[TriLUG] Residential IPv4 address stability, etc. (AT&T vs. Google Fiber)

[Michael Marley via TriLUG]

The SB6183 (and other Broadcom-based modems) had another IPv6-related 
bug that caused them have rather high packet loss with IPv6 TCP 
connections.  Arris made a firmware fix for that pretty quickly, but it 
took TWC/Spectrum ages and ages to actually release it.  (Those modems 
don't allow for user-installed firmware.)  There was a workaround 
someone came up with though that stripped some kind of TCP option from 
the packets that made the problem go away, but it required compiling an 
out-of-tree kernel module.  I can't seem to find the source code for it 
anymore.

Michael

On 9/18/23 18:01, Alan Porter via TriLUG wrote:
>
>
>> Just leaving this here in case anyone else runs into this that's on a
>> Spectrum account (sadly, it's currently the only non-satellite option
>> in my neighborhood): if you're having problems with your Spectrum
>> connection, check your modem model number.
>> ...
>> If you check the model number on the bottom of the modem, you can
>> tell which one you have. The ES2251 and EN2251 are the ones based on
>> the Puma chipset, while the ET2251 and EU2251 models use Broadcom
>> chips.
>
>
> I had a problem that sounds a whole lot like this.  Mine was on an Arris
> modem, and my IPv4 was OK, but my IPv6 would run for 4.5 minutes and then
> stop.  It was maddening.  They replaced my modem with a new Arris SB6183,
> and it still had the problem.
>
> My "solution" was to run a cron job every two minutes that did `dhcpcd 
> -N`
> to renew DHCPv6 addresses.  That worked, and I ran it that way for 
> several
> months.
>
> Somewhere along the line, we got a new Spectrum EU2251 modem with the
> "good" chipset.
>
> I am so glad to hear that it's not just me that these mysterious
> hard-to-troubleshoot symptoms.
>
> Alan
>
>
>
>