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LAN Not Working When Internet Service is Down

My internet service was dowm for about an hour. During that time, all 3 of my eero pro routers had red lights. I'm the eero app, e etthing showed as being offline with zero devices connected to the network. And that is what I don't understand. The Wi-Fi network should have still been functioning. But I couldn't print to my wireless printer. If this is true, why doesn't the LAN work just because the WAN is down? 

42 replies

    • cMoo92
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Back in August, eero's software update enabled LAN persistence to where the internal network would continue working even if the internet was down. So you shouldn't have been having any issues with your internal devices talking to each other. But during an internet outage, the app will show all the eeros as being offline and no devices connected because the app is getting it's info from eero's servers and since the internet is down, your gateway eero can't relay any information up to the servers. So that part is normal behavior.

    Were you trying to print from a computer or a mobile device (like a phone or tablet)? If it was a mobile device, that functionality might involve needing to route the print job through the internet in which case it would fail during an internet outage. But if it you were printing from a computer, that should've just been sending the job directly to the printer.

      • Mgreer316
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      cMoo92 The problem also existed with my Sonos devices. I wanted to play music stored on my computer (not streaming). But I couldn't even initiate the Sonos controller app as it said it was searching for my network. Now, Sonos has been playing games with their software upgrades so it wouldn't surprise me if their software is now requiring connectivity to the net. This did not use to be the case. 

      • cMoo92
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Mgreer316 Well that's weird then. I'd recommend reaching out to eero support to see if they can identify what the issue might be. It might help them fix a bug in the eero software.

      • Mgreer316
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      cMoo92 I did that initially. I submitted a support ticket. Waiting to hear back. 

      I've had the eero for 6 months and our internet service has been rock solid over that time period so I never had an issue before. 

      • Drew
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Thanks for reaching out Mgreer316, and sorry to hear about your issue here. LAN persistence is something we've worked hard to implement on eero, and we've even improved it further recently to allow the eero to maintain the LAN even after being rebooted. We're not aware of any issues with this feature in our newest firmware version, so we're definitely committed to getting this working for you. 

      I was able to find your ticket and one of our senior specialists will be following up with your further so we can get this resolved. Look for our email reply soon, and have a great weekend!

      Kindly,
      Drew, eero Community Team

      • Mgreer316
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      cMoo92 Tech support got back to and we figured out out happened.

      Apparently, if you lose internet service your LAN will still work. HOWEVER, if you power cycle the gateway eero, it can't go through its security protocols without a live internet connection and therefore, it won't boot up the LAN. Before I knew why my service wasn't working, I power cycled both my cable modem and gateway eero router (which is alqasys my first step in restoring functionality). From that point on a had no LAN until my internet service was restored so the eero could complete its security checks.

      While I understand the desire for the security checks, I recommended to the support rep that they give the admin the option of requiring the checks before the LAN boots up. It can be pretty critical to have a functioning LAN so I don't think eero should make the decision for me as to whether to allow LAN boot up without security checks. I should make that decision. 

      • cMoo92
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Mgreer316 as Drew said, another recent update was supposed to make it so that even after power cycling, the LAN would still work. So it sounds like the support agent didn’t know what they were talking about and that there is still some bugs with the way that works, or the agent knows there are bugs and didn’t bother to explain that part.

      Drew it sounds like the support agent that assisted needs to either be informed of the current functionality, or should have better explained that this should work but there’s a known issue (although based on your previous post, there aren’t any known issues).

      • Mgreer316
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      cMoo92 This is what was sent to me:

      "If eeros lose their connection to the internet, they will still provide a local WiFi (and Ethernet) network in your home. We understand that your local network is just as important as your internet connection. Just a question here, did you by chance power down your main eero after you noticed that the internet was offline? If you did, then that is what would've caused you to not be able to access the LAN during the internet outage.

      Some of these security protocols require the internet to get going, but don’t require the internet to continue functioning after they start up. What this means is if your gateway eero loses an internet connection and is rebooted or loses power for any reason, then it will not be able to utilize these security measures and will not restore the local network until internet is restored."

      • Drew
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      We'll absolutely look into that to make sure that all our specialists are on the same page so we don't have the same miscommunication again. Thanks again for reaching out Mgreer316 and please let me know if I can do anything else!

      Thanks for your insights and help as always, cMoo92 !!!

    • Mgreer316
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Well then, now I'm confused again. If the newest versions of firmware allow for LAN functionality even after power cycling the gateway router when the internet service is down, why couldn't I connect to my local devices? 

      • Drew
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Mgreer316 Your devices won't connect as long as the eero is powered down, but the eeros should rebuild LAN after a brief initialization period when power is restored, regardless of internet connectivity. If you were still seeing issues with LAN connectivity after the eeros had been powered on, then that's something we can definitely investigate. I apologize for the misunderstanding, and I'll have a specialist follow up with you further!

