Hi  @Morayf 

Morayf wrote

I have multiple wan links setup on the ER8411 and had only setup the load balancing weight dependent on the various link speeds (1G - Link A, 500MB - Link B).  seemed to work fine until the B line failed and everyone was dumped off the internet with no critical error logged.  our B line went down, but the A line was up, yet no internet traffic.  changing settings to add link backup and selecting both A and B as primary and a blank port as the backup, the internet came back online (although still only on A).  when B finally came back online, we started to see traffic use both lines again.

 

As a test (with the new settings), I have then disconnected Link A - No report in the log that the link has failed, but internet still works.  Reconnect A, wait for the router ping to re-establish and stabalise, then disconnect B.  Internet still works, but no report in the log of the link failure.

 

Seems to me a fundamental flaw in the load balancing/fail-over facility on this platform, if it cannot report that an individual WAN link has failed (which is actually very important for follow up with the ISP).  does anyone know whether there is some logging option I am missing (by the way, if i disconnect both A and B, it then logs the WAN down).

That doesn't look correct to me. Red line.

Do you have a screenshot of it? It is not a correct setup if you ask me.

For the test you've done, that's correct.

About it does not report the link has failed, if you yank it out, it is WAN offline. Not down.

Load balance works between A and B if you set both as primary.

I think you might wanna try to explain this again after the reading: Common Questions About the Load Balancing, Link Backup(Failover) & Online Detection

We will discuss after we are on the same page.

Hi @Morayf 

Thanks for posting in our business forum.

Morayf wrote

  @Clive_A   there is no option to turn load balancing on or of, just changing the weight.

 

Currently our only connected ISP lines ar WAN/LAN4 and WAN/LAN5 all others don't have any connections but are reserved as Backup lines as below.

 

With this setup, if either WAN/LAN4 or 5 fails our internet access continues without any interruptions, but if either of them fails, the EVENT LOG does not record the specific link has failed, it only reports the "WAN DOWN" if both links fail.  This is a problem, as I want to know if a specific WAN Link fails, not when all have failed.  One other thing I notice is that you can only choose 1 backup line.  In our situation, we were hoping to put in a Starlink line and another ISP to give us significant redundancy, but nothing really matters if we cannot log which lines are failing as we could then review which ISP's we need to have words with on reliability.

The highlighted part requires your further evidence or proof by various tests and Wireshark capture.

I highly doubt that your WAN is not actually down. There is a loophole in your statement.

The event log records the online detection result of each WAN.

Load balance is overall config and if you don't want an IP to be balanced, then configure policy routing.

Did you read this knowledge?

Hi @Morayf 

Morayf wrote

  @Morayf To add to the above, when we do not select the "LINK BACKUP" option, if any of our WAN links fail, all WAN access fails regardless of the load balancing weight.  When I mean it fails, the router can still ping the ISP modem boxes (and selecting the working link, can ping internet IP's), the controller still indicates that it is online, but no clients can access the internet.  I do understand the concept of load balancing, but I would presume there could be some way of setting up "Load Balancing", but then being able to detect that a link fails, and stop traffic on that link till it recovers a bit like what seems to be happening in the Link Backup setup (maybe the wording on the GUI is not accurate)

When any of the WANs fails, all the sessions will be reloaded to another WAN.

The page is required to be refreshed before you proceed.

None of them can access the Internet, but are able to ping a public IP address?

As you are an expert who knows how load balancing works, care to share your verification and the symptoms by video?

All the things told so far are against the design and behavior we know.

BTW, you do know that the load balance takes time before it is effective, right? So, all the statements are based on this condition, they don't behave like a load balance/link backup. So that's a problem we need to look into.