I have been seeing periodic drops in internet access from LAN connected devices lately (last 2 months), and I haven’t been able to figure about exactly what is going on. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern, and it resolves itself after a few hours.
- I can access the internet from my router
- All devices on LAN can reach each other, both wired and WiFi
- All devices on LAN can reach router, both wired and WiFi
- I haven’t changed anything in router settings
- I haven’t added new devices to my local network
- I can’t find any IP conflicts
- It’s a simple flat network with two APs, a single switch, no VLAN separation
You must log in or # to comment.
The basic workflow of network troubleshooting is:
- Check if it’s a DNS problem
- If not, check why it is a DNS problem anyway, but you failed to recognize it.
I mean, i have narrowed it down to some kind of DNS issue, I just don’t know what. Right now everything is working again (I haven’t changed anything), so I’ll have to keep looking next time it stops working. It’s just weird it works for days/weeks at a time, and then suddenly breaks for a few hours until it “magically” fixes it self again without me doing anything.
When this happens, can you ping something on the internet from LAN using ip address and not a dns name ?
If it works, it could be an issue on the dns side (not reachable or not answering)From my laptop I can ping outwards using IP, but not names (e.g. openwrt.org), but I can reach my DNS from my laptop
From my laptop I can ping outwards using IP, but not names (e.g. openwrt.org), but I can reach my DNS from my laptop
Okay, well, that’s a pretty good indication that marud’s guess is right and it’s DNS-related, if you can reach hosts by IP but not by name. Is the laptop Linux?
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, automates assignment of IPs when connecting to a network DNS Domain Name Service/System IP Internet Protocol SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access TCP Transmission Control Protocol, most often over IP
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 12 acronyms.
[Thread #209 for this comm, first seen 3rd Apr 2026, 07:40] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Lots of good suggestions here already but what is your upstream DNS provider and is it your ISP DNS from DHCP?
I’m not sure what you mean when you say that you’re seeing “periodic drops”. Like, you’re sending pings from a wired-LAN device to somewhere on the Internet and not getting a response? Inbound TCP connections from the Internet aren’t being forwarded to a device on the LAN?
Internet access from all devices in my house simply stops working entirely for a few hours, sometimes there’s weeks between this happening, sometimes only a few days. But when this happens, I can still reach internet from my router without issue.
Does restarting your router help in these moments? Might just be an underpowered router
Do your devices use the router’s DNS? If so is it still reachable? From the client? From the router machine?
Might be some kind of DHCP bug too but I’m not well versed in it
Restart doesn’t fix it unfortunately.
I am using my routers DNS, and it’s reachable from my laptop.
