Portal says ISY off line after new router install

[n4bos]

Upgraded from my old dlink DIR-880L to a tplink AC4000 (A20).   When I first did the switch over, (including port forwarding 2080 and 2043 and reserving the same address for the ISY) my Amazon Echo worked fine after configuring it on the new router with a new ssid but later in the evening, it stopped working.  I got an email from UDI that says "We are receiving requests from your Amazon Echo, however your account is not authorized to use the ISY XX.xx.x... In order to use your Echo with this ISY, please login to my.isy.io and make sure that this ISY is authorized in your account. You may have to go to the admin console, under configuration/portals, and click Approve."

When I go the the Admin console, under portal, all I see under "Portal Integration" is Offline and Registered.  I see no way to approve the ISY.

I am running 4.5.4 on the ISY because I have a number of remote devices like motion sensors and leak detectors and it sounded like the upgrade to the latest software was a bit problematic with a lot of remote devices and since it was working fine, I saw no reason to upgrade.  Could the 4.5.4 software be the reason my ISY is no longer "on line"?

By the way, I can reinstall the old router and instantly, the Echo works fine again.  The ISY works fine with local control as well.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by n4bos

[Michel Kohanim]

@n4bos,

https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=Main_Page#Changed_ISP.2FRouter_-_Can_no_longer_access_ISY

With kind regards,

Michel

[n4bos]

Hi Michel,

I appreciate your response ... as always!

I WAS using a static address so I removed that from the ISY setup and removed the port forwarding rules and IP reservation from the router.  I did see Disable Internet Access under File so I clicked that.  I rebooted the router and the ISY and when they came up, I had a new IP address for the ISY which was within the DHCP range (which I then reserved in the router).  I still get the message "ISY not online" when logging into https://my.isy.io/index.htm.  I then tried added the port forwarding rule for port 2443 using TCP only.  No joy.  Then added 2080 to the port forwarding.  Again, no joy.

When I log into the dashboard to check the security settings, (which are set correctly per the document you suggested) it says "on line"

The thing that puzzles me is that I can reinstall the old dlink router and the ISY is shown online and it works instantly so it would seem I'm missing some simple setting but I have no idea what it is.  By the way, when I previously had the static address and port forwarding configured in the new router, both port 2443 and 2080 showed as open with a port check tool.   I do have another device (Tablo) that won't work remotely with this router either (but works perfectly with the old dlink) so I'm thinking of sending this one back and getting another brand but I'd like to understand why this one doesn't work.  If I get another brand, I don't know where to turn as this was a top rated router.

Have I misunderstood your suggestions or missed anything?

 

Thanks for the help!

Steve

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Steve,

You should not do any port forwarding as it causes interference with everything else. What you need to look at is your error log to see why ISY cannot connect to ISY Portal.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[n4bos]

Hi Michel,

I originally set up port forwarding several years ago when I set up my ISY for remote access.  I use "Simple Home Controller" on my Android phone and if I disable the port forwarding, I can't access the ISY with the app when not on my local network.  It still works fine locally but port forwarding is required to access remotely.

I started using the portal a couple of years ago when I installed some Amazon Echos in the house.  I have had port forwarding (2443 and 2080) as well as a static address set all along and it has worked well, both for remote access and with the Echo. 

Here's a sample of the error log when using the new Archer router...

Sun 2021/03/07 01:08:10 PM    System    -170001    [Network-DNS][Task=22] Failed DNS 102/rc=6    
Sun 2021/03/07 01:08:10 PM    System    -140000    my.isy.io    
Sun 2021/03/07 01:08:45 PM    System    -170001    [Network-DNS][Task=22] Failed DNS 103/rc=6    
Sun 2021/03/07 01:08:45 PM    System    -140000    my.isy.io    
Sun 2021/03/07 01:09:20 PM    System    -170001    [Network-DNS][Task=22] Failed DNS 104/rc=6    
Sun 2021/03/07 01:09:20 PM    System    -140000    my.isy.io    
Sun 2021/03/07 01:09:55 PM    System    -170001    [Network-DNS][Task=22] Failed DNS 105/rc=6  

And here's the log with the old dlink....

Sun 2021/03/07 01:21:56 PM    System    -100    [DHCP] state=RENEW    
Sun 2021/03/07 01:22:01 PM    System    -100    [DHCP] state=RENEW    
Sun 2021/03/07 01:22:06 PM    System    -100    [DHCP] state=RENEW    
Sun 2021/03/07 01:22:11 PM    System    -100    [DHCP] state=RENEW    
Sun 2021/03/07 01:22:16 PM    System    -100    [DHCP] state=RENEW    
Sun 2021/03/07 01:22:21 PM    System    -100    [DHCP] state=RENEW    

It would appear to be a DNS problem but beyond that, I'm at a loss what to do to correct.

Addition.... I also tried putting the ISY in the DMZ and it still wouldn't work with the Archer modem.

Again, many thanks for the help and suggestions.

