Devices suddenly can't access local IPs on the LAN?

Solution 1:

Original Answer from 2017-05-30:

My sites are now all accessible again from all devices (even using my custom domains specified in DD-WRT).

Step 1:

I needed to go to Windows > HomeGroup and enable the PC to be discoverable on my network. (Maybe this was at Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings.)

(But how had my setup been working all along when my PC was not discoverable? Maybe it had been discoverable until recently? I'm not sure what would have changed its status. I don't remember ever setting it one way or another.)

Doing this enabled my Nginx site to be visible via mobile (rather than just in the browser of the same Windows desktop).

But then my Homestead (Vagrant) site still wasn’t visible via mobile (even though it still worked from the browser of the same Windows desktop). So...

Step 2:

I set these as startup commands in DD-WRT:

swconfig dev switch0 set enable_vlan 1
swconfig dev switch0 set apply

Step 3:

In DD-WRT > Additional DNSMasq Options, I changed address=/mysite.xyz/192.168.10.10 to address=/mysite.xyz/192.168.1.111.

Other background info:

My Windows "hosts" file doesn't have any relevant active entries.

My Homestead.yaml is:

#https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/homestead
---
ip: "192.168.10.10"
memory: 2048
cpus: 1
provider: virtualbox

authorize: ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

keys:
    - ~/.ssh/id_rsa2013Oct

folders:
    - map: c:/code/mysite-members
      to: /home/vagrant/Code/mysite-members

sites:
    - map: mysite.xyz 
      to: /home/vagrant/Code/mysite-members/public
      schedule: false

databases:
    - mysite

networks:
    - type: "public_network"
      # Should I make this network type public or private?
      # This IP must not match the static IP of the desktop. Make it different, such as "192.168.1.111" if the desktop is 192.168.1.110.
      ip: "192.168.1.111" 
      bridge: "Realtek RTL8811AU Wireless LAN 802.11ac USB 2.0 Network Adapter"

And homestead.bat reload --provision is what I run if/when I ever edit Homestead configuration.

Recap:

I wish I knew exactly what changed and why and what the root cause of the problem was.

All of my devices had been working perfectly until recently even without all of these steps.

Oh well. I'm glad it's all working again.

UPDATE on 2017-11-03:

I think I've encountered this problem three times over the past year, and I'm now thinking it has less to do with DD-WRT or any specific router or bug and instead could be related to IP address conflicts and IP addresses getting stale.

Today, during my latest encounter with this problem (using a Netgear R6300v1), I solved it by changing an IP setting from 192.168.1.111 to 192.168.1.119 in two locations (as previously described here).

The first location was Homestead.yaml > networks > ip:

ip: "192.168.10.10"

networks:
    - type: "public_network"
      ip: "192.168.1.119"
      bridge: "Realtek RTL8811AU Wireless LAN 802.11ac USB 2.0 Network Adapter"

In my DD-WRT "Additional DNSMasq Options", I changed it to address=/mysite.xyz/192.168.1.119.