How to Debug Issues on Netgear R7800

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hello all.

I am a newb when it comes to Openwrt. I have linux experience, can find my way around with a shell, but am simply not a router guru and do not know what a bulk of the extra features built into Openwrt do (except for the basics, like DHCP, port forwarding, SSID, etc).

That being said, I am intrigued by the platform and purchased my current router with the intent to run Openwrt on it...not sure how much truth there is to this statement, but I am slightly more inclined to trust an open platform over the standard router firmware. In any case, I have a Netgear R7800 (running Openwrt) and for the most part things work well.
However every now and then, devices connected to the router loose internet connection and a reboot of the router is the only way to fix the issue.

My question is, how would I go about troubleshooting this issue? are there logs or specific things to look for or messages I could post on this forum for help?

And advice would be appreciated, thank you!

2

You can always read the system and kernel logs from the web interface, before doing the reboot.

3

Ok, long story short. My problems have continued and I am not certain of the source. I thought it may be Openwrt so I switched back to the stock firmware. However, I continued to have issues connecting to the internet and so, I went back to Openwrt.

Last night my internet went down and, while I am unsure of the cause, Here are the symptoms I observed:

  1. Connection from wired and wireless devices to the router seemed stable and unaffected
  2. No client could access the internet (wired or wireless)
  3. I am not sure if the router could access the internet
  4. The modem LEDs indicated that internet status was up and OK
  5. Rebooting the router did not fix the issue
  6. Rebooting the modem fixed the issue

Here are a few more details about my setup.
Router: Netgear R7800
Firmware Version: OpenWrt 19.07-SNAPSHOT r11343-1b5a45a4a7 / LuCI openwrt-19.07 branch git-21.107.58152-c19c716
Kernel Version: 4.14.231
Hynman build: Build for Netgear R7800

I can post Kernel and other logs but I don't quite know what to look for...

Does anyone have any advice?

4

If you get problems both with OpenWrt and the OEM firmware, it sounds like sounds like faulty hardware.

5

@hnyman
Thank you very much for your time and reply! It is very possible that it is a hardware issue, but I am just not sure where to look to troubleshoot. I should also point out that the "problems" are as follows:
-Loss of internet access as I described above
-Occasional wifi drops (I am not sure if this is device specific or the router)
-Modem status LEDs dont seem to change, but I am not sure that means anything?

Do you have any advice on where I can look? Perhaps some way I can monitor connection status to the internet?

A big part of my inability to determine the root cause could come from the fact that I am still a newb when it comes to all the settings in Openwrt...there are quite a lot! I know enough to setup DHCP, forward ports, OpenVPN(for stock firmware), No-ip DNS, etc. but I have not done any QoS or what looks to be 90% of the other things in Openwrt.

Is there a log file, section, or errors I should look for?