Wake On LAN issue after 21H2

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I use my laptop to access two Windows 7 machines on my home network. They are usually in “sleep” mode, so I use a WakeOnLAN utility to send a “Magic Packet” to port 9 to wake them up so I can access them remotely.  This has been working fine for me for a couple of years.

The other day I installed 21H2 on my laptop, and now it can no longer wake up the other machines. I have tried several alternate WOL utilities on the laptop to no avail.

I installed a WakeOnLAN app on my phone, and it wakes up the two remote PCs. Based on this, I’m pretty sure it is not a router, port forwarding or network problem.

Each remote machine is able to use the same WOL utility to wakeup the other remote machine, and to wake up the laptop. Again – doesn’t seem to be a router/network issue.

Once the remote machines are awake, I have no problem accessing them from my laptop, so it isn’t a permissions or access issue.

I have tried disabling the firewall on the laptop, but that hasn’t helped either.

I tried uninstalling 21H2 but the problem persists.

The thing that does concern me is that a driver was installed at the same time 21H2 was installed. It is “Intel Corporation – SoftwareComponent 2130.1.16.1”. I don’t know what that relates to exactly but I did find two “Intel” items listed in Device Manager under “Software Components” that had that version number, so I used the “Roll Back” option, and they disappeared. But it still doesn’t work.

The Network Adapter is listed as “Realtec PCIe GbE Family Controller”. I have my doubts about that being the issue because when I unplug the ethernet cable and enable wireless, it still does not work. The wireless adapter is listed as “Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168”.

I had successfully used the WOL utility less than an hour before upgrading to 21H2 (I was on 21H1). So it seems like something is preventing magic packets from being sent from the laptop after 21H2.

Anybody have any ideas?

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Do you have any virtualization software on that system?  Look for virtual nics from virtual box/vmware/hyper V as that could be messing with it.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Tim Mohrlant

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Hi Susan.

You nailed it!

I disabled the network adapter for Virtual Box, and the WakeOnLAN process began working again.

Disabling that didn’t concern me, because I never got the network to work for my virtual machine anyway (and don’t really need it). But after loading up the VM, I discovered that a new network adapter (with the same name) had been installed by VirtualBox. Oh-Oh, I thought. So I uninstalled the one I had previously disabled, including deleting the driver.  When I tried WOL, it still worked, so life is good in the Mohrlant household.

So, if there is a next time, I’ll just uninstall the network adapter for the VM and let VirtualBox reinstall it.

Thanks for the expert advice.

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I forgot to log in when I posted the previous response – it was from me.

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Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the WOL utility?

Are you using the Windows firewall or a third-party firewall?

--Joe

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Tim Mohrlant

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Hi joep517,

Thanks for your reply.

The WOL utility is a simple command line app written in 2004 that doesn’t have any installation needs. As I mentioned in my original post, I had tried other utilities too, and they did not work, leading me to believe that it was something with the system, vs the app.

Susan Bradley’s suggestion was to look at the network adapter for VirtualBox, and that proved to be the source of the problem.

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Sorry – I forgot to log in. That post was from me.

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Just a followup – As mentioned above, the network adapter for VirtualBox is what was causing my problem. I have discovered that any time I restart my laptop, the problem is back. I have found that just disabling it and re-enabling it clears things up. That is a hassle, but fortunately I don’t restart my laptop very often. Actually, I don’t use VirtualBox very often either, so I will probably just uninstall the VirtualBox network adapter, and let VirtualBox reinstall when necessary.

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