Chromebook Network Connection

[j224]

Hi All,

 

Long shot, but hopefully someone here has some suggestions.

 

Recently our Chromebooks have been taking ages to reach the login screen. This can be best seen in this video I did- https://drive.google.com/file/d/16v1c_Ibd3a25Ycm7U3WIzcRTXQUEfuef/view?usp=sharing

 

It's not very clear to see in the video but the WiFi shows it's connected with a strong signal from the start.

 

It doesn't happen all of the time, just most of the time! We use SonicWall and have all the recommended domains whitelisted and have also tested disabling DPI-SSL but still the same issue. I've taken the Chromebook home and it goes straight to the login screen within a few seconds, every time I boot.

 

We also see this on our CloudReady computers which are ethernet, but it doesn't take as long to reach the login page.

 

Help!

[DGardiner]

are you using unifi wifi by any chance?

 

we have had issues with the 5ghz band on ours recently taking an absolute age to distribute ip's - disabling 5ghz on each AP resolved the issue instantly

[j224]

No, Meraki and the fact that it's happening to the ethernet connected CloudReady computers too, should rule out a WiFi problem? Unless there is more than one issue going on here.

[snagrat]

Not using Wonde are you?

[eddyc]

Do you have a way to temporary allow all traffic to a device?

 

We’ve seen behaviour like this and traced it to our web filtering and a gstatic domain which did not appear to be documented. As soon as we whitelisted that domain everything became much quicker

 

 

[ QUOTE=j224;1849777]Hi All,

 

Long shot, but hopefully someone here has some suggestions.

 

Recently our Chromebooks have been taking ages to reach the login screen. This can be best seen in this video I did- https://drive.google.com/file/d/16v1c_Ibd3a25Ycm7U3WIzcRTXQUEfuef/view?usp=sharing

 

It's not very clear to see in the video but the WiFi shows it's connected with a strong signal from the start.

 

It doesn't happen all of the time, just most of the time! We use SonicWall and have all the recommended domains whitelisted and have also tested disabling DPI-SSL but still the same issue. I've taken the Chromebook home and it goes straight to the login screen within a few seconds, every time I boot.

 

We also see this on our CloudReady computers which are ethernet, but it doesn't take as long to reach the login page.

 

Help!

[paulkerton]

I bet its almost certainly something to do with the proxy filtering and not the wifi:

So, connect a Chromebook to a tethered connection, login and then switch back to your wifi network.

Fire up Crosh (CTRL-ALT-T) on a Chromebook and run this command

network_diag --hosts

 

That will test each of the hostnames that need to be whitelisted from TLS/SSL inspection. They'll either PASS or FAIL.

If they FAIL, you'll need to make sure they're whitelisted in your proxy. Without that, you get issues like this.

 

I'm betting that some of those hostnames not being whitelisted properly.

Edited July 1, 2020 by paulkerton

[j224]

Not using Wonde are you?

Not for anything Google-related. Just for FFT Aspire, Teachers2Parents, SchoolMoney and My Concern.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I bet its almost certainly something to do with the proxy filtering and not the wifi:

So, connect a Chromebook to a tethered connection, login and then switch back to your wifi network.

Fire up Crosh (CTRL-ALT-T) on a Chromebook and run this command

network_diag --hosts

 

That will test each of the hostnames that need to be whitelisted from TLS/SSL inspection. They'll either PASS or FAIL.

If they FAIL, you'll need to make sure they're whitelisted in your proxy. Without that, you get issues like this.

I'm betting that some of those hostnames not being whitelisted properly.

 

 

Thanks, I'll give this a go!

[paulkerton]

Thanks, I'll give this a go!

 

Let us know how it goes!

Obviously not which hostnames, if it is that, but its always nice to find out if you were on the right track with something!

[j224]

Let us know how it goes!

Obviously not which hostnames, if it is that, but its always nice to find out if you were on the right track with something!

The Crosh was failing on accounts.google.com and accounts.gstatic.com

 

Our IT Support made some changes and now it passes on everything.

 

HOWEVER, we still have the same issue with the slow boot. It does it MOST of the time. There's a few boots where it goes straight through to the login screen within a few seconds.

[paulkerton]

The Crosh was failing on accounts.google.com and accounts.gstatic.com

 

Our IT Support made some changes and now it passes on everything.

 

HOWEVER, we still have the same issue with the slow boot. It does it MOST of the time. There's a few boots where it goes straight through to the login screen within a few seconds.

 

Just try power washing a couple of the slower ones and see if that helps at all.

Not saying it will, but it'll give you an idea of whether there is still a network issue or whether it's device based.

[j224]

Just try power washing a couple of the slower ones and see if that helps at all.

Not saying it will, but it'll give you an idea of whether there is still a network issue or whether it's device based.

 

Yep, tried Powerwash. No luck. Something isn't working right with our network, but I don't know what.

[j224]

One minute we have everything PASS and the next we have the top 6 results all FAIL: Connection timed out

 

What's going on??

[paulkerton]

One minute we have everything PASS and the next we have the top 6 results all FAIL: Connection timed out

What's going on??

Looks like your firewall/filtering is doing whatever it wants. Make sure all the hostnames provided are fully whitelisted, including excluding them from SSL Inspection.

[j224]

Looks like your firewall/filtering is doing whatever it wants. Make sure all the hostnames provided are fully whitelisted, including excluding them from SSL Inspection.

 

It is and they are.

 

We're going to swap out the Sonicwall for WatchGuard and hope it works!

[DavidYoung]

I had this at a site today and found that accounts.youtube.com was blocked. I know Google sign in pages sometimes redirect to accounts.youtube.com but not always and I don't think I had seen Chromebooks having this issue before so something may have changed recently.

[j224]

So, I think the WatchGuard has solved the problem with the slow Chromebook boot. However, we're still getting the internet grind to a crawl several times a day. So we're now thinking the modem may be playing up too because after rebooting it, the connection is back to normal for a couple more hours.

 

I love technology!

[j224]

For anyone following this thread- it turned out to be a small section of broadband wire which had worn a bit thin!

 

Although, I still think the Sonicwall was broken because out Chromebook loading times improved as soon as we switched it to Watchguard.

[paulkerton]

Everything working now as expected then?

 

Sounds like you had three or four problems that all compounded each other!