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Connection still awful at times

myredhotcar
Grafter
Posts: 457
Registered: ‎06-11-2013

Connection still awful at times

At the time I joined I was using a DG834G v3. My line constantly disconnected and was essentially unusable when the SNR dropped, which it did constantly. I started this thread. In the thread Chris Purvey suggested my DG834G was at fault. Chris Pettitt echoed this suggestion. I tried a different router (and PN tweaked things); things got a little better but the service was still substandard. Due to the suggestions that my two routers were at fault I then purchased a DG834GT, as it seemed that I needed special equipment to use the non-special PN ADSL service. After installing the GT the line was not great but at least seemed usable.
Less than one month later I again ran into problems with the new, special equipment so I started a second thread. The second set problem was similar to the first although not as chronic. Whenever the SNR dropped below 6dB the line cut out. Empty gruel bowl in hand I asked PN to set my line to a fixed margin to avoid the problems, which seemed to be caused by a pointlessly ineffective DLM ignoring the issues and thrashing the hell out of my line, dropping the SNR margin. This time Matt Taylor became involved, and told me PN would set my line to a fixed 9dB profile, to stabilise my line. Sadly this didn't happen, and I heard nothing more from Matt Taylor. Due to the headaches caused by banging my head against the wall of support, I gave up.
Since then my line has been dropping below 3dB. While I have seen some truly decent speeds at times it has also been unreliable. I get a lot of buffering watching VOD and pages sometimes take an age to load, as if my MTU settings are incorrect (they are correct). I contacted Chris Pettitt and he replied to let me know he would contact me the next day. He didn't.
I am still having problems, and I am getting the impression I cannot trust the word of the support staff. I was told I would be put on a fixed profile and I wasn't, and I am still waiting for the promised correspondence from another member of staff. I am incredibly unhappy. I am a paying customer. I am close to terminating my contract and I am in the process of complaining to OFCOM.
In the interim - and in the absence of support from my ISP - do any members of the community have any advice? I know none of you have the power to set me to a fixed 9dB profile, or reply to my correspondence in the role of technical support.
If any other data is needed I can provide. If a member of support reads this maybe they could honour their word and either set me to a fixed 9dB profile or if this is not possible at least contact me and let me know.
adslctl info --stats
adslctl: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: ShowtimeRetrain Reason: 8000
Channel: FAST, Upstream rate = 888 Kbps, Downstream rate = 12417 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode:                   ADSL2+
Channel:                Fast
Trellis:                U:ON /D:ON
Line Status:            No Defect
Training Status:        Showtime
               Down            Up
SNR (dB):       3.4             10.3
Attn(dB):       39.5            23.6
Pwr(dBm):       0.0             12.8
Max(Kbps):      14624           888
Rate (Kbps):    12417           888
                       G.dmt framing
K:              194(0)          14
R:              14              16
S:              1               8
D:              64              8
                       ADSL2 framing
MSGc:           59              10
B:              193             13
M:              1               8
T:              2               9
R:              14              16
S:              0.4986          4.0000
L:              3337            256
D:              64              8
                       Counters
SF:             334886          301516
SFErr(CRCErr):  23              0
RS:             43535212                1132337
RSCorr:         176043          0
RSUnCorr:       557             0
HEC:            22              0
OCD:            1               0
LCD:            0               0
Total Cells:    158932859               78514
Data Cells:     896056          347
Drop Cells:     0
Bit Errors:     0               0
ES:             74              0
SES:            0               0
UAS:            85              0
AS(Uptime):     5428
INP:            1.07            2.00
PER:            16.20           18.00
delay:          7.97            8.00
OR:             32.08           7.11
Bitswap:        363             5
Total uptime:   45415
Total time = 12 hours 39 min 11 sec
SF  = 2804540
CRC = 179
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 74
Latest 1 day time = 12 hours 39 min 11 sec
SF  = 2804540
CRC = 179
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 74
Latest 15 minutes time = 9 min 11 sec
SF  = 34040
CRC = 1
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 1
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 55453
CRC = 1
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 1
Previous 1 day time = 0 sec
SF  = 0
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 0
15 minutes interval [-30 min to -15 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 55577
CRC = 1
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 1
15 minutes interval [-45 min to -30 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 55578
CRC = 6
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 4
15 minutes interval [-60 min to -45 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 55453
CRC = 4
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 3
Showtime Drop Reason:   8000
Last Retrain Reason:    8000
#


57 REPLIES 57
myredhotcar
Grafter
Posts: 457
Registered: ‎06-11-2013

Re: Connection STILL rubbish, terrible support

What's with the drop to 2dB at 15:26?
Pettitto
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 6,346
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎26-11-2011

Re: Connection STILL rubbish, terrible support

Hi myredhotcar,
I apologise in advance for the quotes, but it's a long post and I'd like to answer in as much detail as possible.
Quote
My line constantly disconnected and was essentially unusable when the SNR dropped, which it did constantly. I started this thread. In the thread Chris Purvey suggested my DG834G was at fault. Chris Pettitt echoed this suggestion.

