Raspberry Pi Forums

I am new to the PI community, but I am having an odd problem with my PI and I was hoping that one of you could possibly help me. I have successfully installed the OS on my SD card and have done the initial setup configs. the problem comes with the connection to the internet.

my PI is able to maintain a IP address for around 1 min and then it is lost forever... even with a reboot, the PI will no longer have a connection. I have tried multiple fresh installs and using a different Ethernet cables and plugging directly into the modem, all with no luck my IP always seems to vanish around 1 min of run time...

Any suggestions at this point would be amazing. thanks

keep running and to see what changes around the time the connection is lost.

Oh, and be very wary of strangers who tell yo to do run commands you don't understand, especially ones starting with sudo

http://linux.die.net/man/8/ifconfig
http://linux.die.net/man/8/dmesg

[update]
I ran an ifconfig for around 5 min and everything seemed to be working fine until I attempted a (sudo apt-get update) during the update the first 3 fetch just fine then it freezes and stops downloading and throws a bunch of "failed to fetch errors" after said time an ifconfig tells me that I have no connection.

I am assuming that it is something with the (sudo apt-get update) that is doing this but I just don't know what and I don't know a way around it.

sounds like the connection works until you try to push a lot of traffic through it.
best guess it's a dodgy USB-WiFi dongle or drivers.

what happens if you leave something low-traffic like running?

did you try dmesg?

[update]
so when it did shut down, I had a hunch at it was my router that was causing a part of the issue so I went in and checked if there was still an active IP for the MAC of the PI and there was... so with a clear of temp IPs and a reboot of the router the PI gets up and running again...

and I have been pinging 8.8.8.8 for a while now... and it seems to be fine but as soon as I try a (sudo apt-get update) the IP gets lost and will not be retrieved until the clearing of the temps and a reboot of the router... with the dmesg I do not see anything significant changing, should I be looking for something in particular?

run "dmesg -c" every few seconds.
The first one will dump all log messages since boot, then it shouldn't say much.

If there's a networking problem I'd expect messages with "ath", "eth" "timout", "IRQ" or somesuch.

As I mentioned, it shouldn't be saying much of anything, so post (or google) whatever you get around the time that IP address drops.

How are yo connecting to the router (wired, wireless)?
What else is connected to the router?
How (wired, wireless)?
What happens if/when the other things download lots of stuff?

[Update]
so scratch the Idea I had with the router, I just reset it twice and I am unable to keep an IP through boot, I watched and when the pi boots up the router gets the indication and creates an IP for it... so this means that the PI is at least getting one package out... I am attempting to get an IP back so I can keep trying (sudo dmesg -c) the last time after the IP was dropped for the update (sudo dmesg -c) gave nothing...

to answer your questions
How are yo connecting to the router (wired, wireless)? = wired
What else is connected to the router? = only my PC but I have little to no internet activity on it
How (wired, wireless)? = it is wired
What happens if/when the other things download lots of stuff? = I haven't been able to keep an IP long enough to test this.

verindil wrote:[Update]
How are yo connecting to the router (wired, wireless)? = wired

I've had one or 2 problems with USB-WiFi dongles, but never with the on-board ethernet.

What else is connected to the router? = only my PC but I have little to no internet activity on it

Can you try downloading something big to see if that makes the router fail?

How (wired, wireless)? = it is wired
What happens if/when the other things download lots of stuff? = I haven't been able to keep an IP long enough to test this.

starting to look like the router rather than the RasPi.

Can you test the RasPi with a different router?

totally forgot rule #1 in debugging RasPi problems: do you have a decent power-supply?

so I got a good sudo dmesg -c after the IP was dropped here is a picture of it... see if you see anything.

http://i.imgur.com/bTY3hTr.jpg

also I am using a standard USB micro wall plug

I have downloaded everything just fine on my PC so I don't think its a bandwidth/router issue

Can you try a better power supply and/or cable?

It looks to me like the USB hub is dying momentarily. As the main consumer of 5V, the USB/Ethernet chip is often the first to go if power is marginal. Most of the rest of the board uses 3.3V or 1.8V, and so tend to hold up longer.

Sure, I will order one, what power supply do you recommend?

Personally, I would recommend any of these:

RS: http://raspberrypi.rsdelivers.com/produ ... 63069.aspx
ModMyPi: https://www.modmypi.com/raspberry-pi-ac ... wer-supply
AdaFruit (with US plug): http://www.adafruit.com/products/501

Alright, I am going to order this, https://www.modmypi.com/raspberry-pi-ac ... -supply-us hopefully this will do the trick.