Troubleshooting Guide
There are many components in a Broadlink Wireless connection. The main ones are the Computer, power inserter/supply, and the CPE on the roof. It's important to figure out where in this chain that the connection is failing. For the purposes of this document we will be working with a basic Broadlink Install. Routers, and Bridged connections are covered as part of the page on Bridging.
The first step is to find out if the problem is at your location, or if it's at the tower. The way to do this is to see if you can communicate to the CPE on the roof. Determine your gateway address using the "where's my IP Address sidebar".
Where's my IPAddress?PC/Windows
from the start menu, select "run" item and type command [return] You should get something like this:
Ethernet Adapter Local Area Connection:
IP Address 192.168.0.100
Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway 192.168.0.254
Linux in a Console, type /sbin/ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet
HWaddr 00:A0:CC:57:5C:E9
inet addr:192.168.1.116
Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
Your inet addr is your IP address. Your Gateway is exactly the same, except that it ends in ".254" instead of the ".116" in the example above. Mac OSXclick on the blue Apple menu in the upper left corner Select the Location item, and select the Network Preferences sub-item. This will open the Network window. In the Network window, Double-click on the "Built In Ethernet" item. The window contents will change. Click on the TCP/IP button to display your Mac's IP info. You should see an entry for IP Address, Subnet Mask, and Router. Router is the same as Gateway. |
If your Gateway address starts with 192, enter it into a web browser to display your internal CPE configuration page. If your gateway starts with 169, then there is a problem with the internal network. Go to the "Hardware Troubleshooting" portion of this page. If your gateway starts with a 209, or a 208, you are on a bridged connection. The Bridged Troubleshooting page has specifics on testing a Bridged connection.
Enter your Gateway address into the url field of your web browser and click return.If you cannot reach the CPE then the connection issue is on site.
If you can reach the CPE configuration page, your internal connection is working. Check to see if the external connection is working by clicking on the "Connection Status" link at the top of the CPE page. This will open a popup window with a number of items in a table.
If any of these items is RED or Yellow, there is connectivity problem between the rooftop unit and the tower. Please call Sonic Tech support to get a trouble ticket opened and have a Broadlink Tech begin repairs. Be sure to pass on the error info in the table to the Sonic Tech .
There are times when your browser will fail. This could be a memory issue on your computer, or you may have installed something that has messed up your browsers ability to connect to the internet. In the event that your web browser may be acting up, here is a way to test the connection to the CPE without a web browser.
First, you have to determine what your IP and gateway addresses are. These addresses are determined differently depending on what operating system your computer uses.
In most cases, Broadlink sets customer computers to use 192.168.0.254 for the gateway address. In some cases where the customer's internal network is already using the 192.168.0.x network, Broadlink uses 192.168.1.254 for the gateway. In Other cases, where the CPE is in Bridged Mode, you will get yet another address for your Gateway. The Sidebar, "Where's my IP Address" has the details of how to get your Gateway address.
On a Windows PC, ping your gateway, click on the Start button, and select the Run item. In the Run dialog box, type in the word "command" and press enter. When the black DOS window opens, type ping yourgateway. Fore example if your gateway is 192.168.0.254, you would type the following, and press enter:
ping 192.168.0.254
On a Mac running OS X, open a terminal window by launching the terminal program. Terminal is in the Applications/Utilities folder. As with Windows, type ping 192.168.0.254 (the gateway/router address) and look for lines containing the bytes, time in ms, and ttl info.
Pinging 192.168.0.254 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.0.254: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=62
Reply from 192.168.0.254: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=62
Reply from 192.168.0.254: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=62
Reply from 192.168.0.254: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=62
Then you are pinging your gateway address and your LAN connection is working.
Pinging 192.168.0.254 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Then you cannot ping your gateway, please refer to the Broadlink Getting Started Guide and make sure your computer's network settings are configured correctly.
Ok, so you can't talk to the CPE. Let's figure out why.
Look at the back of your computer. The CAT-5 Ethernet cable should be plugged into your network card, and it may have a green "link" light on it to show that it is passing data to your network. If the link light is not green, make sure that the computer is on and that the cable is plugged in properly.
If you have a link light, (some cards do not have them) and it is showing as connected, and you still cannot communicate with the CPE, the odds are that that the CPE has locked up for some reason.
Unplug the barrel connector at the power inserter, plug it back in, and wait 60 seconds. Check your IP settings. You may need to click on the "Repair connection" button in Windows, or the "Renew DHCP Lease" button in Mac OSX to get a new IP address. See "Getting Started" for more info on this.
If the computer establishes a new connection with the CPE, try the computer diagnostics elsewhere on this page to verify the connection is working.
If your link light randomly turns off , or you get a message every now and then saying the "connection has been lost", followed by "connection is now available", you probably have a loose connector, or the power inserter has bad solders.
Check each of the network cable terminators. If they are not seated snugly they can drop and re-establish connections randomly. Be sure to listen for a small click when plugging them in.
If all the cables are snug, then try gently wiggling the terminators at the power inserter. If your link light flashes as you do so, or the network connected/disconnected messages change, with your movements, the odds are that the solders have gone bad in the power inserter. Another way to test this is to put your ear against the inserter as you wiggle the connectors. A bad solder will cause a small audible sparking noise as the connections gap then touch. If you have a bad power inserter, contact us at Broadlink, and we will come out with a fresh one for free.
If your link light drops out and turns on in a regular countable fashion --It turns off, I count to 20, then its on for a few seconds, and it repeats, you probably have a bad power supply. As the CPE goes through it's boot cycle, it demands more and more power, until the supply cuts out. This causes the CPE to reboot, and repeat its boot process. If this is happening, the odds are good that your power inserter is uncomfortably hot to the touch. Unplug it, and call Broadlink to have a tech come out and replace it for free.
Finally, if all the components are working, cables can still die. If there is a cut in the cable, or it got crushed behind the furniture, or if the wire on the roof has just gotten old and sun damaged, the connection can fail randomly, or completely. Broadlink will come out and replace damaged or worn out cables without charge.
The CPE never really dies, but there are part that do go bad. We do not expect you to climb up to the roof and do anything with the CPE. If there is a problem that cannot be traced to any other bad components, then we'll replace parts in the CPE and get you up and running. Often times, it turns out that a particularly strong wind storm has realigned our antenna for us, or that years of service have caused cracking and water damage to an antenna.