Ethernet connection varies and disconnects, Flex please respond

K5ROX

I see other having same problem.
I ran a 6300 for years and was always full Ethernet signal.
Now have 6600 on same computer and signal varies often and sometimes gets 1 red bar and disconnects.
Tried replacing all cables and everything else, its not a RF issue, does when only receiving too.

Does the 6600 require more computer power then a 6300?

Ive tried no dax and seems to make no difference.

6600 on Win 7

Mark WS7M

You are not alone.  I see this on my 6600 but I also saw some of it on my 6500.

I think it is software related, not hardware personally.

K5ROX

Yes I too think its software because I can seemingly influence it simply by changing bands.

If it is software ill simply wait for next update.

K1UO Larry

My 6600 Ethernet status bars vary all over the place.  It is situated remotely with FTTH on both ends of the Link but I saw the same thing from full green bars to a single red bar even when it was here at home.   ll last evening it sat on 1 red bar but giving me no audio dropouts or packet losses but indicating longer latency times.  Instead of the normal 40ms it was reporting 190-200 range.
I never lost connection with the radio but its a little un-nerving when running 1500 watts remotely.  This status fluctuation is the same whether or not I am on SmartLink or a local VPN connection. Like others I have exchanged practically the entire station, including cables, routers, and radios, at both ends of the Link and there is NO difference I have made whatsoever to the Flex Ethernet  indicator.
Right now the Ethernet connection is indicating all green...  without doing a thing, and no-one or nothing else connected to the Routers on either end, it will soon be red or  yellow bars for a while.
Even had the ISP people monitoring their equipment for anomalies and so far no correlation is to be found.

Bill -VA3WTB

First off, none of the 6xxxx radios use much if any resources, mostly video.
What does the radio do when it disconnects, power light blinking?

K1UO Larry

The 6600 and even 6700 used nearly 6Mb uplink with a single slice/pan open without throttling the Pan settings.

Bill -VA3WTB

Yes the lan has high traffic. I was really talking about computer power, memory, CPU. Things like that,,the computer is just a dummy terminal. There is really hardly any processing. That is the nice thing about thin client.

Mark WS7M

SmartSDR just loses a connection to the radio.  It reconnects just fine.

Bill -VA3WTB

Mark, if you bypass your network and connect directly to the computer, does it still lose connection?

Mark WS7M

I will have to give that a try.  I will say for me that my new 6600 has only disconnected once.  I do see the wide variation of red to full bars but it usually continues to work.

My 6500 which I still have sometimes has remained connected to SSDR constantly for a week over the same network connections.

I will when I can find time run a direct connect and see what happens.

K5ROX

Mine has problem connected direct and same thru router, no difference that I can tell.

Bill -VA3WTB

Ok, I know Tim is likely busy and will say something here soon, It seems to me this has been reported and Flex has been testing to correct this. I am just not sure if I am talking about the same type problem...

Steve

I was out on the road running remote with smartlink  for a month and had problems with latency.  I get home and sitting in my recliner and still problems..****.  I am running a high performance laptop and I am 10 feet from a 5gig wireless router.  The radio is using a static IP and still problems.  My network indicator goes from green to stages of yellow to even red.  Smartlink has to potentially to be GREAT let us hope that
these issues get resolved soon.  VERY soon.   I know Flex is aware of the problem, however maybe they do not realize how many of us are affected by this.  Hopefully all concerned will open tickets about random packet sizes or fragmented packets as it relates to "Jumbo packets"

Bill -VA3WTB

Once it is reported, that's about all anyone can do. Having 10 or a 1000 people opening tickets wouldn't change anything at all.

Steve

Yes, that would be nice but in the real world that is not true....enough said

Jim Osterling

I'm new to flex. Have had my 6600 a couple of weeks and had ssdr repeatedly lose contact on the lan with only a couple of devices on it. I had purchased a wifi extender so put it in the shack (this is where the comcast modem/router is) and hooked the radio ethernet cable directly to it. This creates a subnet that only has the radio and my laptop on it. When looking up callsigns etc it then goes through the comcast unit to the web. 

