Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2018 19:40 Post subject: Wake On Lan
Would anyone happen to know if you had a bridged modem (separate Xfinity cable modem & Netgear router with WRT installed) and were trying to utilize WOL over the internet, does the external IP address on the router have to be the same as the modem? I had my system working perfectly then made the mistake of calling Comcast with a totally unrelated repair problem. The rep had me try different things but one of the things he had my try (which was against my better judgement) was a release/renew. Ever since then, I can no longer wake my PCs up from outside my network. Works fine on the LAN but not on the WAN. My router settings are exactly the same as they were before I made the call. I've now wasted almost a full day playing with port forwarding rules and reboots. Then I noticed the external IP address on my cable modem is different from the external IP address on my router. It may have always been that way. I never noticed the IP address on my cable modem since my setup was always bridged. I always thought a release/renew changed your external IP address but the Comcast rep I spoke to today told me the only way to change the IP address on your cable modem would be to get a new one. I know the IP address on my router did not change since that was the one that was in the settings of my WOL Magic Packet app.
Thanks guys for your help but it seems like the problem was much simpler. For some reason, the subnet for sending the packet in my phone app changed from 255.255.255.255 to 255.255.255.0. Not sure why that happened. My understanding of subnets is kinda limited but I guess it has to be 255 across the board. Plus, the WOL Packet monitoring software I was using did not always display the incoming packets properly. What a nightmare that was!
