1
Diagnostic step 1
Collect evidence: enable detailed PPPoE and system logging on the router around 02:55–03:10 for several days and export logs; capture timestamps to correlate with ISP logs.
FULL AI ANALYSIS
Home router drops PPPoE session daily at 03:00 and reconnects with different public IP
Generated Oct 3, 2026, 12:35:03 AM
Analysis summary
Daily PPPoE disconnects at a consistent time strongly point to an orchestrated event: either a scheduled ISP-side task (authentication refresh, dynamic maintenance, or carrier NAT rotation) or a device-side scheduled job (cron/maintenance on router firmware). Less likely causes include line instability causing PPPoE link flaps, or router firmware bug that triggers periodic reconnection when the router's internal timer interacts badly with PPPoE keepalive settings. The fact that the ISP sees the session resets at the same minute and multiple customers affected suggests an ISP-initiated action; however router firmware can still fail to resume seamless session handling and cause client-visible reconnects and TCP connection loss.
Possible causes
ISP scheduled maintenance or automated PPPoE/ DHCP/ NAT rotation scripts that terminate sessions nightly
100%Router firmware bug that triggers PPPoE reauthentication or fails to preserve session state during upstream maintenance
20%Line or modem instability leading to a brief PPPoE LCP close that is handled differently across devices
10%Router-side cron/maintenance task (log rotation, cert renewal) that interferes with PPPoE stack
5%Suggested fixes
2
Diagnostic step 2
Temporarily swap to a different router or run a router in passthrough mode with a spare device to see if the behavior persists (reversible and non-destructive).
3
Diagnostic step 3
Update router firmware to the latest stable vendor release or revert to a known-good firmware if the issue started after an update; perform after saving current config.
4
Diagnostic step 4
Ask ISP to disable scheduled job for your line or provide details about the 03:00 event; request they test holding your PPPoE session through the maintenance window.
5
Diagnostic step 5
If immediate mitigation is required, use an IP-layer keepalive (VPN or TCP keepalive) and configure application-level reconnect/backoff to survive short reconnects; consider using a router with documented PPPoE stability for long-lived connections and escalate to ISP/network ops if logs show ISP-side termination.