DHCP intermittent 6300

Mark Erbaugh

A significant percentage of the time, when I first turn on the 12 V power to my Flex 6300 and then turn on the radio, it fails to get an IP address from my DHCP server. It comes up with an address in the 169.x.x.x range. The only way to recover appears to be turning off the 6300 and turning it back on without cycling the 12v power. A couple of times, I had to cycle the 6300 more than once. Once it gets an IP address, the address has been consistent (10.0.1.3) since the last time I cycled the power to my DHCP server.

My DHCP server is an Apple Time Capsule. None of the other computers on my network (Macs, PCs and my iPad) seem to have a problem with DHCP.

One other thing I notice is that sometimes even when it does get a good (10.0.1.3) address, the mask field is empty.

Once it gets a valid IP address, it hasn't lost it as long as I leave the 6300 powered on. At least once, I deliberately left the 12V power supply on, but turned off the 6300 and when I came back and turned on the 6300, the IP address had reset.

This is with SSDR 1.3.8.126.

73,
Mark

Mike va3mw

I have seen this problem a few times with the latest time happening just after a power cycle and I never go it back. So, I upgraded to 1.38, and that is when the problem got so bad that it took me 4 days to get it back up and running. Essentially I covered up the problem (worked around), but adding a 169.****.****.**** 2nd IP address to th e IP stack of the computer running SSDR. So, while I don't see it any more, I'm sure it still shows up from time to time. Flex says that it is a environment issue related to many things such as Firewall, etc., but in my case this is the only device I have a DHCP issue. If you can recreate this all the time, can you figure out how to use Wireshark to capture the packets? Mike va3mw

Tim - W4TME

Mark - this issue will need some investigation of the Ethernet packets during the DHCP negotiation process to determine what is going on your network.  

If you want to do this, Please submit a support ticket via our HelpDesk (http://helpdesk.flexradio.com) so we can assign you a case number.  For details on how to submit a HelpDesk support ticket, please refer to the following URL: http://helpdesk.flexradio.com/hc/en-us/articles/202118688-How-to-Submit-a-Request-for-Technical-Supp...   Once the support ticket is submitted, a support engineer will be in contact so we can work on the issue.  Make sure to include your radio's serial number.

Mike va3mw

HI ... I think I can recreate this at will, but not for some time. I'm up to my neck in a total repeater site (www.tfmcs.org) rebuild. If it still an issue in a week or so, let me know and I will dig into it. va3mw

George KF2T

I've noticed that it often helps to set a DHCP reservation for your Flex, so it's always at the same place on your network.