2024-03-29 update: As of 23.09.1-RELEASE, the underlying issue appears to be fixed.

After a power-failure, my pfSense router (running 23.05.1-RELEASE) often fails to route packets over its single Starlink WAN connection. This is tedious because (i) power failures are relatively common around here, and (ii) the pfSense router is somewhat inaccessible. Wouldn't it be nice if everything "just worked" when the power came back on?

My guess was that this is something related to the pfSense router coming up before the Starlink router has established a connection; when this happens, the Starlink Gateway entry on the front page of the pfSense web UI often shows a status of "Unknown", and doing a reboot of the pfSense router (without rebooting the Starlink router) fixes the problem.

Searching around, I found the open pfSense issue #11570, which seem to talking about the same problem. Until this is resolved, here's how I fixed the issue:

• Go to "System -> Routing", edit "WAN_DHCP" / "WAN_DHCP6", and check "Disable Gateway Monitoring".

Here's what else I tried when attempting to fix the issue, and which DOESN'T help:

• Go to "System -> Routing", edit "WAN_DHCP" / "WAN_DHCP6", and check "Disable Gateway Monitoring Action".
• Go to "System -> Routing" and set "Default gateway IPv4" / "Default gateway IPv6" to "WAN_DHCP" / "WAN_DHCP6".

Here's what TEMPORARILY fixes the issue i.e. without rebooting the pfSense router:

• Go to "System -> Routing", click "Save" (without making any changes), and then click "Apply Changes".