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d3xbot's avatar
d3xbot
New Contributor II
2 months ago

How to access Spectrum Analyzer

I've got a Motorola MB8600 and have been having some trouble with my internet connection. I found a few forum posts for this modem and other Motorola modems saying that port 8080 should allow you to view a spectrum analyzer page so I went to 192.168.100.1:8080 and the page wouldn't respond.

I thought that odd, so I did an nmap scan of my modem and found that port 8080 is filtered:

Port 53 (DNS) responds to ping, port 80 (HTTP) works in my browsers, port 443 (HTTPS) works in my browsers, but port 8080 (HTTP Alt) just times out:

Why is this? Does anyone know why Cox is blocking customers from accessing a feature on the modems they checked were compatible with Cox Internet, purchased, and and set up?

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The whole reason I want to get at the Spectrum Analyzer page is to troubleshoot an issue I've been having with my internet speeds (should be 500/50) and reliability:

As you can see by the speed tests above, I've been getting much lower download speed than I should except March 26 at 7:41 which was immediately after a modem reboot, but you can see how long that lasted...

I've already done the usual troubleshooting...

  1.  Reboot your router (in this case, power cycling my UniFi UDM Pro SE and my UniFi U6 Lite AP)
  2. Reboot your Modem
  3. Wait for all the lights to come back on
  4. Check 192.168.100.1 to ensure the modem has negotiated all the channels properly and is happy with your connection
  5. Use Cox SmartHelp (repeating steps 1-3)
  6. Have Cox SmartHelp "send a signal to reset your Modem" (repeating step 2 since it's not a reprovision)
  7. Chat for an hour with a Cox support person who insists the reboot is actually a reprovision and the only way to help now is to have a Cox tech come out and see what's going on

There's more to do past step 7, but that would involve doing a factory reset on my modem and checking the signal analyzer page. I've seen some reports that if you time it exactly right, you'll be able to pull up the page before Cox's configuration profile blocks it (Comcast does a similar thing but with ports 80, 8080, and 443)

spectrum analyzer

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  • Darkatt's avatar
    Darkatt
    Valued Contributor III
    2 months ago

    Cox doesn't block port 8080. 

    https://www.cox.com/residential/support/internet-ports-blocked-or-restricted-by-cox.html

    Also, your MB8600 isn't a Motorola modem, it's a ZOOM Modem. Zoom Telephonics leased, then purchased the Motorola NAME from Arris, who actually purchased Motorola and their intellectual property information. Arris produces the Surfboard line, originally produced by Motorola, and leased, then sold the NAME to Zoom. 

    Zoom had this huge article in one of the major industry magazines boasting the fact that they can now use the name Motorola on their equipment and people would buy their equipment due to name recognition, which I find underhanded AND deceitful. People buy due to name recognition thinking they are getting a quality product, and they end up with trash I wouldn't PAY someone to use. 

    Edit - BTW, port 80 INBOUND is blocked, that means from the internet to the WAN port. YOU are trying to access your device internally from the LAN port, and nothing that Cox blocks, is going to affect something taking place from the LAN side. Proof of that, disconnect your CABLE wire so that your modem cannot load Cox CFG file and go online, and then simply access it through your LAN port.

  • d3xbot's avatar
    d3xbot
    New Contributor II
    2 months ago

    Yes, I know Cox don't say they block port 8080, but on a fresh factory reset, I can access 192.168.100.1:8080 (but it shows up blank because there's no cable to analyze). 

    Soon as I plug in the cable jack, though, and it pulls a config from Cox, 192.168.100.1:8080 won't respond and I can't analyze the spectrum which is the whole point of trying to pull up the spectrum analyzer.

    ------------

    Re: the Zoom Telephonics thing, I prefer the Zoom built ones. I've never had one of them overheat or outright die on me out of nowhere (aside from a literal lightning strike to the coax line in my building). The Arris surfboards, though, drop like flies in my experience. You have to add additional external cooling if you want one of them to last a year.

    • Darkatt's avatar
      Darkatt
      Valued Contributor III
      31 days ago

      The issue is, if cox were to block port 8080, it would be from the outside in through the cable port. They CANNOT block access through your LAN port, as that is INTERNAL to your network. Try bypassing the router and connecting via ethernet direct to the modem and then see if you can access the spectrum analyzer. remember to reboot the modem after connecting a new device to the lan port. 

      • d3xbot's avatar
        d3xbot
        New Contributor II
        28 days ago

        I mean, I downloaded the code for the MB8600 from Motorola Cable's GPL compliance center and it's literally just a Linux appliance. You can set firewall rules any way you want on any network interface the system sees.

        If Cox's configuration file includes a rule that blocks traffic originating from localhost:8080 (in this case, the modem) from going over the Ethernet interface, they certainly could block this specific page.

        Alls I knows is before I plug into Cox's network, the page loads but doesn't do anything because the page needs to have a CoAX cable plugged in. When I plug into Cox's network, it stops working.