** My issue is resolved but I'm documenting my experience and solution here for others that may have a similar problem. **
I had a successful Google Nest Wifi mesh network setup and working for years. I was experiencing upstream issues with Spectrum where I would periodically lose Internet connectivity and would have to power cycle my cable modem. I called Spectrum and they came out to investigate. My modem was pretty old and the tech could find nothing else wrong, so we decided to try replacing the cable modem. When he did that, the Nest Wifi router would no longer pull an upstream public IP address from the modem. To troubleshoot, the tech plugged his Windows laptop directly into the cable modem and that worked, he successfully got a public IP address. I plugged my Mac laptop directly into the modem and that also worked and I got a public IP address. But for some reason, when the Nest Wifi router was plugged into the modem, it would not pull a public IP address. The problem clearly seemed to be with the Google Nest network so I sent the support tech home hoping he had done his part in stabilizing our upstream Internet and figured I would figure out the local network issues. He agreed to give me his cell number in case I needed his assistance to further troubleshoot.
A Google search revealed someone else having the EXACT same issue - https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Nest-Wifi/Nest-Router-unable-to-obtain-IP-address-from-Modem/.... Unfortunately, no solution. I found similar reports online as well. No one could figure it out and things often ended with buying a different brand of home networking gear.
I factory reset our Google Nest Wifi network and tried again - same problem. I called Google Support. I learned about http://192.168.86.1/api/v1/status as a troubleshooting tool to see the status of the router. It wasn't getting a public IP address (which I already knew). The Google support tech assured me this is common and I needed to contact my service provider to have them "reprovision" the modem. I am a tech founder and fairly knowledgeable about networking - and this sounded super fishy to me. When I asked her why my latop was getting an IP address, should couldn't give me a good answer. She hurried me off the phone and assured me it would work.
Guess I'll give it a try. I texted my Spectrum technician. He told me he reprovisioned the modem when he installed it but would trigger it again. He did that and I tested again. As I suspected, it didn't fix the problem.
I called Google Support again. I figured I needed to get past the L1 support tech. She took me through the exact same troubleshooting steps and this time told me I needed to contact my service provider to have them "assign an IP address to my modem". I told her that made absolutely no sense since my laptop was getting a public IP address and the problem was clearly with the Google Nest Wifi network. She refused to acknowledge that and kept giving my the same script she was trained to deliver. When I asked her to escalate the call, she said "no" and hung up on me!!! This was without a doubt the worst support experience I have ever had. Super frustrating.
At this point, I was done with Google and figured I would just set up a new Ubiquity network. I called a friend for advice and he had actually recently replaced his Google Nest Wifi Pro network with Ubiquity. He had his old Nest Wifi Pro devices sitting in a box trying to figure out what to do with them, so he agreed to send them to me for free to see if they worked. When they arrived, I factory reset them and sure enough - they worked.
My guess is something is wrong with the Google Nest Wifi DHCP stack that is preventing it from getting an IP address from the modem. Windows, Mac, and Nest Wifi Pro all worked and got an IP address. Maybe someone from Google will read this and actually investigate and fix the issue instead of having L1 support give customers non-sense answers and rushing them off / hanging up on them. My network and internet have been stable since so I'm going to stick with Google Nest Wifi Pro for now, but at the next sign of issues or when it comes time to upgrade, I will definitely be looking at Ubiquity.
