Some beta feedback. (Issues?)

[HeffeD]

Filip, I've just uploaded another log showing my phone disconnects. I've sent the MAC and IP addresses through PM.

Edit: And let me reiterate, that when not using the Omni, I don't see these disconnects.

Thanks!
-HeffeD

[Filip Havlicek]

Hi HeffeD,

OK, I did some investigation into the issue of the hub not being online for quite a long time after router reboot. What I know for sure is that the hub seems offline due to DNS resolving not working for it. It seems to me from the logs that you might be running your own DNS server on the Raspberry Pi? Are you sure that it works correctly for the hub? Do you have it properly configured on the router as well?

Maybe a quick test would be nice here - could you reconfigure your router to use some public DNS (8.8.8.8 for example) instead of your own and reboot your router to see if it helps with the issue? We are also making some changes on our side that might make the DNS resolving more resilient especially in non-standard cases, but it's not ready yet for you to test.

Regarding the device disconnects, I saw a potential cause in the first logs you sent as well, I forwared it to the team to investigate further.

Filip

[HeffeD]

Hi Filip, yes, I do run a DNS server on my network. I had mentioned this in my first reply to you.

-snip-
I do run a DNS server on my network. Is Omni also trying to act as a DNS server? Perhaps the two are fighting? I'll have to do some more tests.
-snip

I use the server for network-wide ad blocking. As for whether or not it works correctly for the hub, I couldn't say. I had been curious when I first received the unit if the hub would need to act as the DNS, which would make my ad-blocking system break. I was happy to see that it did not affect this. I had been assuming that the hub routes DNS lookups through my router., as all of my network devices do. Is this not the case?

Yes, my router is configured to use my Raspberry Pi for DNS lookups, the ad-blocking software on the Pi (Currently Adguard Home, but I've also used Pi-Hole...) is using Cloudflare for resolving DNS. The Pi has a static IP address.

I did just switch the DNS to my ISP's servers and did a reboot. The hub came back online within 10 seconds after the internet connection was restored. So the hub is definitely unhappy with resolving when my DNS settings are looking at my Pi. I'm curious as to why though, because none of the other networked devices have this issue after a reboot.

Thanks so much for looking into this. I really appreciate it!
-HeffeD

[Filip Havlicek]

Hi HeffeD,

sorry, missed (forgot) the DNS information from the original post. The hub is currently not happy with DNS servers that seem to work but are somewhat non-standard in their behavior, for example not returning by-the-book answers. We have a fix for that in the pipeline, I don't know when exactly that will be released to the external beta, I would be hoping it would be pushed out during next week, but no promises.

Regarding the devices being offline, I still didn't get the answer from the devs. It's a little bit weird that it only happens for WiFi devices. Are all of them running some kind of non-standard (meaning something you wouldn't generally expect like home automation) software or are some of the just plain usual devices everyone could have? (What I'm trying to figure out is if there might be some software on the devices that would generate non-standard traffic in terms of content or amount that might result in the device being blocked by the hub from time to time.)

Filip

[HeffeD]

Hi Filip,

I don't know what to say about the non-standard DNS behavior. The Adguard Home software handles that, so it must be doing something odd.

The devices that have the most disconnect issues are my phone, and two Logitech Harmony hubs. They are standard items that anyone can buy. My home automation software does poll these devices regularly to check whether or not they're online, but the devices themselves are running the stock software.

My phone does use an app called Owntracks to report its location to my home automation software. It only reports if I've moved 500 meters, so it doesn't report if I'm stationary.

Interestingly, I do have two Amazon Echo Dots that don't drop their connection. One of them is positioned less than 3 feet from one of the Harmony hubs, so I don't feel it's any sort of Wi-Fi interference, because you'd think the Harmony hub and Echo Dot would be dropping at the same time, but that isn't happening.

