Dish Says My Ethernet LAN is Down

[gswetsky]

Okay - 622 receiver connected to both my phone line and ethernet. I just downloaded a movie two days ago through my LAN to my 622 Home Theater. Now I go back to Home Theater and my receiver tells me it doesn't see the LAN.

I ran LAN Spy from the router end and it sees the 622 and gives me its MAC address. I can ping the 622. My internet works fine; so does my Ethernet webcam, which is right next to the 622 in the living room. Resetting the 622 doesn't help - neither does Dish tech support telling me to try things like a different CAT5e cable. By the way, my LAN is all CAT5 - no wireless.

I'm pretty computer savvy. I'm just wondering if anyone else has gone through this.

 

[mike123abc]

Check the IP address? Perhaps the DHCP address timed out and 2 devices now have the same IP address. You can set the timeout on the router up to as long as it will go, or if your router has the ability to assign IP addresses to MAC addresses it can avoid the issue.

 

[gswetsky]

Disconnected all CAT5 cables from my switch in the living room except for the 622. I power cycled the switch. Still doesn't work. My three computers in the computer room have fixed IP's nowhere near the DHCP range.

Can I assign a fixed IP to the 622?

 

[RTCDude]

Disconnected all CAT5 cables from my switch in the living room except for the 622. I power cycled the switch. Still doesn't work. My three computers in the computer room have fixed IP's nowhere near the DHCP range.

Can I assign a fixed IP to the 622?

Have you gone into the System Setup menu and reset the Broadband Connection? I find have to do this to force the receiver (in my case a 722) to get a DHCP address. The reciever doesn't seem to auto-detect a cable being pluged in.

 

[gswetsky]

Well, (and I suspected this would happen,) everything's okay now.

I checked just before I went to bed and it was still broke. Checked first thing this morning and it's fixed. My broadband is on 24/7. I did nothing to affect the system. However, Dish did their normal 3 a.m. routine.

Everyone who suspects this was another Dish faux pas raise their right hand. Wow, too many to count.

Thank for the suggestions, guys.

Gerry

 

[jpmarto]

{hand raised} You are not the Lone Ranger on this. My 622s do this all the time. I can see their MACs in the DHCP lease table, and I can ping them. The Broadband screen says "not connected". Really? They even see each other with Dishcomm.

 

[mike123abc]

So, I guess the fix is wait until the next day, or hold down the power button on the receiver for 10 seconds to force a reboot.

 

[gswetsky]

Reboot doesn't help. Also, tech support tells me they cannot reload the software. So the only solution is to wait.

Anyhow, tech support did call me back today as promised. He didn't argue when I blamed Dish for this whole thing.

In retrospect, when I originally connected the 622 to my LAN, I disconnected the phone line. After that, I would occasionally get messages when I first turned the receiver on telling me that "in order to avoid a surcharge, you should connect a phone line to your receiver." Tech support told me if I had an ethernet connection, I didn't need a phone line connected. I therefore concluded that Dish occasionally did not see my Ethernet. Anyhow, they never charged me the surcharge. My conclusion is that Dish has a software problem whereby they don't always see the Ethernet connection.

Gerry

 

[kb7oeb]

If you still have a phone line you can connect the phone and Ethernet at the same time.

 

[gswetsky]

True, however if Dish knew how to design systems, I wouldn't need the bloody phone line.

Gerry (WB9EBO/4)