      Kindly,
      Drew, eero Community Team

      • Tylerb1
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Mgreer316 because Eero is literally the worst wireless networking device I’ve ever used  in my 20+ years as a networking professional. Should have gone with a networking name brand. 

    • Tylerb1
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Eero is literally the worst wireless networking device I’ve ever used  in my 20+ years as a networking professional. Should have gone with a networking name brand. 

      • cMoo92
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Tylerb1 what problems do you have and/or why do you feel eero is the worst? I have 15+ years of professional networking experience and I think eero is one of the best.

    • fede
    • 4 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    This is still happening to me with the latest 3.18.0 software. I have a server wired to the main eero router that’s also wired to my ISP router, and whenever internet is down, I can’t access my server in the LAN from wireless clients. 

    • fede
    • 4 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    This is still happening with the latest 3.18.1 update, and honestly, it's ridiculous to lose the LAN when there's no internet!!

    • fede
    • 4 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Did some more tests. I have 3 eeros pro in mesh. The gateway is plugged to the ISP router, and the eero network is in NAT mode. I have a server also wired to the eero gateway. When I switch off the ISP router, everything keeps working until the eeros turn their lights to red. Then, I can ping Wi-Fi connected devices, but the server wired to the eero I can't reach anymore in my LAN. And after I switched back on the ISP router, everything stopped for a minute or 2, even pings to other eeros or wi-fi devices, and then after internet access came back, all is working fine.

      • cMoo92
      • 4 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      fede I just had a 6 hour internet outage last week and I could still access my wired server from WiFi devices. The only difference from your setup is that my server is wired into a different eero—not the gateway one. I don’t see why that would make a difference, but I suppose it’s possible.

      • fede
      • 4 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      cMoo92 thanks! I’ll give that a try and try a few more tests. 

    • eeroRyan
    • 4 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I have two eero's, a pro and standard model. Both have a single ethernet cable connected to them and are in bridged mode. When my internet drops, they both start dropping their existing MAC address, and start broadcasting from a second MAC address and then bounce back and forth until the internet comes back online. When they drop their MAC and start advertising a new hardware address (even though only one port has an ethernet cable connected) all the connected wifi devices have issues talking to one another.

    I know this sounds weird, but I'm a bit anal about monitoring bits and pieces.

    • eeroRyan
    • 4 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    resubmit as other comment pending review: 

    I have two eero's, a pro and standard model. Both have a single ethernet cable connected to them and are in bridged mode. When my internet drops, they both start dropping their existing MAC address, and start broadcasting from a second MAC address and then bounce back and forth until the internet comes back online. When they drop their MAC and start advertising a new hardware address (even though only one port has an ethernet cable connected) all the connected wifi devices have issues talking to one another.

    • lstncybrspc
    • 4 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Having the same issue here. Connection at the cable modem goes down and everything was working, but as soon as the red light came on the eeros the LAN went down and I lost connections to local devices as well. When the internet came back up, LAN access was back online. I have 3 eero Pro devices. Some of the devices are hanging off of the eero via an ethernet cable connected to a 1Gb switch.

    • Trebu2020
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    This is still an issue, have a pro and beacon and once the red light goes on the eero doesn’t pass any wireless traffic. The eero is plugged into a switch which is trunked to another switch, then to another switch, then my firewall/modem, then ISP. Please fix ASAP! Wireless should still work even if my ISP is down. 

    • AngryPirate
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I have a case open, but what I would see would be my wirelessly connected devices would work fine if there was some flakiness between the Eero 5 pro gateway and the ISP (CAT 6 cable, modem, ISP issues).  The hardwired devices on my LAN would disappear or stop working after a time.
    The support person mentioned that Eero needs a connection to the internet to work properly and a bad cable, modem or ISP service could cause unreliable behavior.  Why it was only impacting the wired devices from my switch, he could not say.

    I am on my 3rd switch, new CAT 6 cable from the Eero 5 Pro gateway to the switch and I am on my 2nd Eero gateway.
    I just today replaced the CAT 6 cable from the modem to the Eero 5 pro gateway and so far, it seems to be holding onto the wired connections.

    This set up worked perfectly for 5 months and then it just started to fail.  The Eero 5 pro bundle was purchased June 2020 (6 Months old).

    I should be able to do everything on my LAN without an internet connection.  I should be able to unplug the cable from the modem and I should be able to access my wired NAS from my wirelessly connected desktop.

    This doesn't appear to be the case if the newly replaced CAT 6 cable from the modem corrects the problem.

    • jaygee
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    This is still a problem. I have two wired Eero Pros and one wireless Eero Pro. Our ISP went down and I couldn't access anything on the local network, including accessing my modem to check the status of my internet connection (the modem is at 192.168.0.1). The Eero app didn't show that the internet was down, in fact it wasn't even showing current state of anything on the network. After rebooting the gateway Eero, the app just reported everything down.

    What's the point of having an Internet section in the app that reports it as Online, if it can't report when it's offline?

    My Eero firmware version is 6.1.1

Content aside

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