WD19 dock kills local network when laptop is turned off?

@badbob002  Very strange indeed.  I haven't seen this reported elsewhere, and the only way I've seen an entire unmanaged switch get taken down is if both ends of the same Ethernet cable are connected to switch ports, which can create a broadcast storm.  I don't even have a guess as to what the dock could be doing in power save mode that could cause this, and if you have an unmanaged switch, that obviously limits opportunities for gaining visibility and insight into traffic.  But just as a preliminary troubleshooting measure, are you running the latest firmware?  You can get it from the WD19 Downloads page here.

I'm having the EXACTLY SAME behavior here. I have two WD19 docks and both have the same issue. Both are connected to apple macbook pros.

I am having the same exact problem when macbook pro is connected, but not when precision is connected

I experienced the same problem on our network today and once in the past (about month ago)

setup:

Dell Latitude 5400 14 FHD (99VH8) running updated windows 10 connected to DELL WD19 130W 

connected to gigabit LAN network, network died (other computers were unable to use internet or even get IP from DHCP) when the laptop was turned off, LED on the network port on the switch the dock was connected to indicated very high activity, when cable was disconnected network started to work again (other computer able to use network again), when connected back the network died again.

Please provide some kind of fix because otherwise we will RMA all WD19 docks - this is unacceptable.

Hello, we sent you a direct message.

Thanks

Hi, I assume when you say "you sent someone a direct message" you mean it's a solution - could you please send this to me as well - I am having that same exact problem. Thank you. Andrey

I'm glad I've found this. I've been having trouble with my local network, which I initially thought was related to a switch or router failing but some further diagnostics yesterday revealed that it was the WD19 at fault. A short time after booting my XPS 9500, my whole home network died - nothing on it was accessible by IP address, from any machine or device.

I'd restarted all my networking hardware (just Netgear gigabit switches and an AVM router). I noticed before/after restarting that there was a *lot* of port activity on specific ports, which I traced back to originating from the port the network cable from the WD19 was connected to. Unplug that network cable, everything starts working again.

Only a power cycle of the dock resolved the problem. It's happened three times in the space of 2 weeks though, and it's not a minor thing to happen either. What on earth is it sending out that's knocking everything off the network??

My solution is to NOT use the ethernet port on the dock.

I'm experiencing this exact same issues while using the WD19 dock in combination with a Precession 5530 laptop running Ubuntu 20.04.

All is fine, but minutes after turning off the laptop, while connected to the dock, my local network goes crazy. The leds on the switch indicate heavy traffic. None of the other devices on the network can make any connection. 

Is there any way to fix this behavior? 

For instance, how I can I configure that the network interface of the dock turns off, when the laptop is off? Currently, when the laptop is off, the port on the switch still indicates the dock being connected.

I also have the exact same problem.
I'm using a Dell XPS 7390 and Dell USB-C docking station (mobile adapter DA300
I think it is). If the XPS is turned off my nearest ethernet switch might go crazy because of
an ethernet broadcast storm.
For some reason the laptop or docking station sends back an ethernet broadcast frame, this is forbidden and a major flaw!

I'll try to capture the broadcast that is looping forever ... I cannot imagine it is something simple
as an ARP broadcast (then it'll happen to everybody).. my guess it is an STP BPDU or another not-so-common
Ethernet-II broadcast (I'm using a Sonos audio system which does this).

In the meantime I disabled Wake-On-LAN and a USB-C docking station setting (wake-up or something)
in the XPS 7390 BIOS, maybe this helps.

I'm having the exact same problem, with a DELL Precision 5540 connected to the Dell Thunderbolt Dock WD19TB, which is connected via Gigabit LAN to a simple unmanaged D-Link switch, and then to the Internet router and other devices like printer.

On my network, I also have a Synology DS220J NAS, and that one reproducibly goes offline about 30 minutes after I shut down the Dell notebook. The first 5 minutes after shutdown I notice occasional packets still sent from the dock (switch is blinking 3-4 times, then several seconds pause), but no storm. About 30 minutes later, wild flickering (on the dock's and NAS's ports) and my NAS is not reachable via ping any longer. Unplugged the notebook from the dock, and everything is normal and reachable again. This happened three days in a row; now, as a workaround, I unplug the dock from the notebook after shutting down the notebook.

I've installed all BIOS and Thunderbolt Dock updates on Oct-2020 when I got the system. (Snide remark: In the state the dock got delivered it basically served only as an expensive power brick; USB and LAN only started working at all once I had installed the BIOS updates, and this left a very poor first impression!) According to the Dell Support Assist tool, I'm all up-to-date.

My company is rolling out this combination as a standard combination for dozens of employees, who right now mostly are in home offices. If this potentially could also affect the corporate LAN in the office, you'll certainly be getting the heat from our IT department, as such a broadcast storm could prevent hundreds of office dwellers from working! I hope you'll be able to provide a fix; it's a bit scary that the dock starts developing a network life on its own, even though the notebook it is connected to has been shut down.

I'm seeing exactly the same problem. I was nearly going crazy over this and I'm so glad I found this thread.

My WD19 Dock is at the latest firmware level (01.00.14.01, A03). It is connected to an unmanaged Switch (Linksys LGS108P). My laptop attached to the Dock is an Dell XPS 13 (9370). Shortly after the laptop turns off, all other devices on that switch are not able to communicate any more. I've never experienced something like this before. As soon as I pull the Dock from the switch everything goes back to normal. It's definetly the Dock causing this.

As a somewhat workaround, I connected another old spare switch (TP-Link-SG108, also unmanaged) that was lying around to my Linksys switch and connected solely the Dock to this spare switch. This way, the problem seems to be contained only to that spare switch - the devices on the Linksys switch do not seem to be affected any more. Maybe this might help someone here.

I'm really looking forward for a solution to this and even more for a plausible explanation for this weird and twisted behaviour.

If Dell cannot fix this, they should at least package a spare switch with their Docks.

Also get this issue after laptop is powered off.

I have exactly the same issue with my "Dell Dock WD19" in combination with my Inspiron 5490. On both I have the latest Firmware/BIOS. This bug is ... annoying!!!

Dell Support asked me to disable Thunderbolt security and Wake on LAN, to see whether that fixes the Dock's packet storm issue.
- BIOS > Settings > System Configuration > Thunderbolt Adapter Configuration
Change from User Authorization to No Security
- BIOS > Settings > Power Management > Wake On LAN
Already set to (o) Disabled

After that, the issue was gone for me; beforehand, I reproducibly ran into it three times in a row. Interestingly, I restored the changed Thunderbolt User Authorization a week later to see whether that would cause the issue to reappear, but it hasn't! (In the meantime, I've installed a Dell Precision 5540 System BIOS update (1/20/2021); that could have silently fixed it (though I doubt that).)

So, even though I'm seemingly back to the original BIOS configuration, the issue somehow is gone (for 4 weeks)?!