I've been having this issue for a few days now. Roughly twice a day, for 10-15 mins, my internet just suddenly goes out without any warning. Then it comes back and is totally fine again. ISP says that there's nothing going on on their end (and most of the time when I have an internet outage they do say they're having an issue)

Is the router just fucked? Are there web goblins stealing my interwebs? Is there any way to tell?

  • kota [he/him]
    ·
    2 months ago

    Is it happening at consistent times? Also next time it goes out, see if you can plug an ethernet cable into the router and see if you're getting a connection over ethernet. Also is the connection like completely severed or just a very high rate of dropped packets / slowness?

    • booty [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      Is it happening at consistent times?

      Nope, the only consistent outage that gets me is the 1.5 min scheduled router reboot that happens on the same day at the same time every week, and i can only be like "lol my bad" when it interrupts something important because I should know better by now

      see if you can plug an ethernet cable into the router and see if you're getting a connection over ethernet

      all of this is occurring over ethernet, i guess i should've specified. but im not trying to game over wifi that sounds awful lol

      Also is the connection like completely severed or just a very high rate of dropped packets / slowness?

      yep, absolutely no internet connection on my computer or the other computer on the network (also connected via ethernet to the same router) for like 10-15 mins

      • kota [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Wow that is fucking bizarre.. this isn't using powerline networking (ethernet over your power system via little wall sockets) or anything like that is it?

        I'd definitely start with a factory reset of your router. Some routers have a little pin you need to hold down with a paper clip. With others you'll have to do it from their web interface...

        You can usually get to the web interface by entering your default gateway in a browser. Something like http://192.168.0.1 or http://10.0.0.1 are common. It might be written on the back of your router. You can also usually find your default gateway in your connected network settings pretty easily: on my android phone it's just called "Gateway".

        Once you're in the web interface you'll probably need to put in login info which is almost always written on your router. Then navigate that hellscape until you can do a factory reset.

        Also if you're in the US and have a router provided by one of the big ISPs like Comcast, Verizon, Frontier, etc you're almost certainly renting your router for like $10 a month from those bastards. So call them up and make them fix it or get you a new router if they can't figure it out. You might as well try this before spending money buying a router. I saw your other comment that you've actually bought this router yourself. Resetting it might be slightly more tricky since you might need to configure the modem settings a bit, but it's usually pretty easy. Probably worth looking up and downloading a pdf of the manual for your router before you reset it though in case you need to read it without internet.

        • kota [he/him]
          ·
          2 months ago

          If I had to take a wild shot in the dark my best guess is that your router's upstream connection settings are a bit messed up and whenever your ISP gives you a new ip dhcp is taking a long time for whatever reason. You could try to pay attention to if your outgoing ip changes whenever this happens https://www.showmyip.com/

          I guess also I'm assuming you're using a router with a built-in either cable or fiber modem? If you have a separate modem you might want to see about resetting it as well.