Network/Internet connectivity issues after changing modem

Hi everyone,

I was using my RasPi 5 Umbrel pretty much perfectly when my modem/router was a Netgear AX80. However, I was experiencing issues with the AX80 so I decided to take up my ISP’s offer to use their provided modem/router (SERCOMM DG4244) at no additional cost.

Unfortunately, now the Pi is exhibiting some extremely odd behaviors and is basically useless when using UmbrelOS.

Here’s what I’ve tried (and results in parentheses) so far:

  • Visited umbrel.local in Arc and Chrome on two different Macs running MacOS 15.0 beta and a Windows 11 PC (Error: DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN)
  • Visited umbrel.local in Safari (UI loads and I’m able to sign in, but UmbrelOS does not identify a local IPv4 address in Settings and nothing loads in the app store. Essentially the Pi seems to be unable to connect to the Internet)
  • Connected via SSH (success)
  • Once in the web UI, connected to Wi-Fi and then disconnected the ethernet cable (no behavior change from ethernet connection)
  • Reinstalled UmbrelOS to microSD card using Etcher (no change)
  • Reformatted USB SSD (no change)
  • Temporarily disabled all firewall settings on the modem/router (no change)
  • Confirmed that the modem/router assigned an IP address via DHCP, but for some reason Umbrel OS doesn’t recognize that it was assigned

Umbrel’s logs show that every second the same message repeats:

Jun 16 11:00:09 umbrel umbrel-tty-message[32072]: Failed to parse address ''

Shortly after boot it looks like Umbrel OS tried downloading app inventory data and failed…

Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=info msg="State transition: inventory-update-retry-wait [Sync] -> inventory-update [Sync]"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=warning msg="Returning artifact name from /etc/mender/artifact_info file. This is a fallback, in case the information can not be retrieved from the database, and is only expected when an update has never been installed before."
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=info msg="Device unauthorized; attempting reauthorization"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=error msg="Failed to authorize with \"\": failed to build authorization request: failed to obtain authorization message data: failed to obtain identity data: failed to call /usr/share/mender/identity/mender-device-identity: fork/exec /usr/share/mender/identity/mender-device-identity: no such file or directory"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=warning msg="Reauthorization failed with error: transient error: authorization request failed"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=error msg="Failed to submit inventory data: transient error: authorization request failed"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=error msg="inventory submit failed: transient error: authorization request failed"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=warning msg="Failed to refresh inventory: failed to submit inventory data: inventory submit failed: transient error: authorization request failed"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=info msg="State transition: inventory-update [Sync] -> inventory-update-retry-wait [Sync]"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=info msg="Handle update inventory retry state try: 4"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=warning msg="Returning artifact name from /etc/mender/artifact_info file. This is a fallback, in case the information can not be retrieved from the database, and is only expected when an update has never been installed before."
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=info msg="Device unauthorized; attempting reauthorization"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=error msg="Failed to authorize with \"\": failed to build authorization request: failed to obtain authorization message data: failed to obtain identity data: failed to call /usr/share/mender/identity/mender-device-identity: fork/exec /usr/share/mender/identity/mender-device-identity: no such file or directory"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=warning msg="Reauthorization failed with error: transient error: authorization request failed"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=error msg="Failed to submit inventory data: transient error: authorization request failed"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=error msg="inventory submit failed: transient error: authorization request failed"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=warning msg="Failed to refresh inventory: failed to submit inventory data: inventory submit failed: transient error: authorization request failed"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=warning msg="RetryPollIntervalSeconds is not defined"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=warning msg="RetryPollIntervalSeconds is not defined"
Jun 16 10:42:57 umbrel mender[391]: time="2024-06-16T10:42:57Z" level=info msg="Wait 2m0s before next inventory update attempt in 1m59.999991648s"

I’m kind of at a loss here. I’m sure this has something to do with how my ISP’s modem/router is configured by default, but I have no idea where to start. Does anyone reading this have any ideas or recommendations?

EDIT: Oh, and the craziest thing I observed was that, prior to reformatting the SSD, I was able to access the Umbrel on one of the Macs but ONLY if I was connected to my Proton VPN - almost like that was a bizarre workaround for whatever network settings were preventing the Umbrel web OS from being accessible. However that didn’t give the Pi access to the Internet. I was able to at least download Plex media I wanted to recover before formatting.