Hopper3 LAN issues with DHCP, APIPA, and Upper Ethernet Port

Ever since getting the Hopper3 over a year ago, I've put up with a periodic loss of connection to the internet. So this past weekend I did some troubleshooting and found out some interesting facts, at least for my setup.

I have a Hopper3 with a hardwired ethernet connection to my router and 1 Joey with a MoCA connection to the Hopper3.

The symptoms are: approximately 1 out of every 3 or 4 days, I find my Hopper with no internet connection. The Settings / Internet screen shows its not connected to my router nor internet.

The reason it's not connected is because the Hopper isn't successful in getting a valid address from my router / DHCP Server. So the Hopper is falling back to an APIPA address. (APIPA is an obscure standard for LAN devices to connect when there's no DHCP server. An address in the range 169.254.*.* is generated by the device). For whatever reason, the Hopper gives up on the DHCP server and uses this APIPA address which places the Hopper in its own little world with nobody on the LAN to talk to except the Joey.

I found that I can simulate this 3 or 4 day cycle by doing a "Reset Network". Every 3rd or 4th Reset, the Hopper decides to use an APIPA address. Sometimes it stays in this state for a couple of resets, but overall it fails to get a real DHCP address around 30% of the time.

I believe that when my Hopper does it's automatic "Daily Reset", it is cycling through this same pattern. When I'm off on a trip and try to use Dish Anywhere to access my home setup and it fails because my Hopper isn't connected, it will reconnect automagically in the next day or two.

Hopper Fix:
My Ethernet cable was plugged into the Upper ethernet port. I changed it to the lower port, and now every "Reset Network" command results in a valid DHCP-assigned IP address and a valid router / internet connection. (I did about 20 in a row).

The lower Ethernet port has a logical (Client) name of Hopper3-ETH0; the upper port is Hopper3-ETH1.

Are these ports supposed to be interchangable, and why are there two of them - maybe for use as a pass-thru for a second device in the area which needs a LAN connection? I don't think this is a hardware problem with my upper Ethernet port. The pattern is too predictable. I think it has something to do with the lower port having a lower logical Client name of -ETH0 than the upper -ETH1. Perhaps the firmware first tries to establish a connection in the sequence of the Client name interfaces, so when the first port it tries isn't the one being used, something times out or sets an error condition by mistake and it gums up the works for the valid port.

Joey Problem:
Although this fixed the APIPA problem for my Hopper, not so for the Joey. Every other time I did a "Reset Network" for the Joey, it generated a APIPA address. Worse yet, when it didn't use an APIPA address, it would hang on to an old DHCP address previously assigned by the DHCP server, even when the router / server had been reset and that was no longer it's assigned address!

I could eventually "force" the Joey's valid DHCP-assigned address through the Hopper and on to the Joey with a number of resets of both boxes, power-downs, cable unplugs etc. but these boxes should be robust and self-configuring!

Final Solution:
I set up fixed IP addresses for the devices. It turns out there are four MAC addresses in my setup:
Hopper3-br
Hopper3-ETH0 (lower port)
Hopper3-ETH1 (upper port which I'm no longer using)
Joey_MoCA
I defined the three that I'm using in my router's setup, and after a few "Reset Network"s on both the Hopper and Joey, unplugging and plugging network cables, both the Hopper and Joey consistently come back to their assigned fixed IP LAN addresses.

For my setup, it took both actions to fix the problem:
- Avoiding use of the Hopper's top Ethernet port
- Assigning fixed IP addresses

Meanwhile through all of these router resets, the other dozen connected devices (wireless and wired) in my home were perfectly happy having an IP address assigned to them by my DHCP server and running with it.


BTW, I thought I read in these forums that there was a "hidden" dialog / screen on the Hopper3 setup whereby you could assign a fixed IP address on the Hopper side. The fixed addresses I've assigned were done on the router side with the corresponding MAC addresses pointing to the Hopper's devices, which seems to be working OK.

 

Now that I understand the difference between the two, it turns out I mispoke. I'm also using DHCP Reservations in my router.

(Static IP is when you use the device, in this case the Hopper3, to set the IP address).

Thank you for the clarification!