The Harmony hubs are odd though, because they tend to both drop at the same time. So it could be that they are trying to communicate with Logitech's servers, which is getting blocked or something? The drops are also inconsistent. I haven't seen them drop in the last 48 hours... Very strange!

Thanks!
-HeffeD

Edit: Typo.

[Filip Havlicek]

Hi HeffeD,

I have a hunch that some of your devices seeming disconnected occasionally might also be related to the AdGuard Home software you are running on the Pi. It seems to create a lot of DNS requests (and/or other connections) at certain times - hundreds in the matter of seconds - which results in Omni at least partially blocking the Pi until it "calms down" because that is definitely not a standard behavior. When in the "calm down" period DNS requests that are not cached on the Pi might not go through and time out/return an error potentially resulting in the devices seeming offline.

This is obviously just a theory, there might be a way how to verify it on your side, although I'm not sure how much configuration options the AdGuard Home has. I took a look at AdGuard DNS on GitHub and it seems to have a caching option in the plugin.cfg file here https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardDNS/blob/48a2aee015fd346fd683bd655860b60beff95b40/plugin.cfg#L32 If I understood correctly, commenting out the cache:cache line using # should disable caching. Not having the cache would result in DNS resolving being slower in general, but might also remove the issues you are having with the devices.

Again, most of what I wrote is just a theory, but if you would like to dig deeper into it, I'd say it's worth a shot.

Filip

EDIT: The other option, of course, would be to switch to your ISP's DNS on the router and keep it like that for a few days to see whether the disconnects will disappear or not. Not sure if that is something you'd want to go through, I guess you are using the AdGuard software for a reason

[HeffeD]

Hi Filip,

It's funny that you mention that, because I'd been thinking about what you said about the DNS not functioning normally, so I was going to switch back to Pi-Hole this morning and see what sort of effect that has on the disconnect issues.

I'll keep you posted!

Thanks!
-HeffeD

Edit: Well, Pi-Hole seems to behave better as far as DNS resolving and router reboots are concerned. After rebooting the router, the Omni hub comes back online within a few seconds after the internet connection is restored. I'll keep watching to see if there are changes to the disconnects.

[HeffeD]

Watching my connections all weekend, the only thing disconnecting is my phone.

[Filip Havlicek]

Hi,

and that phone is supposed to disconnect or not?

Do you see any change in the disconnect "pattern"?

Filip

[HeffeD]

Hi,

and that phone is supposed to disconnect or not?

Do you see any change in the disconnect "pattern"?

Filip

Hi Filip,

No, the phone isn't supposed to disconnect. When Omni isn't running, it only disconnects when I go out of Wi-Fi range. These disconnects negatively affect phone and home automation performance. Automations meant to trigger when my phone disconnects or reconnects to the network are completely broken. I've had to modify these to use my presence awareness triggers, but this isn't ideal in many situations.

I do have a threshold I can set to account for the 'normal' temporary disconnects that happen as a battery saving feature when the device is sleeping. It's normally set at 2 minutes, so my home automation software only recognizes a disconnect longer than two minutes. So technically, I could increase this threshold, but raising the threshold to deal with an 8 minute disconnect isn't very practical.

Anyway, the threshold is only a 'fix' as far as home automation is concerned. The fact that I'm getting disconnects negatively impacts data usage on my phone. As I have a metered mobile data plan, most of my data usage only occurs when I'm connected to Wi-Fi. (Weather updates, software updates, streaming, etc...) This is of course, negatively affected by the network disconnects.

No, I haven't been able to discern any patterns in the disconnects. It appears random to me.

Thanks!
-HeffeD

[HeffeD]

Hi Filip,

I guess the question I have would be, does Avast feel this is normal behavior?

Thanks!
-HeffeD

[Filip Havlicek]

Hi HeffeD,

sorry for not answering for so long, my work schedule has been irregular as of late due to some troubles in my personal life. I'll try to get someone else to look into this issue.

I don't think this should be happening, so definitely something worth looking into.

Filip