ZTE MC801A B12 update : Bridge mode broken

[Gagandeep]

Hi there,

Community / Three moderators, I am hoping you can help me.

I have a ZTE MC801A which I have been very happy with for about a month. I run the router in bridge mode, meaning that another device can take the internet connection and distribute it via my own TP Link router.

A forced update to firmware B12 has broken this functionality, and my entire home network and hardware setup is now left completely non-functional. The ZTE MC801a has become completely unable to handoff a WAN DHCP address and as such I am forced into using the ZTE router, meaning my heating/lights/raspberry pi and VOIP phone are all offline as they are wired to my TP Link Router - the ZTE router doesn't have enough RJ45 ports

Is there a firmware update on the horizon to fix this? This is an absolutely basic function (and offered by all the major ISPS like virgin/BT etc) I am considering making a formal complaint to have the router replaced with the NR5103E as this can actually bridge its connection. In lieu of this, does anyone have any ideas as to what could have happened? All of these problems have coincided with the update on the 14th of October 😞

[speacock]

@JonathanB As mentioned before, my APN was set to 3internet but was set to Auto, I've just changed it to manual and then manually set the APN to 3internet (so ostensibly no difference in the actual setting) and sure enough, when I switched it back to bridge mode it is now working again. So it seems like, even though it says it is using the correct APN when set to Auto mode, it actually isn't. Either that or manually setting that particular setting causes another one to be reset.

Whatever the cause, it resolves the issue and I now have my own firewall working properly, no double NAT and performance back up to 930/135 where it had been 500/100 without bridge mode.

[JonathanB]

That's great to hear @speacock, I'm sorry it's taken so long to make progress with this. Hopefully some other users can confirm if this is a consistent fix for them too. Please let me know how it's performing after a few days with this set up.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[pyro1son]

Will try changing these setting tonight. Thanks for your support

[speacock]

Hi Jonathan, mine is set to 3internet already:

I'll try changing it from Automatic to Manual though and see if that makes any difference

[pyro1son]

Any update on when there will be a fix for this as not being able to use Bridge mode is causing problems on my home network

[Tdichello]

Did you ever find a fix for this as I am having the exact same issue?

Many Thanks 

[Willow2492]

I'm also experiencing this issue, are there any updates?

[EngineerMelissa]

Hi @speacock,

When you say it does not work at all, does this also mean if connected directly to the ZTE router you are not able to connect to the internet?

In the case of getting a RFC1918 address from the ZTE to your own router (Double NAT), this in theory should work even if it's not the current ideal situation. So just to confirm you cannot access the internet via this double NAT setup?

Thanks,
Melissa

[speacock]

Hi, that is correct, there is no connection to internet when the ZTE is in bridge mode, it only works when set to its ‘Wireless broadband’ mode. In bridge mode it just issues the wrong address on its LAN interface and the bridge mode function stops working because the router that is on that interface is now trying to use a non-routable address. I haven’t tried it, but I suspect that if I manually configured the WAN interface on my firewall with the IP address of the WAN interface on the ZTE, it would probably work, but this would only work temporarily until the next time the IP address changed.

[speacock]

Hi @JonathanB, obviously I can't speak for @Gagandeep, but by non-functional I mean it doesn't work at all, there is no internet connectivity now when in bridge mode. When in bridge mode with the new firmware, the ZTE device issues an invalid IP address to the router that is on its LAN interface, it issues an RFC1918 compliant address (default 192.168.0.1) this cannot work because it is not internet routable. Under the previous firmware, the ZTE device would pass the IP address of its WAN interface to the router that is on its LAN interface, it did not route, it just passed packets unchanged and the router that you place on the LAN interface communicates directly with the WAN rather than traversing another router and undergoing NAT.

I'd be interested to know if the person testing at your end is seeing the same thing - does their router pass the WAN IP address to the router on the LAN interface or does it pass the 192.168.0.1 address?

The issue is not confined to a TP-LINK router, I have the same issue and that's with PFsense not with a TP-LINK device.