GL-MT3000 drops or connection dies on some hotel wifi. Tried MAC spoofing. Home OK

Technical Support for Routers
1

I’ve been troubleshooting issues with repeating the wifi internet connection with my GL-MT3000. I noticed problems this summer when I did some traveling for a few weeks and stay at hotels…
I’ll try to grab logs when I travel and it acts up again… it might be awhile!

Any idea how I can troubleshoot repeating internet problems? I thought cloning my laptops MAC (or other devices I have) would fix it. Have you ever heard of or seen this issue? Are there other posts about something similar or just me?

  • When I am home I can use the repeated internet for months and months
  • When I am traveling, some hotels last the duration of my stay (probably for months…if I stayed that long)
  • Other hotels (mostly the big chains, Marriott, IHG…) will last minutes/hours or rarely a day and then stop working. I’ve now messed with MAC address cloning…no effect. Direct connecting my laptop works great. Sometimes I dont have to go through the captive portal again.
    Once I’ve seen it work well for a couple days then act up…
2

If MAC Cloning a ‘known good’ device doesn’t do it, this is probably related:

3

That is an interesting read! Thank you.

I tried cloning the mac of the laptop I brought with me (I never thought to clone the ip).

I also tried setting the mac address the same as a 2022 MacBook Pro that I once had access to. The MacBook is gone now, dont have it.

4

If cloning the MAC & IP of the known good device doesn’t solve it, I’m no good to you further. See that thread; sh!t’s getting outta control. / rant

5

Since Apple enforces randomized MAC addresses this might be the issue as well. Cloning will not help for long.

6

Not really. I believe it has a 1 week expiration on the Mac address. As long as you connect daily. You’re good

7

Yes, it doesn’t change that quickly. But it also depends on the hotel’s firewall settings. It is quite possible that MAC addresses are kicked after 24 hours.

Discussing this topic is tedious anyway, as it is so incredibly dependent on the hotel’s settings that you can only talk your head off.

8

My mistake. It’s actually 6 weeks.

“Devices would still use a single address for each network (unless more than 6 weeks ago). Re-connecting to a previous network would then use the same old remembered MAC address again”

9

Yeah best to find a eth cable behind the TV

10

I finally found another example! I’m not sure if it’s related to the latest firmware (4.5.16?).

I have a prime example at the Motel 6 I’m staying at. I can not repeat the network AT ALL. Surprisingly I can SSH into the router and ping google, the VPN works, but nothing from the main network.

What do I need to troubleshoot or ask for help?

11

Not sure waht you do you mean. Can you explain?

In firmware 4.6 snapshot we improved the design of repeater. Can you pls try?

12

This is what I mean… left black window is command prompt, right is my browser. What’s funny is I can ping from the router, the VPN is up on the Guest VLAN but the main VLAN has no internet whatsoever.

router ping vs browser
router ping vs browser1108×425 52 KB

The 4.6 firmware worked great! For awhile I was only using stable firmware. When I enabled the preview plan to upgrade to 4.6, the router could not download file so I did it manually. I had stable only to prevent problems…

This new firmware is fantastic!! Thanks Alzhao! I’m looking forward to messing with Authentication Mode and Camouflage… I’d love to read more about them and how they work. TTL maybe?

One initial idea/complaint is the Random Mac field now only allows auto-generated random mac addresses. I used to put valid mac addresses (say from an old laptop) in this field in case they were validated by the network I was connecting too. I never tested that idea to know if a network is doing any kind of random-mac-address-reject logic but it SEEMED to help on stubborn networks…

Is the Mac Address configuration under Network → Mac Address now for Ethernet only?

13

Yes, that is correct.

Authentication mode means connecting to hotel/public hotspot which requires you to login via web portal.
Camouflage is supposed to tell the wifi network that this is a smartphone. But from my hotel travels I never met one case.
TTL also bypass some network throttle. It may be more useful for smartphone wifi sharing.