Orange light after power outage

echocymbal

Hello Community,

Our local power network has been subject to a number of outages recently (30+ in a month). Sometimes Fingbox recovers normally, once router/ISP back up. Other times it gets stuck on "Fingbox where are you?" on the app, and the box itself has a pulsing orange light.

Normally I have to resolve this by disconnecting power and ethernet cables from Fingbox. Router/ISP are Sky.

My expectation is that, once router/ISP back up, Fingbox should always work again.

Any suggestions on how to fix this problem?

Thanks.

Pooh

Hello @echocymbal, and welcome to the community!

Normally, yes that's exactly what you'd expect to happen. In fact that's always been the case for both my v1 and v2 Fingboxes (over here in Ohio we seem apparently have an unfeasibly large number of drivers driving into the poles that carry the power cables, thus resulting in a disproportionate amount of power outages ourselves, although nothing as awful as yours!).

What would be interesting would be to run a test where you disconnect the power to the router for 15 minutes (until you get the alert that the Fingbox is offline) then plug it back in. If that works, then pulling the power from the Fingbox then plugging it back in after the same time. These tests would go a way to help to see if the issue is with the router or Fingbox.

Pretty sure @kltaylor, @Marc, @Robin, @Hronos and others might have some good suggestions as well.

@VioletChepil this might need to be moved to the Fingbox category...

Marc

I wonder if it’s possible that the Fingbox is not getting an IP address via DHCP on those occasions where it stays orange?  If you have the capability to do so, increase the DHCP lease time of the router to perhaps a week to avoid losing the address on an extended outage and see if that helps.  Either way I would try the steps @Pooh mentioned as a way to recreate the issue for narrowing down the issue.  

VioletChepil

@echocymbal
Once the router is rebooted then the previous connection of Fingbox with router is broken. And only after a certain time interval it will try to make connection again. As the connection packets from previous connection are still alive then until those packets are expired, it will not try to make connection again. In that case, Fingbox also needs to be power cycled after a router reboot.

I would like you to follow these steps: 
1) Turn off the router/extenders and Fingbox 
2) Wait for a minute or two. 
3) Make the connection of Fingbox with the router directly if not done already. If you are using an extender/switch, then make the connection with it. 
4) Only Turn on the router and then wait for another minute or Two. 
5) Turn on the other network device like Switch/Extenders and then wait for a minute or two. 
6) Turn on the Fingbox and then re-install the Fing App after clearing up the cache as well. 
7) Sign in with the Fing App 

Let me know if that helps. 

kltaylor

Marc said:

I wonder if it’s possible that the Fingbox is not getting an IP address via DHCP on those occasions where it stays orange?  If you have the capability to do so, increase the DHCP lease time of the router to perhaps a week to avoid losing the address on an extended outage and see if that helps.  Either way I would try the steps @Pooh mentioned as a way to recreate the issue for narrowing down the issue.  

That's exactly what I was thinking, too.  Could be that issue on its own.
Once the issue has been re-created though, the one thing to help combat issues like that with power outages would be to implement a sturdy UPS to the network equipment.  You won't have internet, but you would still have router function and the devices connected to it as well.  Since the battery life is based on the 'load' that you put onto the UPS, having your network equipment alone on it could outlast the 15 minutes of power loss.
That, and solar panels

echocymbal

Hi all,
@Pooh @kltaylor @Marc @VioletChepil -thanks for your suggestions and sorry for the delay in replying.

First off, checking through the settings on my Sky Hub (router) I was unable to find a way to increase DHCP lease time. Looking at my laptop IP config details, I can see that the lease is indeed set to 24 hours. I wondered about reserving an address for Fingbox, such that it never expires. Do you think that this would help? Also, I am considering installing Pi-hole on an old Raspberry Pi, which has it's own DHCP server with configurable lease time.  Does anyone have any advice on this? 

@VioletChepil, I ran the tests as suggested and the Fingbox reconnected first time, no issues. Thanks also for the info about how Fingbox waits until reconnecting. Can you elaborate on "certain interval"? And if you were to advise a "recovery procedure" for me to follow after a short power-cut after router and Fingbox have both been powered off and Fingbox is displaying orange light, what would it be? Switch off Fingbox and leave off for 2 mins before powering on?

@Marc, agree that UPS would be good. I was thinking something like APC BE700G-UK...

Marc

@echocymbal , I've used an APC back-ups XS-1500 for years and it's been a reliable UPS.  I can't tell you how many times its kicked in to smooth out low and high voltage conditions...  Whatever you do, make sure it can handle what you attach to it for a reasonable amount of time.  Mine will run the router, wifi, switch and MAC for about an hour and 1/2, longer once the MAC auto shuts down...

kltaylor

Setting a static IP address, or even a DHCP reservation could help with this.  It sounds like your router has very limited capabilities though, so check on that and if it's available, then let's see if that resolves the issue.
APC UPS is always a good thing to have, especially the ones that allow you to communicate to it via USB and Parachute software.

Robin

Hi @echocymbal
For Orange led, Let me share some information: The orange LED indicates that the Fingbox is trying to connect to the Fing software servers.

If the Fingbox has been in the orange LED state for over 2 hours, please check that you have Universal Plug and Play [UPnP] or needed ports turned on in your router. After this is verified, please power cycle your Fingbox by unplugging and re-plugging the Fingbox. 

Normally, after an internet outage is over, Fingbox will try to reconnect to its cloud server after every 5-10 minutes. If the Fingbox gets stuck in loop or in previous connection then also, Fingbox will keep on sending the connection packets on the old connection instead of trying to create a new connection. In that case, we need to perform a power cycle so Fingbox can start a new connection with the router. The connection of Fingbox is done by the handshake method which you can search on google for in detail information.

Hronos

Reserving the IP on the DHCP table will sort of help, but even if you do that, the lease time persist, the difference is: the new IP will always be the same, but it will be re-negotiated every X time (the lease time).
I'm starting here a new threat with the scenario of DHCPless network.

VioletChepil

Let us know anything more you need. @echocymbal and if you feel is solved feel free to choose a BEST ANSWER. You can do this by selecting: Did this answer the question? Yes/No and you can choose as many as you like.
This lets others know we've come to a good resolution for you.