DHCP bugs

[Kieran]

I have seem to have found some issues with the DHCP server. Firstly when I changed the renew time from 12hr to 24hr it caused the DHCP server to be intermittent. Subnet Mask went from 255.255.255.0 to 255.0.0.0 and the IP addresses only were present for about 15 seconds then a renew. No internet connectivity and limited router access. Went into Open WRT and was able to change the time in minutes to 10080 or 1 week. This is a bug that is extremely annoying. During setup i found a similar issue or i should say the effect was the same but the cause was unknown. I also found the DHCP server became inactive/buggy when I changed the router address to 192.168.1.1. It seems happy at its default IP.
Frankly I have had better luck running a Linksys with DD-WRT. The interface is better and the hardware works without having to fiddle with it. The Almond+ has some cool hardware specs but the UI and general connectivity sucks.

[LGNilsson]

Sorry about all the problems you're having. I'll get this sent on the software team.
It's odd you're having issues on 192.168.1.1 though, as until a couple of firmware versions ago, this was the default IP address and we didn't see any issues at all during what is several months of testing.
All our beta/dev backers also got their Almond+'s set to this IP address wen we shipped to them.
That said, we'll be looking into this and have a look see what's gone wrong.

As far as the UI goes, yes, we have some work to do and we've somewhat misjudged the customer base slightly for the Almond+, but we're working on getting this fixed, but it's going to take a few months before it's at an acceptable state where most users will be happy.

[Kieran]

To be honest I find OpenWRT to be a way more user friendly and stable UI. I understand growing pains but simple things like kicking off DHCP leases should be standard (still can't find that one). I find it to be a weird mash up of great features and holes in its basic feature set. As for miss judging the market this is not a product I would give to my technology phobic mother. This is way too buggy and complicated for her. For a product that was pumped as easy to use and simple to setup I have not found that to be the case. I don't think i am inept at my techno prowess but this has been frustrating to setup. Simple things like changing the lease time on a DHCP server cause this thing to go haywire. I have found myself reseting and starting from scratch many times due to the buggy nature of this thing. One setting sets it off the rails and its impossible to get it back without resetting the whole thing. I look forward to seeing how it evolves but as of now I have my Linksys DD-WRT on standby.
As for firmware whats the current? and does the firmware search on the device work?

[LGNilsson]

We're working on a new version, you should be on R058 which is the most recent version we've released, but we're currently testing a new internal version that we hope to release by the end of this week.
It's later than we planned, but we found some issues that had to be resolved before we could release it.
The Software Update in the LCD UI is indeed working, so no worries there.

The plain and simple truth is that the web UI has always been something of an afterthought in the Almond and sadly it ended up being the same way with the Almond+. We've realised very quickly that this is a no go and we're working on rectifying that, but it's going to take time. With the Almond, most of our customers don't even know we have a web UI, but with the Almond+, the LCD UI isn't enough.

You're correct that these kind of things should be stable by now, but it looks like we've missed to test a lot of things in the web UI which is now causing problems.
As I said, I've reported this to the software team and they'll work out the problem and we'll be releasing a fix in a hopefully not to distant firmware update.

[AcidLotus]

I'd also like to tack on to the switching from default IP address bug. Default is 10.10.10.254. As soon as I change it to 192.168.1.1 (even if it's the first change I make after a factory default reset), DHCP essentially stops working. I can't get a dynamic IP plugged in or wirelessly. I can set up a static address and then am able to access the web interface again, but nothing else I do or change rectifies DHCP.

This is a pretty big show stopper for me as I really don't want to have to re-IP my setup.

[eldorin]

I changed the LAN address to 192.168.60.1/24 and DHCP quit working as well even after a reboot. What I found was that  in the default interface where I specified to start at 100 and use 50 addresses, when you went to Advanced, and the OpenWRT interface, under Services -> DHCP server, the ending address was blank. Once I filled that in, saved and rebooted, it started working. Unfortunately now I cannot modify that as when I go back in Service -> DHCP server in the OpenWRT interface, I get

This page contains the following errors:
error on line 149 at column 59: Attribute class redefined
Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error.

[LGNilsson]

Did you for some reason change the style of the UI in OpenWRT? The OpenWRT style doesn't work properly and it's the only time I've seen the second issue.

As mentioned above, we're working on fixing the DHCP related issues.

[dbuttke]

Did you for some reason change the style of the UI in OpenWRT? The OpenWRT style doesn't work properly

I use that because I can't do rollovers with my tablet.

That's my reason. 

[AcidLotus]

Am I correct in assuming the DHCP bug fixes didn't make it into this latest firmware release? I'm still having problems with it. And I'm not finding services > DHCP like eldorin. I do see Network > DHCP and DNS, but nothing about an ending address.

[LGNilsson]

What are you still seeing problems with?
We removed that part from OpenWRT, but the settings are in NutsOS under LAN settings and DHCP server.
You have option for start address, leases and lease time.

[AcidLotus]

The problem is that as soon as I change the router address to anything that is not 10.10.10.254, DHCP no longer works. I've confirmed I have the latest firmware released yesterday.

I make the changes in NutsOS to use a 192.168.1.1 LAN address, set the starting IP range to 200, and for 25 clients. Save. Reboot. The only way the Almond+ is even remotely able to be communicated with again is if I set up a static IP address and connect to the WebUI that way.

[lemonmilk]

I have a similar problem too.

I change lan IP from default 10.10.10.254 to something else say 192.168.20.20 and still keep DHCP start address 100 and number of leases 150, DHCP works fine.  But if I change number of leases to something other than 150, lets say 50, DHCP stops working.  If I change this number back to 150, DHCP works fine again. A interesting bug.

[jjoepaulines]

There was a translation bug and Validation is missing in DHCP page and it will be fixed in future firmware.

 Actually it's not a "number of leases" , It's an end address. In your case,Dnsmasq  "--dhcp-range" computation fails when start address is grater than end address.

[lemonmilk]

Actually it's not a "number of leases" , It's an end address. In your case,Dnsmasq  "--dhcp-range" computation fails when start address is grater than end address.

Well, that makes sense now.

[ncolyer]

+ for Also having the DHCP issue.