# Excessive DHCP renewals



## hippodrome (Feb 14, 2005)

I've got a Tivo Series 2 with a USB wireless adapter and version 7.1a-02-2-240. It is set to get it's IP from my DI-604 gateway router via DHCP. Works great...at least until I noticed this...

I was browsing the router DHCP log and found that the TIVO is renewing its lease WAY too often...looks like every few minutes. My log is basically filled with TIVO renewals. 

Anyone else notice this? Did you figure out how to make it stop? The log is useless this way. Tivo bug? 

I may have to just make this a static IP, although I'd rather not if there's another way. 

Hippodrome


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## TLTypeS (Dec 27, 2002)

I would reboot Tivo 1st to make sure there isn't any problems with it. Then check your logs to make sure that the Tivo isn't asking for DHCP renewals.
If you still feel its too often, you will have to go into your router and change the lease time on the DHCP server to a longer interval. I'm pretty sure w/the DHCP standard that at half its lease time, the DHCP client (your Tivo) asks the DHCP server (your router) for a DHCP renewal.

In general, there is nothing wrong with frequent DHCP renewals


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## hippodrome (Feb 14, 2005)

Right, I agree there's nothing wrong with frequent renewals, but what's up with this?

I keep my router lease at 1 week. My other machines renew every few days, but TIVO hits it hard:

Apr/13/2005 13:02:14 DHCP lease IP 192.168.0.101 to TIVO 
Apr/13/2005 13:02:01 DHCP lease IP 192.168.0.101 to TIVO 
Apr/13/2005 12:37:15 DHCP lease IP 192.168.0.101 to TIVO 
Apr/13/2005 12:37:00 DHCP lease IP 192.168.0.101 to TIVO 
Apr/13/2005 12:00:50 DHCP lease IP 192.168.0.101 to TIVO 
Apr/13/2005 11:57:34 DHCP lease IP 192.168.0.101 to TIVO 
Apr/13/2005 11:57:20 DHCP lease IP 192.168.0.101 to TIVO 
Apr/13/2005 11:50:51 DHCP lease IP 192.168.0.101 to TIVO 
Apr/13/2005 11:47:26 DHCP lease IP 192.168.0.101 to TIVO 
Apr/13/2005 11:47:13 DHCP lease IP 192.168.0.101 to TIVO 

I'll try the TIVO reboot. I haven't rebooted in about a year.


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## TLTypeS (Dec 27, 2002)

That is too often, your Tivo needs a reboot.


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## KRKeegan (Jul 20, 2004)

What is really strange to me is the sporadic intervals. I see 3 minutes 7 minutes, 37 minutes 35 minutes. When you check the settings on your router how long is you DHCP lease time set for. On a home network with relatively little change you should be able to set this for 7 days without any problems.

The upshot is that DHCP renewals take very little overhead for you TiVo, network or DHCP server, but I understand you still want to fix it.


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## jafa (Jan 27, 2002)

Not sure about a TiVo but it is not uncommon for network devices to release their DHCP address when they loose link and re-aquire when link comes back.

It is possible that you have a cabeling issue or a USB dongle issue resulting it it thinking that it is loosing link every now and again.

Nick


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## hughvh (Apr 4, 2002)

jafa said:


> Not sure about a TiVo but it is not uncommon for network devices to release their DHCP address when they loose link and re-aquire when link comes back.
> 
> It is possible that you have a cabeling issue or a USB dongle issue resulting it it thinking that it is loosing link every now and again.
> 
> Nick


Good point. Also check the quality of your wireless connection. You may have to change channels if some else's microwave or cordless phone is disrupting your link.


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## hippodrome (Feb 14, 2005)

Did a reboot but that did not have any appreciable effect, so the dropped connection theory seems to be the most likely. 

Over the course of the last few days I have tried changing channels a few times. As far as I can tell by observing the DHCP logs, no channel is better than any other. 

I tried to correlate the time of the lease renewal attempts with microwave use, or phone use, or any other pattern I could think of but it seems random and continual, all through the night, so I'm thinking this is weak signal strength. Does anyone have any other theories?

The TIVO uses a Netgear WG-111 USB wireless dongle - I put a longer cord on it and hung it high on the wall over the TIVO to improve reception, but that didn't help.

My WAP is a Dell Truemobile 2300 located in the den, and here in the living room the signal isn't all that great - it can't be more than 25 feet away. I've tried various placements but the thing seems anemic to me. I'm going to try moving it into the living room and see what effect that has. 

Meanwhile if anyone has any tips for me I'd appreciate your thoughts. I'd like to have a more quantitive way of measuring signal strength, for one thing. 

Thanks

Phil


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## ultrajones (Oct 6, 2002)

How long is the DHCP lease? Have you done any packet captures to see what type of DHCP messages they are? That may give you a clue to what is actually occurring.

From http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1531.html

DHCPDISCOVER:
Client broadcast to locate available servers.

DHCPOFFER:
Server to client in response to DHCPDISCOVER with offer of configuration parameters.

DHCPREQUEST:
Client broadcast to servers requesting offered parameters from one server and implicitly declining offers from all others.

