Downtime twice in a week - intermittent failure

[ChicagoAndy]

I have the OG Google Wifi pucks. 5 of them wired via ethernet. Typically they've been very reliable.

Twice in the last week I've had an hour and 20 minutes of downtime that I can't explain.

On Jan 23 from 9:58pm until 11:18pm, and then again last night from 6:56pm until 8:19pm (EST). I can't help but notice that one is 79 minutes and the other is 83 minutes - nearly identical downtimes.

During these outages the full Google Wifi was unavailable. Both wired and wireless devices were unreachable. Traceroute from a wired pc to the Google Wifi was 'destination host unreachable'.    All my wifi devices remained connected, but reporting "no internet access".   Nothing in my house worked.

Opening the Google Home app, all pucks showed as "Online", with a green circle behind each device. Rebooting the devices did not help. They showed the standard 'white' LED color which showed normal operation.

Then after 1 hour and 20 minutes, everything magically came back, and started working again.  And this all happened twice in a week during prime evening hours.

Checking the devices now, I see they are still running the same firmware (14150.376.32) which was released in 2022, so the downtime wasn't a firmware update.

I cannot explain this downtime, and twice in a week is completely unacceptable.

Has anyone seen similar patterns? Does anyone know what is going on? I'm about ready to throw these in the trash, my network gear needs to be more reliable than this.

[ChicagoAndy]

Anyone?  Again tonight, so 3 times this week.   Always early evening.

[virnab]

Hi ChicagoAndy,

Thanks for reaching out to our community.

I’m sorry to hear that during the last two weeks you’ve had an hour and 20 minutes of downtime. We appreciate you providing us with precise details like the time you are encountering the inconvenience and the precise length of each outage, for instance. I also appreciate you letting us know the Google Home app and the device's behavior. No worries, help is here.

To provide you with better assistance, I would appreciate it if you answered the following questions:

• Could you please confirm which is the model and generation of your WiFi devices?
• Is there something different about the light status when the issue is happening?
• Were there any recent power outages in your area?
• How far are the devices from the Google Wifi Router?
• Is there a switch located on the network?
• Do you use a modem and router combo?

In the meantime, while you are experiencing a downtime, please check if your modem has an internet connection. To verify it, please follow the steps below:

• Wire a computer directly to the modem and check if online.
• Wire an old router to the modem, connect to that network, and check if online.

Please let me know how it goes.  I will be looking forward to your kind answer.

Best regards,

Virna