WNDR4500 only allowing WOL once

[themgnt]

Please feel free to skip the first paragraph as it's only purpose is to illustrate my current frustration and to make me feel better.

After my trusty Linksys WRT54G became not so trusty I picked up the 4500. I use WOL on a daily basis and after having some troubles getting it to work I did some research and the initial impression was this router did not support it. I waited for DD-WRT to release a firmware but it's not coming any time soon. A few months later I searched again and discovered it WAS possible, I had just made an error in my config somewhere. I got it working but only for a day, after that my PC refused to wake from sleep, instead it rebooted. After three weeks of trying to resolve that issue it resolved itself when the power supply suddenly died. Replaced that and WOL started working... a little too well; it kept waking up randomly. Eventually I traced it to firmware 1.0.1.18 so I downgraded and again WOL is working... but only once. And that's my problem.

I am able to get WOL to work, but only the first time I use it. After that it seems I need to reboot my PC to get it to work again. Research is indicating this is might be an ARP lease issue, in that the router is forgetting the connection between the IP and MAC address of the PC.

But this doesn't entirely make sense to me. Why is it able to find the connection in the first place? Why can't it find it a second time? I am unable to locate anywhere in the router to work on ARP settings.

I never had a problem with WOL in the years I used it with my old WRT54G using DD-WRT.

I have configured my PC to have a static IP address and forwarded ports 7 and 9 to that address. Under LAN setup I added the relevant IP and MAC addresses to "address reservation" hoping that would prevent the router forgetting. No good.

Any suggestions? This is really starting to drive me up a wall. I am regretting buying this router despite it working great otherwise.

[fordem]

First - the router itself plays no part in Wake-on-LAN - and therefore no form of support for it is necessary.

Second - because you mention forwarding ports - I assume that what you are trying to do is actually Wake-on-WAN, or Wake-on-LAN via the internet.

Wake-on-LAN's "magic packets" need to be sent as LAN broadcasts if they are to work properly, LAN broadcasts cannot be sent across the internet as a broadcast, they must be sent using a technique known as ip directed broadcasts.

Older routers were shipped with support for ip directed broadcasts enabled, but for security reasons the IETF have recently mandated that routers MUST be shipped with this disabled, preventing the use of Wake-on-WAN.

There are several "work-arounds" that allow the use of a unicast packet (ie not a broadcast packet) to be used as a magic packet, however, the viability & more importantly, the reliability of these methods is questionable.

You can try an advanced search on this forum with username fordem and either Wake-on-LAN or magic packet as the keywords and you will find a huge thread with the discussions.

[GoNz0]

Fordems, just to point out the firmware the OP's running has broken WOL at the moment.

roll back to the previous release and try that.

[themgnt]

Originally Posted by GoNz0

Fordems, just to point out the firmware the OP's running has broken WOL at the moment.

roll back to the previous release and try that.

Just to be clear: I was on 1.0.1.18 and downgraded to 1.0.1.6 or whatever the previous one was. Are you saying 1.0.1.6 is broken for WOL and I should downgrade further? Or did you just see the .18 and since this is a known buggy firmware suggested I downgrade not realizing I already had?

[GoNz0]

sorry i misread it as i was on my phone, are you using WOL via WAN ?

it's a known issue via WAN as netgear wont allow WOL via WAN, i have seem people get it working but it is only for a few minutes.

[themgnt]

Yeah, I'm trying to wake up over via the internet. Not sure if it's called WOL or WOW. All the guides I've read called it WOL.

This is a necessary feature for me and if I am unable to get this working I'm going to have to dump this router and netgear, unless a 3rd party firmware comes out.

[fordem]

Originally Posted by GoNz0

Fordems, just to point out the firmware the OP's running has broken WOL at the moment.

roll back to the previous release and try that.

First - unless I'm very much mistaken - that's not the problem that this thread is about.

As I understand it - that problem manifests itself by everything on the LAN configured for Wake-on-LAN waking every few minutes - or am I confusing that problem with another one?

I've seen those reports and NOT ONE of the people making the claim has taken the time to verify that the problem is actually a Wake-on-LAN problem - and that includes people who have captured what they felt were the offending magic packets.

Understand this - I'm not disputing the claims that the new firmware release is causing problems with what people think is Wake-on-LAN - I am questioning whether the people making those claims actually have their systems correctly configured for Wake-on-LAN.

If you or anyone else would care to assist, install Wireshark, capture the packets and post them here - if those packets do not contain the MAC address of the NIC repeated sixteen (16) consecutive times, it's not a magic packet, and not a Wake-on-LAN issue.

Second - IF this thread were about that problem the OP would not be complaining about the WNDR4500 only allowing WOL once - would he?

themgnt - it's not going to be easy luck finding a router that supports ip directed broadcasts - as I mentioned it's an IETF requirement that ALL product now ship with it disabled, and most manufacturers simply don't provide a way to enable it - you might have better luck with third party firmware.

[dcjd]

After reading hundreds of posts regarding Wake-on-Wan, It's clear that manufacturers do not allow ip directed broadcasts. I understand this and do not care to circumvent the security reasons for doing so. What I don't understand is why with so many individuals desiring this ability to Wake-on-Wan, is there not a provision to at least wake a device through remote administration? So much time has been spent explaining why W.O.W is not available but why not a common sense and safe solution. It seems to me this should not be so difficult?