Re: [LUG] Continual network problems on Fedora 31

Intermittent problems are the most annoying.

If this was just ethernet, I'd tell you to change cables.

if this was just wifi, I'd tell you "Meh, wireless drops sometimes"

But both is indicating it's not the initial connection that's at fault.

I'm assuming this isn't just an internet drop, although if you've overlooked that then the following may be a waste of time.

First thing is to identify whether it's a local problem between your computer and the first hop.

Find out the IP of your router (assuming it's the first routing layer between your PC and the world). Eg, 192.168.1.1 or whatever. Usually it would be the first entry in a traceroute;

traceroute www.google.com

Mine would be;

traceroute to www.google.com (172.217.20.132), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 10.1.0.200 (10.1.0.200) 0.368 ms 0.400 ms 0.385 ms
2 * * *
3 * * *

etc.

Entry 1 is my router.

Now we know that, set up a test. The simplest way is to ping it.

ping 10.1.0.200

(or whatever your router's IP is)

Every second, your computer will ping that and give results like;

64 bytes from 10.1.0.200: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=0.280 ms

Connection's good.

Now leave that running in a terminal until you experience one of your dropouts. Switch back to that terminal and see if you're able to reach that router.

If it's still pinging, then your computer and that first leg of networking is fine[1]. (Whether it's ethernet or wifi).

If it's not then, if you have another computer, try the same from them - maybe the router is overheating and rebooting. If your phone is on the wifi network, can that reach the internet? Ie - do everything you can think of to establish whether the issue is with your computer, or that router. (Including checking the router's uptime)

Also run another ping to the internet running at the same time. (google.com is fine, but anywhere you can expect to be up is just as fine).

[1] I've simplified this. Experienced folk will know that sometimes a machine can ping but be unresponsive in other ways, or there are weird layer x problems that affect larger packet sizes, or random interference from EMF/Radio/Sunspots can mess with networking... But staying off the edge cases for brevity.

On Sun, 31 Jan 2021 at 13:13, Sebastian <seabass@xxxxxx> wrote:

Dear all,

Last summer, my computer (running Fedora 31) started to drop the network
connection on occasions. Since then, that problem has become
progressively worse, happening multiple times every day whether using
Ethernet, wireless, or both at the same time. This has accounted for
much frustration, a number of hours of lost work, and a most humiliating
defeat whilst playing SuperTuxKart :(

I'm planning to install Hyperbola GNU/Linux on this machine soon; Fedora
31 is over a year old now, so the OS really ought to be updated anyway.
However, it seems a shame to wipe this installation before finding out
what this problem is caused by. Has anyone else had a similar issue?

Sometimes the connection is entirely dropped; at other times it appears
to be connected but every packet times-out. Usually I can run

`nmcli device enp3s0 connect` or `nmcli device wlp0s29f7u5 connect`

and it'll come back again within a minute or two. Sometimes, however,
this command fails or just never returns and I'm stuck without a
connection.

I am connecting to a BT Home Hub 3 router/switch, which uses DHCP for IP
address allocation. Yesterday I saw this message on a virtual terminal,
which referred to the wireless interface and which may or may not be
related to my problem:

"Error 7 - Class 3 frame received from nonassociated STA"

Any ideas would very much be appreciated.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Sebastian

--
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- Matrix: '@seabass:chat.weho.st'

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