DHCPACK:
Server to client with configuration parameters, including committed network address.

DHCPNAK:
Server to client refusing request for configuration parameters (e.g., requested network address already allocated).

DHCPDECLINE:
Client to server indicating configuration parameters (e.g., network address) invalid.

DHCPRELEASE:
Client to server relinquishing network address and cancelling remaining lease.

Regards,
Ultrajones


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## ashu (Nov 8, 2002)

As for a reboot helping things much, you do realize that the 7.1 upgrade (and presumably, then the 7.1a upgrade) automatically rebooted the TiVo in the dead of night, right?

In addition, what does the signal strength indication under your main Phone/network settings indicate? It should also indicate any status messages like obtaining IP address, I believe. or does it only do that the first time you set up the adapter/WEP etc?

To debug issues, try turning off WEP temporarily, and also make sure you have a recent firmware version on the router. Newer ones for the 604/614/624 series include signal strength control and DHCP lease duration (although 10 seconds is probably NOT one of the choices!). Of course, bya ll means also test the USB adapter with a PC to see if that might be at fault!


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## b06xob (Mar 9, 2006)

These excessive DHCP renewals are causing me to reboot my router on a regular basis. I opened a case with Tivo Support. The support team was unaware that there was an issue with the Tivo DVRs excessivley renewing its IP address. I will post any additional information that I get from support. This appears to be a software problem, so there will need to be a software patch to correct this issue.


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## shulcslt (Dec 22, 2001)

I'm having the same problem. I thought it was my Linksys/Vonage wireless router and spent hours on the phone with vonage, to no avail and then bought a new router since mine was 1 week out of warranty. I'm still having to do it and seeing "no DHCP server" failures on the TiVos.


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## smark (Nov 20, 2002)

You can always just have it pull one statically.


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## vicjaw (May 29, 2006)

Has any progress been made regarding the excessive DHCP requests. I have 2 Tivo 2 DT (Wired Ethernet) connecting to my D-Link DIR-655 router. I have statically reserved the specific IP addresses to the TiVos but I still get the messages filling up the log file.

I have tried rebooting both TiVos and router, but no luck.

Thanks,
Vic


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## ashu (Nov 8, 2002)

What lifetime has your router set for DHCP Leases? Mine allows me to set forever, which is easy!

And considering all the PC apps that like seeing your TiVo at a fixed IP address (Desktop, Galleon, Better Now Playing etc), why not use purely static IPs anyway?

(I realize I'm not addressing the issue, if one exists, of the DT making repeated DHCP requests even if the lease is long ... can't test that, don't own a DT and my non-DT units don't do it!)


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## CrispyCritter (Feb 28, 2001)

I have no problems with DHCP leases. Linux DHCP server, everything default everywhere. Looks like all my TiVos talk with the server every 6 hours or so. The DT is on exactly the same schedule as the others.


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## tgibbs (Sep 22, 2002)

I had a similar problem with my sister's Series II. Even worse, it didn't always get the same address, and sometimes the TiVo ended up with an ip address that another computer was using. I never figured out why the DI-624 was giving it addresses that were in use, but I ultimately ended up configuring the DI-624 to always give it the same fixed address, and that eliminated the problem.


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## msilano (Jan 20, 2003)

Phew. I'm not losing my mind.

I had sporadic DHCP failures on my Linksys WRT-54gs, using DD-WRT. I filterd out the DHCP renewals ; didn't think that was important. I ended up buying a DIR-655 and noticed that the Tivo, connected via Wired ethernet connection was renewing its lease every 60 seconds. 

I've set the Tivo to use a static IP address and that has alleviated the problem for now. I don't have any packet captures yet, but may investigate further.


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## djmorse (Apr 25, 2003)

I have a D-Link DI-634M router and 2 S2 TiVos, and I just discovered both TiVos were hammering the router with DHCP renews every 5 seconds! FYI, they both have the TiVo branded wireless adapters, so don't think that will fix the problem.



> [INFO] Sat May 19 21:44:59 2007 Lease 192.168.0.110 renewed by client 0011D9152887
> [INFO] Sat May 19 21:44:58 2007 Lease 192.168.0.111 renewed by client 0011D91618EB
> [INFO] Sat May 19 21:44:53 2007 Lease 192.168.0.110 renewed by client 0011D9152887
> [INFO] Sat May 19 21:44:52 2007 Lease 192.168.0.111 renewed by client 0011D91618EB
> ...


etc.

Needless to say, they both have static IPs now! Definitely sounds like a bug.


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## TiVo Troll (Mar 23, 2006)

smark said:


> You can always just have it pull one statically.


Is there a reason that assigning a static IP to each TiVo would *not* be the simplest solution to the DHCP problem?


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

Anyone ever figure out this problem? It's till happening, with TivoHD's/S3's and the latest software release (9.4).

Only Tivo's.

Really annoying, as wih 6 Tivo's and renewals from each every 5 seconds, my router is constantly renewing DHCP.

(And static DHCP is preferable to manage the IP's centrally.)


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

any resolution to this?


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