I had a strange problem with my RT-AC88U router. I had installed two new Tivo boxes on the wired network. When I later accessed the router, I noticed in the network map that both of them had static IP addresses assigned within the range of my DNS IP numbers. I assume that the automatic setup of the Tivo boxes must have first requested an IP, and then made that static. Since I keep my static IPs in a different range, I changed the setup on each of the Tivo units to assign them a static local IP in the range where I have other static IPs. Both Tivo boxes accepted the changes and connected to the Internet just fine.

When I went back to the network map in the RT-AC88U, however, it still showed the Tivo boxes at their old IP addresses, and no indication of any client at the new IPs. The router was functioning as all devices on my network seemed to have local and Internet connectivity. I then went to the network traffic page on the router, and I got a blank box saying there were no clients. At this point, the user interface on the router was completely locked up, showing waiting for a response from the router. I could not even reboot. However, all devices on the network still had connectivity. I tried to unplug and replug the power on the router to reboot. However, after reinserting the power cord, nothing visible happened. It would not reboot. The power light never even blinked. Whatever happened to the router program seemed to prevent rebooting even on power up. I then pushed the reset button, and the router then rebooted. After that, everything seemed OK. I saw the new Tivo IP clients in the network map at the newly assigned fixed IPs. Network traffic was also working.

I suppose there may have been some issue with the router history having a MAC address at two different static IPs, the old and the new. However, it bothered me that the router GUI just hung up, and would not even reboot without resetting. I would have thought the router would reconfigure its tables and/or rescan if it found some kind of conflict, not just hang up. While it seems to be fine now, does anyone have any idea what happened here? Thanks.