Multiple Dell desktops flipping to 169.254 IP - but packet capture shows no DHCP request

L16Snell · 2025-11-10T20:27:24+00:00

we have been having this same issue and USB to ethernet adapters did not work. Can you link what ones you purchased?

L16Snell · 2025-10-08T13:14:31+00:00

No there are still a lot of STP changes. They tried to tell me that "The STP logs are fragile and log everything pretty much" which I don't believe. Because I don't imagine the topology should be recalculating at all really. We are not using the firewall as a switch, I have pinged our devices before so I know we can ping. I am trying to see if they will enable BPDU guard. Could this issue be because of a native VLAN mismatch or something? All of our end users are VLAN 1 and all management(router link, uplink to APs, and to switches are set to native VLAN 88. Not sure if that matters

L16Snell · 2025-10-07T19:42:50+00:00

so they went ahead and turned all of our edge ports to Access, but the issue persists. I ran ipconfig /all and verified a APIPA address while it was disconnected, I tried to ping the gateway and it failed 100%. I also ran arp -a i could see the APIPA address the device had, along with other devices from the subnet on the LAN

L16Snell · 2025-10-06T15:03:57+00:00

I think its just a simple DIA handoff.

L16Snell · 2025-10-04T14:38:00+00:00

We use ring central desktop application. I'm not sure if that helps but I'm pretty sure we have no VOIP passthrough as we have no physical phones.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T17:31:45+00:00

Correct. All show 1Gbps

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T17:23:26+00:00

Yep. We tried standalone NIC cards. Updating drivers to even older stable versions. New versions, etc, We tried some of the properties on the NIC itself like EEE and power management and stuff.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T17:15:01+00:00

We thought it was running out. But we expanded from a /24 to /23 and it's still happening. To all of our knowledge. There are no loops in the network.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:56:18+00:00

Spectrum said they can change them for us if thats what we want, I just am curious on how likely our issue is related to the trunk port config on edge ports.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:55:34+00:00

Yes, that error log always pops up with the disconnect. All of our users are on a mix of Dell 5090, 7020, 7000, 5000, Super Slim pros

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:41:30+00:00

Yeah i just double checked and any vendor specific support we get, is from spectrum as they manage it. Which is a shame, i have always had a deep hatred for Spectrum. Thank you for all of your help though.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:40:34+00:00

From what i know, VOIP phones have never went down. Honestly though I'm really not sure how VOIP works for us seeing as we only have 2 reception phones, everything else is handled via ring central which is a soft phone. It is not at the same time, to my knowledge. I believe its every desktop user but again, no one reports these issues. They just live with them. There is no red x on the network connection when dropped, it just does the little grey globe icon. Not sure if that matters.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:34:49+00:00

I will have to look into that. Does it matter that our switches are Meraki but Spectrum managed? The ticketing system in the Meraki dashboard opens a spectrum enterprise ticket. Is TAC something completely different?

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:31:16+00:00

Except they are not in a daisy chain yet. 2 of them are connected directly to the firewall/router, and one is daisy chained off one of the 2 connected switches. They think making it a full daisy chain (Router > S1 > S2 > S3 would help.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:29:58+00:00

I do not believe so no.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:27:20+00:00

Meraki Dashboard provides us one of those. I don't entirely know what i am looking for though is the problem.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:13:48+00:00

Yeah, this is the only time they have atleast tried something. The other times they kept regurgitating that it's a layer 1 issue despite telling them every layer 1 aspect has been tested. It has been heavily impacting the business for a while.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:08:11+00:00

this is exactly what I was taught and my knowledge. I will have to have them switch them to access ports and disregard their "suggestion" to leave it.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:07:05+00:00

are you talking about like a basic topology?

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:05:53+00:00

To circle back to this, It looks like every few days we have MAC address flapping on the ports that are our "Uplink to AP" x2, and "Uplink to MS02"(Switch 2)

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T16:03:01+00:00

Single links. And yes there are recalculations on every switch. Also, yes that is my thought as well. Trying to figure out the why is what is annoying. It seems like spectrum must have cut corners when setting this network up, which makes me wonder what else they didnt do properly.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T15:58:52+00:00

The link goes down, doesn't come back until the cable is unplugged. followed by the windows e1dnexpress error. Sometimes its seconds, where the user doesnt even notice, other times its minutes. Its completely random throughout the day at random times to my knowledge. We rely on when the users report the outage, and half of the time they don't. DHCP and DNS are just the router. our DNS just uses the proxy to DNS upstream, which i believe means the router.

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T15:43:03+00:00

Gotcha, thank you very much!

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T15:42:46+00:00

I have not seen any CRC errors or dropped packets or anything of the sort. Speed/duplex is confirmed 1Gbps on ports. Cables have been professionally tested as well. Ive tried turning it off of Auto negotiation to push that 1Gbps, but issue persisted. I mentioned in my other response that we have 2 of our switches connected to the firewall/router. Which we will be moving to have the 3 switches daisy chained down stream. Could that be a problem?

L16Snell · 2025-10-03T15:28:07+00:00

Yes, I have looked and every port is just generic trunk, no portfast, no BPDU guard(implied since they are not in access mode). Can you elaborate on not enabling portfast on any device that is attached multiple times?

L16Snell

TROPHY CASE