tables and keep track of all of those connection statuses.

I would set it up this way:

[D604T-bridging?]--[Windows ICS]--[DGL-4300]-- (to LAN)

The D604T should be configured so that it gives a public IP address to the Windows ICS machine (which is going to be the router in this set up). This means that the Windows machine will need to be set up to handle the PPPoE tasks.

The Windows machine has to have two network cards and needs to be an OS capable to do Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). Then it can handle firewall and NAT and DHCP for your LAN network.

It connects to the DGL-4300 via a LAN port

The DGL-4300 will act as a wireless AP and switch instead of a router. So DHCP will be off and nothing will be plugged in to the WAN port.

WHY THIS WORKS, IF IT WORKS: The Windows ICS machine, as a system, has much more memory and a pagefile if needed. It should be able to handle many more connections than the SOHO router.

I've heard back from others who have set theirs up this way successfully for one reason or another. It works. However, I don't know how heavy they were into P2P.

I would assume that this would work but the purpose of me purchasing the router is due to the fact that it is suppose to do a much better job at QoS than the standard windows ICS. If I am not using the QoS portion of it, it is kinda pointless that I actually purchase the router in the first place.

Currently I am using the 604T as a modem/router and it has no problem handling 2 simultaneous Azureus at the same time and it is also true for my DSL504. In fact, I can allow for more simultaneous connections with those 2 routers than I can with the DGL-4300.

My only hope now is that Dlink release new firmware for the router or else it is going to be a very expensive white elephant in my room. =(

Thanks for the suggestion anyway. =)

I don't use PPPoE, but have you tried running a different program other than Azureus and see if it still does it?

This router is designed for giving QOS to games. But it still could be a bug, or something with Azureus itself causing your problem.

Maybe try one computer with Azureus and a different progam on the other computer.

I haven't try it but I am not sure if Azureus should be the one causing since I've no problem with 2 Azureus on a cheap router.

I might give it a try but it takes a long time just to test it and it is very frustrating for my housemate when I've to test it as it usually means they cannot play any game as they might be DC halfway.

Currently the router is just sitting in my cupboard gathering dust. =(

For BT downloading, I'm using BitComet.
I got the similar problem. After the program had run for a while, I would not be able to visit any website. But the interesting thing is that the BitComet still running perfectly, and still downloading.

From what you have posted, you own the Linksys WRT54G?

If anyone from Ubicom is reading this, please try to improve the StreamEngine/GameFuel code on the DGL-4300/4100 to handle more connections.

When there are too many connections, the router disconnects or resets. It has worked well for games and regular surfing, but it just can't handle heavy p2p traffic (or in combination).

Good idea, Joe. Perhaps you could tell them how to reproduce the problem -- which program and version and how is it configured (number of connections, any add-ins that would affect it).

I don't have your device, but the DI-5xx and DI-6xx have or had problems with eMule with KAD for a long time. But they had no problems with other programs that have hundreds of connections.

Good idea, none the less!

The DGL-4300 works great when Gamefuel is turned off. Much more stable than the first gen. Linksys that it replaced. But like escaflo said, why should I turn off Gamefuel when it's important feature.

Since I use Bitcomet and escaflo uses Azureus, I doubt it's client specific bug. Anyway, I've manually changed the uplink speed, and the lower I set it, the faster the router became overwhelmed.

Like I said before, I've been able to workaround the problem by lowering p2p traffic to lowest priority (255), but I'd rather Gamefuel took care of that dynamically.

What I think they didn't account for was just how many connections would/could be used. The trend of newer p2p clients (and Internet usage in general) is to use more and more connections, with new features like DHT that could open hundreds(?) of connections intermittently.

If Gamefuel was improved and jumbo frames support added, I'd recommend this thing to everyone and their dog. Here's to hoping for firmware v1.4. The wait is just murder....

Thanks for your support, funchords... but I wasn't seriously thinking anyone at Broadcom or D-Link would give a rat's a**.

