Network issues (RPi5)

    Hi,

    I'm struggling to get a log that shows anything (yet) but I've recently upgraded from RPi4 to RPi5, and I can't seem to get everything stable.

    I'm using ethernet with powerline networking. I think the issue is with the powerline, although other devices connected handle it better.

    Basically, LibreElec drops the IP address, and never recovers it. That's a problem because the RPi is running TVHeadEnd to serve the rest of my house, as well as recording TV to my NAS.

    Currently I've switched to WIFI, and it all seems more stable, which would again point to the powerline as the underlying cause. But it would be good if the RPi could gracefully recover the IP address rather than not, or sometimes hanging.

    Has anyone else seen similar issues? I'm using using an LE12 recent nightly build.

    Best wishes,

    Mark

    Thanks. So I've switched from wired to WIFI and the problems have gone away, although there is some buffering on live TV which is not ideal.

    It does look like the powerline stuff is a bit flaky and drops the connection, but then the RPi5 doesn't recover it very well. It's a bit of a niche setup, so it probably won't affect too many people.

    What I find when it happens is there is no IP address showing in settings. Sometimes LibreElec then seems to hang completely (no response to the UI - obviously without the network I can't ping it.

    It would be better if it did recover the network gracefully, but I don't know whether that is possible.

    Right, as a follow-up, it seems that this may have been related to ipv6. Or potential issues with my network and ipv6 at least.

    I was finding that the RPi5 was having a network connection, but my router showed it having a private IP address. I've now turned off ipv6, so it uses ipv4, and also manually set the IP address on the Pi. Hopefully that will be stable.

    I used powerlines with LibreElec for many years.

    In the early days I used x86 systems, which I allowed to sleep when inactive. A common problem was that they would wake up without internet connection. LibreElec displayed a private IP address.

    My diagnosis was that the powerline entered it's own sleep mode, and when the LibreElec system woke, the powerline did not wake fast enough, so LibreElec resumed with no internet connectivity and did not understand to try again after a couple of seconds. Pulling and inserting the ethernet cable usually fixed it, or doing a reboot.

    When I moved away from x86 to RPi the problem no longer manifested since the Pi was running 24/7. It still happens sometimes if everything is powered down and back up (for maintenance) or after a power cut but for me this is very rare so I don't worry

    This is not identical to your problem but maybe it gives you some things to check.

    The commonality is that

    1. Powerline sometimes drops or takes a couple of seconds to respond after sleeping

    2. LibreElec doesn't recover automatically if the initial ethernet connection is broken

    FYI most powerline have a utility to disable sleep mode.

    Edited once, last by trent (March 25, 2024 at 10:27 AM).