help troubleshooting an intermittent network problem

bellamatt
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help troubleshooting an intermittent network problem

Postby bellamatt » Mon Aug 10, 2015 4:17 am

Hi, I've got a problem with my Amahi box that I am having trouble identifying. The symptom is that every so often (say every few days, sometimes a bit longer) the internet stops working for my connected machines. I use the Amahi DNS and DHCP server, and I think that the problem is somewhere in that lot.

My current solution is simple and effective - I just reboot the server when I lose internet connection. But I'd rather work out what's going wrong and solve it. Can someone please point me to the appropriate logs to review so that I can get to the bottom of this problem?

Here's a log extract that might be relevant... /var/log/messages is filled with nmbd and smbd error messages. Typical extract:

Code: Select all

Aug 10 13:07:07 localhost dnsmasq-dhcp[1558]: DHCPREQUEST(p5p1) 192.168.1.52 00:04:20:22:de:29 Aug 10 13:07:07 localhost dnsmasq-dhcp[1558]: DHCPACK(p5p1) 192.168.1.52 00:04:20:22:de:29 squeezeboxtouch Aug 10 13:07:07 localhost dnsmasq-dhcp[1558]: DHCPREQUEST(p5p1) 192.168.1.52 00:04:20:22:de:29 Aug 10 13:07:07 localhost dnsmasq-dhcp[1558]: DHCPACK(p5p1) 192.168.1.52 00:04:20:22:de:29 squeezeboxtouch Aug 10 13:07:45 localhost nmbd[997]: [2015/08/10 13:07:45.819182, 0] ../source3/nmbd/nmbd_browsesync.c:354(find_domain_master_name_query_fail) Aug 10 13:07:45 localhost nmbd[997]: find_domain_master_name_query_fail: Aug 10 13:07:45 localhost nmbd[997]: Unable to find the Domain Master Browser name WORKGROUP<1b> for the workgroup WORKGROUP. Aug 10 13:07:45 localhost nmbd[997]: Unable to sync browse lists in this workgroup. Aug 10 13:08:30 localhost kernel: [513606.695203] CIFS VFS: Server 127.0.0.1 has not responded in 120 seconds. Reconnecting... Aug 10 13:08:30 localhost smbd[13704]: [2015/08/10 13:08:30.448965, 0] ../source3/smbd/process.c:2655(keepalive_fn) Aug 10 13:08:30 localhost smbd[13704]: send_keepalive failed for client 0.0.0.0. Error Broken pipe - exiting
I have not been able to get to the network troubleshooter (the link from wiki seems dead?) but my network currently passes all the other steps (am able to ping hda/router/8.8.8.8/yahoo.com and access http://hda in a browser window). Sorry this post is vague, please let me know what I should do to narrow down the problem! I should note that I can't remember making any recent changes to the machine to cause this problem.

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bigfoot65
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Re: help troubleshooting an intermittent network problem

Postby bigfoot65 » Mon Aug 10, 2015 12:44 pm

The last time a user had such issues, it turned out to be a problem with the router/ISP. Have you checked both of those?

There have been no changes to Amahi 7 in quite a while. So if this was working correctly at one time, it's likely a problem external to the HDA.

EDIT: Do you have all the OS updates in place? If not, recommend as root user you do:

Code: Select all

yum update
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bellamatt
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Re: help troubleshooting an intermittent network problem

Postby bellamatt » Mon Aug 10, 2015 6:40 pm

Thanks for the reply Bigfoot. Yes everything is up to date, and no changes to my router or ISP. Since the problem always vanishes when I reboot the Amahi box I figured it must be something in the box itself. I will see if there is a firmware update for my router in case that's the prob.

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bigfoot65
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Re: help troubleshooting an intermittent network problem

Postby bigfoot65 » Tue Aug 11, 2015 9:37 am

It could be anything.

Could be a reboot gets a new DHCP lease. Maybe the lease time is too short and that's what's causing dropped connections.
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bellamatt
Posts: 57
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Re: help troubleshooting an intermittent network problem

Postby bellamatt » Mon Aug 24, 2015 4:00 pm

hmm. Still having troubles, have turned off the Amahi DHCP until I can get it sorted to maintain internet connectivity. I updated the firmware for router, bios and one of the hard drives in the Amahi box (it's installed on an SSD which needed an update apparently). The amahi box still drops out every now and then even on the router DHCP, so I don't think that it's a lease problem? Lease time is 86400s.

Do you think it's worth troubleshooting, or should I just reinstall? I don't mind digging through logs to find the problem but I don't know where to look for this one. Unfortunately everything seems to be working perfectly until, suddenly, it isn't!

bellamatt
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Re: help troubleshooting an intermittent network problem

Postby bellamatt » Mon Aug 24, 2015 4:08 pm

I'm thinking of installing the Amahi 8 alpha as an alternative to fixing this. How stable is it at the moment? As long as it runs plex and the squeezebox server I'll be happy.

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bigfoot65
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Re: help troubleshooting an intermittent network problem

Postby bigfoot65 » Mon Aug 24, 2015 4:27 pm

Plex not available yet for Amahi 8.

Amahi 8 is still in ALPHA testing.

BTW, your dropping of connectivity sounds like an internal problem or potentially an ISP problem. Have you checked to see if clients have similar issues. If so, then it would not make sense to reinstall Amahi.

The symptoms lead me to think maybe a bad network card or one about to quit. Could even be a drive issue with the network card.
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bellamatt
Posts: 57
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2011 5:38 am

Re: help troubleshooting an intermittent network problem

Postby bellamatt » Mon Aug 24, 2015 10:21 pm

OK I will wait for the beta at least before I upgrade. I don't think it is ISP related, as nothing else drops out if I switch to the router DHCP - seems it is the amahi box only. I havent changed the network card (or any other hardware) in the server box for a long time, but this gives me something to look into! Will keep digging.

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