ISP Disconnected issues and fix
Just wanted to put a post here in case it helps someone in the future. I was battling with ISP disconnected issues randomly throughout the day for last several weeks. I have a Firewalla Gold with Spectrum Internet. The same setup had been working fine for over 1 year. The disconnect issues started a few weeks/monthsago. I replaced all the cables. Spectrum came and re-terminated all the coax cables. They said all the wiring and signal were good. The cable modem was fine. They even swapped out and replaced the cable modem (EN2251) just in case. But the problem persisted. Finally, what fixed the issue was putting a switch between the cable modem and Firewalla Gold. (I don't remember which post but this was mentioned by someone in one of million posts I searched here and on Reddit.) Instead of connecting the Firewall Gold directly to the cable modem through an ethernet cable, I put in a 5 port Netgear switch between. Don't know what the exact root case is as the same setup was working fine before. Possibly firmware/software changes on Firewalla? Cable modem? BTW, a good free ping tool to help troubelshoot is called Pinginfoview. Hope this helps someone.
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Correction
I did talk to support, and almost all recent problems we see with spectrum modems is related to interface up/down (interface flap). And we do see a few cases where a switch will help.
This usually means the link flap is happening and is initiated by the spectrum modem. (software reset, reboot ... anything). When you put a switch in between firewalla will no longer see that link flap by the spectrum modem.
If your switch can log link flaps, you can probably see the flaps on the spectrum-connected ports.
The problem is really on the spectrum side, you can try get a new modem from a different brand to test.
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I was seeing the similar issue - also using Spectrum. I noticed the port on the modem i was having the issues with was a 2.5G port, I swapped out the modem to a 1G port and the issue seemed to go away. Not sure if it was a port negotiation issue between the 2.5G Modem port and the 1G Firewalla port? I didn't think to try a switch in between. I was even debating just upgrading to the Firewalla with the 2.5G ports, but wasn't quite ready to, as my service with Spectrum is only 1G. Not having the issue with the new modem.
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