 

Steve

 

 

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by n4bos

[n4bos]

Michel,

I'm still stumped.  I reset the router and stared all over again.  I have no port forwarding now.  I changed the network settings to DHCP and rebooted and still can't connect to the portal.  I then gave the ISY a reserved address in the router and assigned the other settings as shown in the attached screen shot.  Still no connection.  I'm sure I'm doing something wrong but I sure don't see it.  Any idea what I'm doing wrong?  The error log shows:

Thu 2021/03/18 07:05:46 PM    System    -140000    my.isy.io    
Thu 2021/03/18 07:05:51 PM    System    -170001    [Network-DNS][Task=20] Failed DNS 29/rc=6

Thanks for any help you might offer....

Steve

 

 

[mango]

Your HTTP and HTTPS ports should be 80 and 443 respectively.

Also, change DNS to 8.8.8.8 (although 8.8.4.4 should also work)

[n4bos]

Hi Mango and thanks for the reply.

 

I changed the ports to 80 and 443 respectively and the DNS to 8.8.8.8

Still no connection.....

The odd thing is I can reinstall my old router and it connects instantly so I'm puzzled!

 

Steve

[mango]

Have you tried setting it to DHCP to test?

[n4bos]

Yes, still won't connect.....

 

 

[mango]

The tplink AC4000 looks like a beast, wow. I can only assume the new router is doing some sort of blocking of the ISY from LAN to the WAN, as internally on your LAN it appears to be working properly. I would check there, maybe even open up a DMZ to test.

Edited March 19, 2021 by mango

[n4bos]

I agree but I can't imagine the ISY won't work with that router.  If that turns out to be the case, it'll go back because I use the iSY a LOT around here so I'm lost without it.

Thanks for your suggestions.

 

Steve

[mango]

Turning on UPNP on both the ISY and the router may also glean some more gold.

[n4bos]

That's a thought.  I'll give that a try....

 

Steve

[n4bos]

Well, no joy.  Still get this for the error log...

Thu 2021/03/18 08:07:19 PM    System    -140000    my.isy.io    
Thu 2021/03/18 08:07:24 PM    System    -170001    [Network-DNS][Task=19] Failed DNS 16/rc=6

[mango]

I'm out of gas, sorry. Re-reading your OP, you say an Echo also stopped working? Then you may have to investigate the router in depth.

[n4bos]

The Echo stopped working because it needs the portal to communicate and since the ISY won't connect to the portal, the Echo doesn't work.  Actually, I DID get it to connect to the portal by deleting the ISY from the router completely and rebooting the ISY in DHCP mode.  That worked until I tried to reserve the new IP address in the router.  That stopped it from connecting again.  Their HAS to be a way to make it reliably connect but so far, I haven't found it.

[n4bos]

Well, here's what it took to make it work.  Why?  I have no idea!

I had to go into the router and set the DHCP range OUTSIDE the assigned IP address for the ISY so that the router assigned a NEW address within the new DHCP range.  Then I set the ISY to DHCP only, no UPNP and rebooted the ISY.  When it came up, it was connected to the portal.  Interestingly, when I look at the portal it only shows it as "Online".  The other information that used to be there about active services was missing.

With that, I did it all again except I turned ON UPNP in the ISY ... it's OFF in the router.  Now when it came up, it's connected to the portal and all the information is there about active services.

 

Now I reserved the assigned address because I need it to be reserved so my remote access app will work.

There has to be a simple explanation for this behavior in this router but I don't know what it is.  Now I'll wait until the DHCP lease runs out and see if it still works.  Fingers crossed.

 

[n4bos]

Further update....

This morning, the ISY is again, disconnected from the portal.  I suspect there is an issue in the router and have written to tplink with the information.   At this point, I have spent WAY too much time trying to get the router to work.  If they don't have a solution, I will abandon the A20 router and find another brand/model that WILL work.

[larryllix]

1 hour ago, n4bos said:

Further update....

This morning, the ISY is again, disconnected from the portal.  I suspect there is an issue in the router and have written to tplink with the information.   At this point, I have spent WAY too much time trying to get the router to work.  If they don't have a solution, I will abandon the A20 router and find another brand/model that WILL work.

Try setting the ISY DNS to your router and let it figure it out 192.168.0.1. I suspect 8.8.8.8 (Google) doesn't know what your internal LAN layout looks like.

[n4bos]

Not quite sure what you mean...  If I set the ISY to not use DHCP, then set the IP address to 192.168.0.50 for example, then the subnet mask to the router's 255.255.255.0, then the gateway to the router's IP of 192.168.0.1, are you saying to leave the DNS blank?

[Michel Kohanim]

@n4bos,

What does this mean "I had to go into the router and set the DHCP range OUTSIDE the assigned IP address for the ISY so that the router assigned a NEW address within the new DHCP range"? Or, better yet, this is what MUST be done regardless. Actually, the static IP address should be OUTSIDE of DHCP range. Or, maybe I am not understanding what you are saying.

Also, if you want static IP addresses, it's best to use DHCP reservation rather than assigning static IP to ISY. And, finally, make sure you are not port forwarding UDP packets.

