[saunsaun]

We have a Bolt with 4 Minis, and Xfinity as our network provider. A couple of months ago, we woke to find that none of our moca devices could connect to the moca network. We had not recently changed anything in our devices or configuration, although I suspect an xfinity update was sent overnight. Our xfinity gateway device (Arris TG4482A) acts as our moca controller. While troubleshooting with xfinity, we received a new Arris device (same model). We still had problems until we talked to an xfinity representative who said that they needed to "provision" the new Arris from their side. After that, things started working again, but we now have poor moca connectivity issues. This manifests with devices periodically losing access to the moca Network.

This morning, I disconnected the power cable and coax cables to all devices. Then, I reconnected the xfinity gateway and powered it up. I saw it come online as the moca server, through its GUI interface. No other moca devices showed as online, as they were all disconnected. At that point, I connected and powered up only our Bolt. It came online and configured itself as a moca client, but I noticed the connection looked poor. I can see this through the Arris moca Troubleshooting menu. See attached screenshot.

Even though it had picked up an IP address, I went through the Tivo menus to configure it as a Tivo client and it failed with a Tivo C33 error, "MoCA Network Problems." At this point, I lost my IP address. I believe it connected, but then lost its connection due to the poor moca signal.

Is there an update that xfinity could have sent that would have caused these issues? I previously posted a few years ago and followed recommendations around splitters, amped splitters and a POE, so I think I have all of that right. Around that time, we had a new cable run to our house, replaced our xfinity gateway, our cable card, some internal cabling and got a new Bolt. Attached is a drawing of our environment when everything is powered on. As I write this, I only have 2 moca devices powered on, the Arris and the Bolt and the connection doesn't look good. How can I determine what is causing this issue?

 

[saunsaun]

Hi @krkaufman. The amplifier is a commscope. I bought it myself 2-3 years ago. It may have been you who recommended it to me. I will check the model number and get back to you. It's mounted outside.

The Bolt is not connected via ethernet, although it could be since it sits right next to the Arris and I have port availability.

I have never seen that bug/issue with our Bolt, but today I have noticed that I will see the C33 error when trying to walk through setting it up as a MoCA client and the IP address will disappear. Then, when I check a little later, MoCA shows as "on" and there is an IP address.

Previously, when I have tried to make the Tivo the MoCA master, I couldn't get the MoCA to stay turned off on the Arris. I will try the POE filter trick.

I ran the network test and the performance through the Bolt was the same as when directly cabled to the Arris, both around 400Mbps.

I thought the MoCA connections weren't good when the lines in the Arris NW diagram show in red. I remember that they used to be green, although I hadn't looked at them for a while before all of these issues started 2 mos ago. I'm happy to hear that you think those numbers are good. What are good ranges?

Ultimately, the problem is that the devices are losing their connections periodically. When that happens, we can only get them working again by powering down all of the devices, and then back up. A minor issue that we see that I believe indicates a problem is: when I click on the Tivo button, usually we see pictures of the TV shows in boxes at the bottom of the screen. When the connection isn't good, these pictures don't come up. Instead, it will only show a box with words, ie, "Law & Order." That seems to be a precursor to losing connectivity.

Attached is a diagram of how things look after connecting all of the devices. Actually, I took the ActionTec (from the previous schematic) out of the configuration for now, just to simplify things. I powered off the Actiontec, removed the 2-way splitter, hardwired the phone to Arris and cabled the Mini directly to the attic splitter.

I took a screen shot after I added each device back. I noticed lower numbers after adding the 4th device.

 

[saunsaun]

Try a full network power down, then power up everything one by one until they are operational, starting with the gateway/modem, router and outward, including any MoCa adapters.

Thanks. If you read my initial post, I did mention that I had just done that.

 

[saunsaun]

FYI… no diagram or screenshots attached to previous reply.

Attached now.

 

[saunsaun]

This mustn’t be attempted while the gateway built-in MoCA bridge is still enabled and the BOLT configured as a MoCA server or client. (Doing so will create a network loop and crash your network.)



70 dB MoCA filter recommended as prophylactic.

I have an extra filter. I assume I also leave the filter in place outside in the outside cable connection box.

Which mustn't be attempted?

My steps would be to power down/disconnect all tivo devices and gateway. Install Poe filter between cable and gateway and power on gateway. Connect bolt to gateway via Ethernet cable, keeping coax cable in place. Power on Bolt and configure it as the moca server. Power on each mini. Upon boot, run through the process to configure each mini as a moca client.

Sound good?

After today's power cycle, everything is working well again...so I am not rushing to switch to the bolt as the moca server until I see problems again.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the numbers in the latest screenshot.