FIOS Goes Down Every Night at 9PM for Hours
InternetJunkie1
Enthusiast - Level 2

I'm a computer / network technician by day just to give an idea of my technical troubleshooting experience.

I've contacted FIOS about this and was either left on hold for 30+ mins or have been offered pretty basic and uneventful tech support regarding this situation that has left my family and I very very frustrated. 

Every day since January, our internet goes out at approx 9pm and regains full access around midnight. When it goes out, it will occasionally load a page but for the most part there's no connectivity. All the link lights are on the Fios router.

I have a secondary Wifi hotspot in bridge mode on the top floor to extend the range and I also have a PoE switch powering a few network cameras in the home. 

I've actually gone through the trouble of replacing all of the equipment on my side of the network per Verizon's recommendation (even though knowing this wouldn't solve the problem, I didn't want them wasting time blaming this on me). 

Still happens each night. I reset the Verizon router to the factory settings, and used just the Verizon router by itself. still the same problem occurs. Sometimes I am able to access the internet after 9pm, but only when over LAN by wire, and it's still spotty at best. 

Within the house when the internet cannot be accessed, I can run internal transfers at gigabit speed over wired LAN and over AC Wireless, I get 750mbps on the 5ghz wireless channel.

Trying to open the UI for the Verizon Router at 192.168.1.1 takes almost 4 minutes to load the page when the internet is acting up. 

It's extremely frustrating because we're online degree earners as well and this is basically the only time of the day we can get work done. I've been borrowing my neighbors Comcast login info because the FIOS is always down.

I'm at a loss here. I would really like to get my router and ONT replaced as thats the only piece left in the puzzle but they fight me on the phone over it every time I suggest it.

Does anyone have an recommendations?

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Re: FIOS Goes Down Every Night at 9PM for Hours
eljefe2
Master - Level 1

That's a puzzler to me.  The part that puzzles me the most is:


@InternetJunkie wrote:

 Trying to open the UI for the Verizon Router at 192.168.1.1 takes almost 4 minutes to load the page when the internet is acting up. 


A defective ONT wouldn't likely cause that problem, and if your router is broken, why would the problem only manifest itself those 3 hours of the day?

I'm wondering if you might be having some nightly DDoS type issue happening.  You might try turning off WiFi on the Actiontec, and then during the hours where the problem is happening, disconnect the coax or Ethernet to the Actiontec from your ONT.

It might shed a little light to know if loading the Actiontec's UI still takes so long without WiFi or connection to the ONT.

Re: FIOS Goes Down Every Night at 9PM for Hours
Kestrel3
Contributor - Level 2

Wierd issue indeed.  OK, I know you are a technician, so sorry if you already tried these possibly obvious steps:

1) Remove everything from the router, except the connection to the ONT.  Reset the router (push the button in with a paper clip to restore factory settings again).

2)  connect only one computer to the router via ethernet.  See if it will connect to the router quickly using 192.168.1.1.  

3) If it doesn't connect quickly, try connecting another router (of almost any type if you are set up to connect to the ONT via ethernet)and/ or another computer (removing the first computer from the router so only one devide is connected).

4) if it does connect quickly, turn off wireless and test the internet.

If that doesn't work right, keep trying calling tech support until they will at least send you a new router. They normally don't fight too much on this, so if they give you grief, ask for a supervisor.

The trouble is that it happens at night when you can't have a tech visit the house. Next time it happens, call Verizon right away, and just keep calling until they send a tech out.  Even if he can't see the issue, eventually you will find a sympathetic tech who will be willing to replace your router, ONT, and cabling.  Until that is all done, you can't be sure of the issue.

Unfortunately, I have a similar but less severe issue that also manifests itself only at night (also after 9 PM), but it is just a slowdown of speeds.   It is possible that these are peak hours for your neighborhood and somehow the hardware has a fault and is getting completely bogged down.  Ask your immediate neighbors if they have FIOS and if they see the same issue.  If they do, they need to report is as well, and you need to mention that when you call in.

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Re: FIOS Goes Down Every Night at 9PM for Hours
dnb881
Enthusiast - Level 2

We had a similar problem with Comcast a few years ago.  Every night the internet would go down until 3 or 4 am.  It also affected the other houses on our street.  After multiple calls and visits they discovered one house was dumping interference on the line.  I guess they had all sorts of radio equipment that was improperly hooked up.  

Are other local users having the same problems? 

Re: FIOS Goes Down Every Night at 9PM for Hours
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

@dnb88 wrote:

We had a similar problem with Comcast a few years ago.  Every night the internet would go down until 3 or 4 am.  It also affected the other houses on our street.  After multiple calls and visits they discovered one house was dumping interference on the line.  I guess they had all sorts of radio equipment that was improperly hooked up.  

Are other local users having the same problems? 


This is a good point. FiOS, even though the Fiber cable cannot conduct radio signals is still succeptable to noise within the Fiber cable caused from bad light sources, or damaged cable. It could also be a PON issue in general that requires Verizon to replace the PON Card. Then there's always the possibility that the coaxial cabling between the router and the ONT is in rough shape, or something is left uncapped and a ham radio operator next door could be creating ingress.

Given the ActionTec takes forever to log into, I'd have to go with another poster above. Smells of DDoS against the IP. A network loop can do some stupid things too, if a particular piece of equipment is turned on around the affected time period, but that is something I'm sure the OP would have found.

Another thought is, if the router is dealing with a lossy connection and is dropping the connectivity, there might be a service or two on the router which keeps reloading. Here at home I run an ActionTec MI424WR Rev. D with DD-WRT loaded onto it. Sometimes when I have to adjust some services and then reload them, the router's web UI would become unresponsive for a few seconds. I can reproduce the problem by making the router spawn or destroy PPPoE sessions, which spikes CPU usage. If the OP is using PPPoE or the DHCP server is reloading, that could be causing the router to bog down.

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Re: FIOS Goes Down Every Night at 9PM for Hours
InternetJunkie1
Enthusiast - Level 2

I tried all of this aside from using a different router since out ONT is set up over coax.

Strange that this just started in January too, we've had the service since October.

If I'm even able to get a speed test page to load when I try to hit it, I'm usually getting something in the lines of 1.5mbps down and about half that up... 

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Re: FIOS Goes Down Every Night at 9PM for Hours
Kestrel3
Contributor - Level 2

I have noticed that 9 PM is the exact time my internet speeds drop considerably using the Verizon speed test.  It lasts for a few hours, probably also until midnight.

What time zone are you in?

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Re: FIOS Goes Down Every Night at 9PM for Hours
InternetJunkie1
Enthusiast - Level 2
Eastern, Philadelphia Region. How about yourself?!
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Re: FIOS Goes Down Every Night at 9PM for Hours
Kestrel3
Contributor - Level 2

Pacific, West Coast

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Re: FIOS Goes Down Every Night at 9PM for Hours
iBloo
Newbie

I'm in SoCal and experiencing similar issues! My internet doesn't go down, but my upload speed  goes from 35-30 down to about 5-10 mbps! And around 12 am it goes back up... the problem is I'm a live-streamer and so I pretty much need the upload speed. 😕

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