We did, as we are aware of a number of customers who have have had issues on 21CN with this router so we wanted to rule this out being a potential issue.
Quote
This time Matt Taylor became involved, and told me PN would set my line to a fixed 9dB profile, to stabilise my line. Sadly this didn't happen, and I heard nothing more from Matt Taylor.

Matt did set your profile at 9db - I'm not sure if you're aware of what this does. It doesn't mean that your SNR won't drop below 9db, this just means that your SNR Target won't go down to 6db or 3db. DLM would normally, on a healthy line, do this to give you the best speeds that your line can handle whilst maintaining stability. Unfortunately Matt no longer works at Plusnet as per http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,123034.0.html
Quote
I contacted Chris Pettitt and he replied to let me know he would contact me the next day. He didn't.

I'm sorry this didn't happen and that I didn't let you know that I was unable to do this. I left my role to support the Customer Support Centre at a time when Call Volumes and Wait Times were higher we'd liked. I apologise for not making you aware that I couldn't get in touch.
Quote
I am still having problems, and I am getting the impression I cannot trust the word of the support staff. I was told I would be put on a fixed profile and I wasn't, and I am still waiting for the promised correspondence from another member of staff.

You were put on the correct profile as above, however, I think there's been a misunderstanding as to what the changes actually do make. If the correspondence you are referring to is from me, I'd happily take another look over things for you - that's not a problem.
Quote
In the interim - and in the absence of support from my ISP

There is plenty of support here, but please let us know how it is we can help. We're here to help the best we can, and give you guidance in making sure you're doing the right thing (Fault raising as an example).
SNR  Explained:
Your SNR is very adaptive. The idea of SNR is that it will fluctuate depending on your line conditions. It's the SNR which will increase if there is interference on your line, for example. we can't control the interference on your line nor the SNR that your line is set at. we can set the target but we can't force it to stay static at 9db for example. If we could do that, your line would constantly drop out if it needed to fluctuate upwards.
If your SNR is fluctuating then we need to find out what the source of this is. SNR doesn't fluctuate on it's own, something is more than likely causing interference on your line - what this is, I couldn't say as it could be something within your premises or something causing interference between the outside of your property all the way to the Local Exchange.
Given that you've got the Broadband troubleshooter Error, this shows to me that we've got a Fault Ticket now, our Faults Team will do their testing within the next 48-72 hours and will get back in touch with further details for you.
myredhotcar
Grafter
Posts: 457
Registered: ‎06-11-2013

Re: Connection STILL rubbish, terrible support

Hi Chris and thank you for the reply.
I have clearly misunderstood the whole SNR/fixed profile thing and I apologise for that. As my post focusses on SNR being an issue and bearing in mind I have not understood the concept I accept a large portion of my post is moot, so I owe you a further apology for your wasted time replying to these points. In mitigation I have been unable to raise a fault for a considerable period which has left me frustrated but I accept I have done nothing to remedy this (eg starting a forum post). Having said this it would be nice to be updated by staff.
Would the fact that two neighbouring houses do not display SNR fluctuation (as shown in my initial thread) rule out interference between the exchange and the houses or am I making assumptions? 
When I raised a fault initially no issues were found but there are apparent issues this end. Common symptoms include intermittent problems loading pages and short but common periods where the line is completely unresponsive (happens on several devices). If the fault team decide there is no fault that end, what are my options in terms of pinpointing and troubleshooting the fault at this end?
Finally, is there any more data I can provide from my router that could be of value?
I have edited the title of this post to reflect some of the information you have provided and my own ignorance.


Pettitto
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 6,346
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎26-11-2011

Re: Connection still awful at times

Don't worry about it, there's absolutely loads of faults information out there and different acronyms so I can see how it's possibly been mixed up.
My main point is - I want to help!
Even though the Faults Troubleshooter is erroring, Ticket: 83925547 has been generated which our Faults Team will look at in due course. the best thing you can do is to add as much information onto the ticket as possible to explain the issue and we'll get that looked at and see what we can do for you.
We need to look at what's causing the interference on the line really - that'll be what's pushing the SNR up/down and causing the pages to load abnormally.
myredhotcar
Grafter
Posts: 457
Registered: ‎06-11-2013