Since doing this, I have had no problems with ssdr disconnects.

John-KC2QMA

I noticed that even though when I am connected directly to the radio (6600M) via Ethernet router the network status bars will sometimes turn yellow and go to 2 to 3 bars for a few seconds then go to full bars. No packets are lost and max RTT is only 150ms.

Another thing I noticed is when I connect over WIFI although I don't loose my connection with SmartSDR the network status will go from Red to Yellow to green and sometimes back to red.

When I was running my 6500 with version 1.x Never had any of these issues.

Just though I would share my experience.

Jon_KF2E

Mine never drops it's connection but it regularly goes from green to amber to red and back. I suspect the problem is being caused by latency taking place in the radio. It really shouldn't matter whether you are connected directly to the radio or through a gigabit switch. 

KA9CFD

You might try this to see if it helps maintain your ethernet connection.
For a Windows 10 computer, right click on the windows button at the bottom left of your computer and click on Device Manager. Look for Network adapters and right click on the device that controls your ethernet port. On my computer its Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller. Choose Properties in the pop up menu and select the Power Management tab. Uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power and click OK. 

73 Jay KA9CFD

Russ Miller

I have Google Fiber at my QTH with their network box, which is also a wireless router.    I noticed the same network traffic problems on my LAN with SSDR on my laptop.    The network latency was all over the place with frequent disconnects.    As an experiment I connected another router (a TP-Link router) I to the Google Fiber router and put by 6500 on that sub network.     

 In that configuration SSDR shows solid 5 green bars almost all the time.    This is not a perfect solution because I don't have SmartLink port forwarding set up right yet through the two routers.     However it does suggest to me that the TP-Link router is better able to handle the communication to the radio on my LAN.

Tim - W4TME

I have converted this topic to a support HelpDesk ticket (http://helpdesk.flexradio.com) for expedited issue resolution.  Please respond using the HelpDesk ticket for issue resolution.

Steve

Thanks to Tim..when I was on the road it was easy to attribute all of the problems to normal complications within the "cloud".  When I got home and sat in my chair on the LAN it became obvious that the problem is with Smarlink itself and perhaps made worse when it traversed the WAN.  Thanks for converting it all to a ticket.  HOPEFULLY it has full attention and will be resolved very soon

Steve

Oh, Tim, what is the ticket number???

Tim - W4TME

In general, these types of issues are usually traced down to network issues, either a bad cable, a consumer-based Ethernet switch/router that cannot handle packet streaming very well well.  If the connection between the client (SmartSDR for Windows) and the radio has a wireless component, then there are a whole other host of issues inherent with wireless networks streaming data that have to be investigated and addressed.

MarkN7MHB

I have the same issue after upgrading to .33
I have a fast switch with a fast backplane.
cables checks out on the tester we have at work.
did not have this problem with version .19
I never got disconnected but the signal strength would vary.

Jon_KF2E

Steve,

Perhaps you can report back to us on the outcome?

Bob G W1GLV

That's been a problem since day 1 for the Maestro. Waiting for a fix.

Jon_KF2E

I agree that a bad switch could cause latency or dropped packets. In my case at least I have experienced the issue with at least three different switches including a Dell managed switch. Cables usually work or don't. They generally can't increase latency.

Certainly there are times that a bad cable or switch is the problem but the frequency of issues seems to point to other issues as well.

Steve

Can the ticket be reviewed with the ticket number??  If so what is the number???

N7BCP

Temporary network conditions can cause the client and radio to drop the connection. I’d like to see them automatically try to reestablish the connection without user intervention. If I’m on a highly latent connection and I want to only receive, the choice to buffer the RX stream.

k3Tim

The Maestro + 6500 combo is working well at this station with latest s/w. A wireless connection is maintained for days on end with few dropped packets (0.02%). Overnight, the delay varies between 300mSec to 22mSec.