Apex Connectivity

[Chuck_e]

For those of us who live in Canada, and are "fortunate" enough to have Telus internet, be aware that there is a known problem with Telus that causes loss of communication between Apex base units & the Telus modem. This results in loss of connectivity with the internet, which can in turn cause any number of issues, depending on how your Apex is programmed.

Both fibre & copper service is affected, and it seems to affect both A2 & A3 Apex base units.

There is no commitment at this time from Telus to do anything. Neptune is working on a software solution, hopefully sometime this year. The immediate fix (from Neptune Network Support) is to install a second router between the Telus modem and the Apex.

So, if your ISP is Telus, and you're suddenly, or chronically, having problems with connectivity, log the issue with Neptune before you go out & buy a new base unit. The fix may be a simple and relatively inexpensive router...

 

[Rocks reef]

Apex has had connectivity issues for years...
I hope you get your issue resolved!

 

[Chuck_e]

Apex has had connectivity issues for years...
I hope you get your issue resolved!

I've had my A2 for about 3 years. Initially connected by wifi, with probably a dozen disconnects a day. Lots of research (R2R, Apex Forums, a couple other online resources and a phone call with Neptune support confirmed this was not unusual, with the best fix to be connecting by CAT5 instead of wifi. That change made a significant difference until about 10 days ago when I started seeing disconnects every 5 minutes. To the second. Two days later my home internet completely crashed. After several hours on the phone with Telus, they decided to update the modem software and resynchronize the network. The home internet issues went away, but Apex was still disconnecting every 5 minutes.

A couple of days after that call I had another call with Neptune support, and the first question I was asked was "who is your internet provider?", followed by "I thought so - I have about 2 dozen cases exactly like yours, and they're all getting internet from Telus." More conversation, more testing, and then the suggestion to add another router. I just happened to have an old D-Link router lying around, which I connected, and the problem went away.

It seems like my internet had become unstable, with the Apex and a few other devices starting to misbehave before everything crashed.

It's been over a week now with zero disconnects. I'll probably jinx it now, but it seems that the router solution works. Is it optimal? No. Does it work? Apparently. Am I changing my ISP? Yes - as soon as I get fibre I'll be saying sayonara to Telus. 30 years of marginal service, the new guys can't be any worse...

 

[Tangdora]

Just my two cents and if your router supports it. But I have never had connectivity issues with my apex running it on my routers dedicated IOT network as oppose to the primary network

 

[Chuck_e]

Just my two cents and if your router supports it. But I have never had connectivity issues with my apex running it on my routers dedicated IOT network as oppose to the primary network

Interesting. The Apex guy said there was something specific to the Telus network. It doesn't appear to be limited to their router, unless they give the same piece of junk to their fibre customers as their copper line.

What's an "IOT network"?

 

[Tangdora]

Interesting. The Apex guy said there was something specific to the Telus network. It doesn't appear to be limited to their router, unless they give the same piece of junk to their fibre customers as their copper line.

What's an "IOT network"?

I will butcher a real explication lol. Here is a link that gives over view. LAN techs can keep me honest here lol. But in short it’s its own gateway and signal that some router canout put that allow you to keeps smart devices on a separate gateway to avoid interference from all your
Regularly connected devices. It also uses different protocols to provide better connection to cloud environments and is typically more stable as it supposedly cuts back on dfs channel switching that can lead to a dropped connection.

It’s somewhat similar to setting up a dedicated guest network that is independent of the main gate way as well. Verizon good routers here in the states for example give you option to have all 3 gateways.

What is an IoT Gateway? | Definition from TechTarget

Learn about IoT gateways and how they work. Examine how they relate to edge computing and can be used to reduce costs and bandwidth consumption.

www.techtarget.com

 

[Chuck_e]

I will butcher a real explication lol. Here is a link that gives over view. LAN techs can keep me honest here lol. But in short it’s its own gateway and signal that some router canout put that allow you to keeps smart devices on a separate gateway to avoid interference from all your
Regularly connected devices. It also uses different protocols to provide better connection to cloud environments and is typically more stable as it supposedly cuts back on dfs channel switching that can lead to a dropped connection.

It’s somewhat similar to setting up a dedicated guest network that is independent of the main gate way as well. Verizon good routers here in the states for example give you option to have all 3 gateways.

What is an IoT Gateway? | Definition from TechTarget

Learn about IoT gateways and how they work. Examine how they relate to edge computing and can be used to reduce costs and bandwidth consumption.

www.techtarget.com

Cool! Pretty sure the Telus router can't do that - maybe the next ISP's will! Thanks!!

 

[Tangdora]

Even if your router support is The gateway is usually disable by the default and if your router does not have a front app typically have to activate it through the web browser and logging in to the IP. Do you know your actual routers actual model number.

 

[Chuck_e]

Even if your router support is The gateway is usually disable by the default and if your router does not have a front app typically have to activate it through the web browser and logging in to the IP. Do you know your actual routers actual model number.

The Telus router is an Actiontec T3200M. They call it a "Gateway Router/Modem". It appears that there are some proprietary data handling settings as part of their TV offering. I wonder if that's what messes with Apex? There's nothing obvious in the Admin pages, unless maybe under port bridging? The application that I use to log my parameter data & maintenance activity wants me to make some changes there in order to directly access pH & Temperature data from the Apex, but I'm not really sure what I'm doing there so I've stayed away from that...

 

[Ziggy17]

My understanding of the issue is that the Telus modem thinks the apex is an attack on the system, so the modem drops the connection, which initiates a power cycle in the apex. This has been happening for a few years now.
I bought a wifi repeater with a cat connection and hard wired the apex. This worked for a few months, but then it started again, albeit less frequently. I’m not an IT expert, but I’m pretty sure if you register the MAC address from the apex on the system, the firewall will let it through. However I can’t seem to find Thanh thing on the modem settings that allow me to do it. The old Telus interface was much easier. That said, I’m not sure the firewall eventually will block it again for some reason.