So, what is the answer to this problem. I have this same issue and I am running only one computer on the router and one wireless. I don't do any p2p on this setup and don't have Azureus installed. I upgraded to firmware 1.3 and still the connection is dropping. I have noticed that it does this when it's idle. If I play a radio wave constantly then it does not drop. I am using the DGL-4300 with a bridge modem. The status of the router itself says connected but I have to reboot the router to have the internet go through. Help please. I am tired of having to reboot over and over all day long.

Ah... don't think we're talking about the same problem. Sorry, I'm a little confused. Are you talking a PPPoE type setup, or actually bridging between routers?

When using the T-series devices, they clearly come with preconfigured NAT session table sizes etc. It's not clear to me that this can be entirely bypassed by running them in bridge mode, since they're all based on the same TI AR7 communications processor running MontaVista embedded Linux. Even the DSL-300T modem is essentially a single port router.

You could try tweaking the default settings - find a Telnet script to do this here:
»www.expansys.com/forumth ··· an=D-LIN
Probably the most important setting is the ip_conntrack_max value.

Hope this helps

what version of azereus are you using? I recently had to dump azereus and i'm trying a new client..

I have a DI-624 that worked fine with azereus. Then all of a sudden it would just stop downloading.. the router doesn't reset or anything it's just that i could not connnect at all to any trackers...

i tried ABC and it works fine.. downloads more stable.. i haven't done anything other then DMZ my computer i'm not really that paranoid about security..

Azereus ver 2.3.0.0 was crap.. god.. it gave me 100% CPU usage..

Being a D-Link tech myself... i've given up on opening ports on my router... there's a 50/50 chance of the port opening and not opening... it's lame... done a lot of calls and when there's a "i need to open these ports" i just cross my fingers and hope it works... because 100% of the time there's nothing wrong with the customer and it's a lot of the time the router not opening ports / port forwarding properly.

try a different client and see if it works better.. azerues use to be good until it sucked alot of system resources.

"azerues use to be good until it sucked alot of system resources"
Errr - I think that was a Java runtime problem, rather than Azureus itself. It's resolved in later versions from Sun. Whatever, Azureus is very pretty

Works fine for me, although I can't pretend I'm a big user - that would be my teenage sons!

Kind regards

I just found this post using google and I am having the exact same problem. The router will just disconnect from my bridged modem (no double nat) whenever it gets the urge. Everything on the local network is usually available but the internet is down. There is nothing in the log and the status still says connected. Those symptoms are usually DNS related so it makes me wonder if the router is losing it's DNS settings but leaving the connection up. I don't know but it is very annoying when it happens four or five times per night. I spent the extra money for a "good" gaming router and it works like crap. I will probably call D-Link support and find out if there is a fix.

This router is NOT crap. Its te best dang router out there in my opinion.

Personally I get suspicious of the first time posters. There are people out there that do nothing but trash Dlink.

Common sense tells you to return the router if its giving you problems, instead of having it sitting in some closet in a pile like so many claim for a $180 router.

I never at any point say that the router itself is crap. I am just experiencing this problem and posted here asking for solution. I have used a lot of Dlink routers and Netgear routers before and I've always find that Dlink routers are better. I seriously hope that you don't judge people by just how many post they posted.

I would never ever shoot any company down for a bad product and instead, I would hope that the company improve from their bad product. I am now just hoping for a firmware that will actually allows me to use the router but if not, I will still use the router albeit not with my current house setup.

On a 2nd read, I hope that your post before that was not directed at me.

Sorry about that if I misread your post.

I too find the DGL-4300 'strange'. One day it worked great, the other day, my internet access was so slow or dropped for no reason. I could never figure out that the problem was from ISP, the router, the wireless, or my laptop, or whatever. I tried several times by replacing the 4300 with a $20 DLink 524, or a $200 Netgear, each and every time, all problems just disappeared.

So after 4 months and tried about everything I know, my DGL-4300 is unplugged.

I don't want to seem mean or offend anyone but I really think its a operator problem.

I have SBC DSL and have a grand fathered package of 6016/608kbps. I am using cayman 3546 in bridge mode connected to the 4300. I am using the latest version of Azureus and have my max global connections set at 1000. I have set per torrent connections to 500 and only run two torrents at a time running. Most torrents that I download have no where near 500 people connected to it. Even so just last night I download a file where I was connected to 230 seeds and 208 peers. Because I capped my max uploaded rate for the torrent to 30Kb/sec, I then went played some Battlefield 2 online without a problem. Almost two hours later the torrent was at 98% and I was still gaming online.