With kind regards,
Michel

[mango]

@all

 

For me, hearing the issue seems to return after a random tweak makes it work indicates a faulty router. 2c.

It should just work out of the box, ISY networking set to default and being DHCP, static or DHCP assigned.

[MrBill]

@n4bos  FWIW, when I was initially trying to convert to a dual WAN router I started with a TP-LINK model (different than what you have), I wasn't having trouble with ISY traffic being blocked but instead it was RDP protocol traffic on Port 3389.  At that time (4 years ago) I used it extensively to control the music library in the house.... since then, well now we just say "Alexa...."  This was all local network, nothing from the outside, I just couldn't use devices that contacted a specific windows device on port 3389 when the TP-link router was hooked up.

I did ALOT of back and forth with TP-link support over 30 days (several emails a day), they kept accusing me of having wrong settings in devices despite the fact i sent them many registry dumps and screenshots. They would have me try this or that, most of which I would do, and reverse back when it failed. Sometimes they would have me try "A" on Monday, and be back to telling me to try "A" again on Thursday.   I kept saying over and over, "BUT as soon as I switch back to my old router it works" to which they once actually answered "you (me) have absolutely no idea what you are doing do you? why would you use your old router to test this?"  In turn, I kept asking if they had set this up on the same hardware in their lab, to which they once actually admitted they didn't, that they used simulators for testing.

Anyway to shorten a longer story, on the 28th day I boxed the router back up and returned it to Amazon before the return window closed.  I told TP-link to close the case, about 3 weeks later they emailed again wanting me to test something, I wrote back again please close case, that I had returned the router to the vendor. they contacted me several more times over a few years, each time I told them the case should be closed, and I no longer owned the router.  Finally I did get an email about 2 years after the fact that said "we have duplicated these conditions in the lab and will be updating the firmware" 2 months after that they emailed again to say the firmware had just been released but that if it didn't resolve the problem to contact them for a hardware replacement that firmware could not resolve the issue in all cases.

That was the second Tp-link product I had tried in many years, the first was junk as well although I didn't return it.   I know many people swear by tp-link products for price, but I sure didn't experience support with their networking products.   I will never buy tp-link networking anything again.....

On the other hand, I have bought a total of 12 tp-link HS103 smart plugs and they work great. 

The Moral of the story: I think you have a router that drops these packets for whatever reason and it's not your or UDI's fault it's tp-crap.

 

-----

related: I agree with Michel and others above.... to give the ISY a specific IP address, use an Address Reservation in the router and simply leave the ISY set to DHCP, don't change ISY network settings.  The router then hands out the same IP address each time based on the MAC address of the device.   What doesn't hold true across all router manufactures is whether that address should be inside the DHCP pool, or outside it, or in some cases it doesn't matter.   I've seen routers error when it's inside the pool, forcing the assigned address to be outside the pool.  I've seen the opposite as well, although less frequently.  Then finally the Ubiquiti Edgemax series truly doesn't care, the address can be any on the same logical network and the DHCP server doesn't care if it's inside or outside the DHCP pool, however other ubiquiti product do care...lol

[n4bos]

Michel et al,

I'll try to be more specific.  First, port forwarding is NOT being used now.  The situation I am seeing is; I originally set up a reserved address just as with the dlink router.... 192.168.0.50.  This is outside the DHCP range of .100-.199.  When that didn't work, I changed the ISY to DHCP and let it set an address inside the DHCP range.  It set .112.  It still would not connect so I tried turning ON UPNP in the ISY as well.  Still wouldn't connect.  With that, I thought I would try to get it to assign another NEW IP address since I had been playing with DHCP and UPNP in the ISY.  I'm guessing that since the MAC address was in the router, it insisted in assigning the .112 address every time.  With that, I turned off UPNP in the ISY and changed the DHCP range in the router to .115-.199.  It then assigned a new address that being .120 and now the ISY connected with the portal and everything worked but if I looked at the Configuration/Portal tab, it showed the ISY as "Online" but no other data like the "Active Services".  With that, I wondered if the UPNP not being on in the ISY might have an effect so I turned it on and when the ISY rebooted, it was again "Offfline".

Since I was beginning to understand this game, I now changed the DHCP range in the router to be .100-.110.  When I rebooted the ISY with both DHCP and UPNP on in the ISY, it came up as .101 and was "Online" and the "Active Services" showed up as well.  I then went in and reserved the .101 address in the router and all was good.  This morning, it was again "Offline", I suspect because the DHCP lease time had expired and when it renewed, once again the "problem", whatever it is, happened.  Does that make more sense???

Since it works fine with the dlink router, I really don't think it's a problem with the ISY.  I believe it's an issue with the tplink router and based on the above comments related to another tplink router, I think this one is going back.  I believe I have spent way too much time trying to address what I believe to be a tplink problem.

The whole reason I started this was my old dlink was running out of steam what with all the Insteon stuff, tplink wifi switches and the other normal stuff.  I looked for a router that was advertised to be able to handle 40+ devices.  If this one gets returned, does anyone have a recommendation for a tried and true unit that will handle that many devices?

 

Steve