I’ve just installed a new AC4000 Tri-Band router and have discovered a port forwarding problem.

I’m a reasonably experienced gamer and run my own dedicated servers. I regularly play Insurgency Sandstorm with my friends and host the server on my network.

My setup is my ISP router running in modem mode which provides internet for the AC4000 router which in turn feeds a TP-LINK TL-SG1024 24-Port Unmanaged Gigabit Ethernet Switch.

The problem I’ve discovered is the port forwarding defined on the AC4000 doesn’t work for my server if its plugged into the SG1024 switch. It works fine if the server is plugged directly into one of the four ethernet ports on the AC4000 itself.

I’ve eliminated just about everything I can thinks off, changed cables, rebooted everything from cold (including the unmanaged switch). Note – the server is functional inside my network when plugged into the SG1024 switch, just not visible externally.

The AC4000 is V3 and running latest firmware. The unmanaged switch is by its nature, unmanaged so there’s nothing to configure on it or update (as far as I’m aware). It doesn’t appear to have any dedicated uplink ports either.

My previous Almond Plus router works fine with SG1024 switch, port forwarding from the same server plugged into the same switch without issue. Its strange that two TP-LINK devices appear to be having problems together.