My router looses network connection after a day or so

[tuti76]

Hello,

I have configured my Asus WL-520gU as an internet radio, and it is working like a charm.
However, when radio not played for a day or so, the router looses network/wireless connection and my MPC can't connect to it. After I physically unplug and plug power cord back in and the router reboots, everything is working fine again and my MPC connects to it just fine and radio plays as expected.
Any suggestions????????????????????

[mightyohm]

Have you tried connecting an ethernet cable to the router after it stops responding to see if it is crashing or just dropping off your wireless network?

[tuti76]

Yes, when I hard wire into it I am able to SSH into it.
It seems like it only looses wireless connectivity.
I just rebooted it and it is on my wireless again playing my radio stations.
STRANGE.

[mightyohm]

I wonder if the router's DHCP lease is expiring for some reason? Can you lengthen the time of the lease on your home network and see if that affects how long the router will sit on the network?

Also, if you keep a ping running on the router, does that keep the connection alive indefinitely?

[tuti76]

Do you mean start a ping from the Asus router and ping the main router at 192.168.0.1 ?

[mightyohm]

Yeah, try a "ping -f 192.168.0.1" from the WL-520gU.

You could try the other way around also, pinging the router from another machine on the network.

[tuti76]

No luck, ping was on the entire time. I just now started the MPC and it did not connect. So it took about 4 hours or less and it lost wireless again.
I'm running out of ideas and it's getting frustrating. It just sucks that I have to reboot each and every time I want to listen to it.

[mightyohm]

Sorry you are getting frustrated, but unfortunately some frustration is normal with hacks like this. It's rare for everything to just "work" on the 1st try.

Some troubleshooting advice:

Are the pings now timing out, or what? Did you keep a terminal open so you could see what was happening?

Is the wireless/air light on or off after the disconnect?

Are there any messages in dmesg that might provide clues about hardware problems?

What about ifconfig wl0? Anything interesting there? Does the router still have an IP address?

If you move the router closer to your home access point, does the problem go away?

[tuti76]

Don't be sorry it's not your fault and I really appreciate you trying to help me out on this.
I will keep a terminal open to see if pings are timing out.
As far as loosing the IP address, it does on the wireless, but when I plug into it, I can SSH into it using the static IP that I gave it.

Below is the ifconfig (when router is online) - why doesn't the wl0 have an IP? is that normal?

I will let you know tomorrow what happens with the ping (I'll leave it open for the night)

Also, moving it closer it wouldn't help. It is about 10 feet away right now, without any walls or obstacles.

root@OpenWrt:~# ifconfig
br-lan Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:8C:0B:24:3D
inet addr:192.168.0.110 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:72 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:6652 (6.4 KiB) TX bytes:4795 (4.6 KiB)

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:8C:0B:24:3D
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:69 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:14956 (14.6 KiB)
Interrupt:4

eth0.0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:8C:0B:24:3D
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:42 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:3362 (3.2 KiB)

eth0.1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:8C:0B:24:3D
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:28 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:11368 (11.1 KiB)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:93 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:93 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:5623 (5.4 KiB) TX bytes:5623 (5.4 KiB)

wl0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:8C:0B:24:3D
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:72 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:3238
TX packets:35 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:7660 (7.4 KiB) TX bytes:5704 (5.5 KiB)
Interrupt:2 Base address:0x5000

[tuti76]

Oh yeah, the AIR light stays on (solid), not blinking like when it's online.