While the above isn't much help, I really don't think the router is the total problem. Something else I have noticed from reading other posts about issues with this router is it seem to be that a lot depends on your upload rate. I get the feeling the faster your upload rate the happier the router is.

A lot of people that are having connection/pings problems with this router also tend to have a slow upload rate (128-384kbps). Another note about gamefuel is don't let it auto detect your upload speed, set yourself.

You can be suspicious of first time posters if you want but I make my living as a systems administrator and I have used lots of routers in my home. I also install many of them for friends and family. I think you are correct about the router being the best. I researched it and chose this one for a reason. I spent the money for this router and it is giving me problems that I didn't have with my Netgear. Admittedly, the Netgear wasn't a gem (file sharing issues) but it didn't drop the internet on my PPPoE bridged Westell Modem. I don't think it is a hardware problem;it seems like firmware. It usually works for about an hour or two and then my desktop, laptop, and xbox (all wireless) suddenly can't reach the Internet. I simply log into the router, and select the option to reboot it. I bought it for Halo 2 on xbox because my wife is notorious for emailing /uploading pictures of the kids to the family right when the game is on the line! Now instead of lagging I simply get disconnected and lose the game anyway. The Gamefuel (QoS) technology works like a charm when the internet is accessible. It's all for entertainment and fun so I don't take it seriously, but I will contact D-Link to find out why it is doing it. If I get a resolution I will post it. I didn't say the router is crap, I said it is working like crap for me right now. There is a difference. I think it can be fixed; I just haven't put the time into it yet.

Jungle Animal, is the MTU set correctly? Maybe it isn't 1492. I've seen on a few occasions where the Windows TCP/IP stack eventually stops responding because the MTU was set too high.

Just a stab in the dark.

I have set all of my devices to 1492. The default in the DGL-4300 was 1500 so I set it back to 1492 as well. For some reason it has been working better lately. The past couple of days have been almost flawless. However, my brother came over yesterday and we had two xbox's on my connection and it was simply too slow. I placed a call to my cable provider and they will be installing a cable modem on Saturday. For about a week I will have both connections so I will do a lot of testing to see which connection has the best stability and bandwidth. I'm not as concerned with bandwidth as I am with upload latency so that is where I will spend my time testing. Here are the details: Centurytel DSL advertised: 1.5 meg down 256k up. Mediacom Cable advertised: 5 meg down 256 up. The xbox has a section that tests latency to the xbox live servers and it is usually about 72-85 milliseconds with DSL which is fairly slow for gaming. I would rather that be in the 30-50ms range, which is what other people get. I will also test both connections with my PC using dslreports and let you know what I get. The biggest issue is stability and I think cable is going to be my best bet. Even with perfect router function my DSL would loose synch quite often (There was lots of troubleshooting and cable pair switching by the phone company that helped but never completely fixed it). The main thing I wanted to point out is that I may not get an answer to my PPPoE problem because cable doesn't use PPPoE. I am switching for other reasons so my problem will probably go away as well.

Dragonfire, I was using the auto upload detection for a while. I have switched that setting back and forth a couple of times but I finally left it at a manual setting of 256k. However, even when I set it manually I see in the log of the router that it tests the connection and says the auto rate is 231k anyway. I don't know which number it is actually using but I do have it set manually and will leave it there because I have seen that suggestion from other sources as well. Thanks for the help.

I remember reading that dynamic fragmentation option can't be used with Xbox Live (but maybe that was with older firmware?).

I was just wondering if you ran a "ping -f -l 1464" to see your MTU was really 1492.

I didn't run that command but I will tonight. I tested the dynamic fragmentation on xbox live and I didn't have a problem connecting when it was turned on. I left it off because I had read the same thing but I still like to tinker and it did work. As part of my PPPoE troubleshooting I turned it off and haven't been using it. I might turn it back on in the future after everything is stable and see if it still works and if it helps latency.