Re: Connection still awful at times

Things have got really bad again after briefly improving. I have raised another ticket. I have been monitoring my line as I was told to do in response to my previous ticket. Some grabs are very short due to "access violation" issues with DSLstats (Ubuntu).
adslctl info --stats
adslctl: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: ShowtimeRetrain Reason: 8000
Channel: FAST, Upstream rate = 888 Kbps, Downstream rate = 10682 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode:                  ADSL2+
Channel:                Fast
Trellis:                U:ON /D:ON
Line Status:            No Defect
Training Status:        Showtime
                Down            Up
SNR (dB):      6.1            9.8
Attn(dB):      39.5            23.7
Pwr(dBm):      0.0            12.9
Max(Kbps):      12532          888
Rate (Kbps):    10682          888
                        G.dmt framing
K:              167(0)          14
R:              12              16
S:              1              8
D:              64              8
                        ADSL2 framing
MSGc:          59              10
B:              166            13
M:              1              8
T:              2              9
R:              12              16
S:              0.4987          4.0000
L:              2871            256
D:              64              8
                        Counters
SF:            129254          116338
SFErr(CRCErr):  1              0
RS:            16803036                2094090
RSCorr:        76293          0
RSUnCorr:      3              0
HEC:            1              0
OCD:            0              0
LCD:            0              0
Total Cells:    52768467                1536201
Data Cells:    5842123        62155
Drop Cells:    1041
Bit Errors:    0              0
ES:            677            0
SES:            15              0
UAS:            1498            0
AS(Uptime):    2095
INP:            1.07            2.00
PER:            16.21          18.00
delay:          7.98            8.00
OR:            32.07          7.11
Bitswap:        199            26
Total uptime:  326783
Total time = 1 days 19 hours 36 min 11 sec
SF  = 20210089
CRC = 3475
LOS = 4
LOF = 35
ES  = 677
Latest 1 day time = 19 hours 36 min 11 sec
SF  = 4276653
CRC = 1212
LOS = 2
LOF = 17
ES  = 129
Latest 15 minutes time = 6 min 11 sec
SF  = 22956
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 55501
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 0
Previous 1 day time = 24 hours 0 sec
SF  = 5267871
CRC = 910
LOS = 1
LOF = 9
ES  = 147
15 minutes interval [-30 min to -15 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 50797
CRC = 1
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 1
15 minutes interval [-45 min to -30 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 42803
CRC = 473
LOS = 1
LOF = 8
ES  = 3
15 minutes interval [-60 min to -45 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 55626
CRC = 21
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 4
Showtime Drop Reason:  8000
Last Retrain Reason:    8000
#

ejs
Aspiring Hero
Posts: 5,442
Thanks: 631
Fixes: 25
Registered: ‎10-06-2010

Re: Connection still awful at times

The graph of FEC errors is limited to a ridiculously low limit. My line sometimes sees FEC counts of up to 180,000 per min. 1000 per min is way too low. And my DG834G v3 on 21CN is able to tolerate them reasonably well.
myredhotcar
Grafter
Posts: 457
Registered: ‎06-11-2013

Re: Connection still awful at times

Hi ejs
I've switched clipping off and will get some shots uploaded tomorrow.
Pettitto
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 6,346
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎26-11-2011

Re: Connection still awful at times

Your line is showing a small number of disconnects to the exchange, I can't determine whether or not it's as a result of the router being rebooted or if the connection has just failed.
The line is erroring a little which is something that you might be able to see from looking at your line stats. The errors are very low and shouldn't be service impacting at such a low level. Our Faults Team will be back in touch though as quickly as possible.
myredhotcar
Grafter
Posts: 457
Registered: ‎06-11-2013

Re: Connection still awful at times

Hi Chris, thanks for the reply.
I will continue monitoring the line and will post grabs over the next day or so. Things are largely okay at the moment but there are periods where pages load slowly (across all sites) although these periods are usually transient. I had to reboot the router once or twice but I have not done this recently.
I will update with grabs shortly.
myredhotcar
Grafter
Posts: 457
Registered: ‎06-11-2013

Re: Connection still awful at times

myredhotcar
Grafter
Posts: 457
Registered: ‎06-11-2013

Re: Connection still awful at times

Things were okay until 11:45pm
adslctl info --stats
adslctl: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: ShowtimeRetrain Reason: 8000
Channel: FAST, Upstream rate = 888 Kbps, Downstream rate = 10606 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode:                  ADSL2+
Channel:                Fast
Trellis:                U:ON /D:ON
Line Status:            No Defect
Training Status:        Showtime
                Down            Up
SNR (dB):      5.6            9.8
Attn(dB):      39.0            23.7
Pwr(dBm):      0.0            12.8
Max(Kbps):      12136          888
Rate (Kbps):    10606          888
                        G.dmt framing
K:              166(0)          14
R:              12              16
S:              1              8
D:              64              8
                        ADSL2 framing
MSGc:          59              10
B:              165            13
M:              1              8
T:              2              9
R:              12              16
S:              0.4992          4.0000
L:              2852            256
D:              64              8
                        Counters
SF:            6003025        5411804
SFErr(CRCErr):  564            0
RS:            780393356              2923194
RSCorr:        2112767        0
RSUnCorr:      32897          0
HEC:            524            0
OCD:            48              0
LCD:            0              0
Total Cells:    2436836994              1479749
Data Cells:    40727404                21229
Drop Cells:    0
Bit Errors:    0              0
ES:            187            0
SES:            3              0
UAS:            33              0
AS(Uptime):    97414
INP:            1.07            2.00
PER:            16.22          18.00
delay:          7.98            8.00
OR:            32.04          7.11
Bitswap:        4079            1277
Total uptime:  97414
Total time = 1 days 3 hours 4 min 35 sec
SF  = 6003025
CRC = 564
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 187
Latest 1 day time = 3 hours 4 min 35 sec
SF  = 682503
CRC = 29
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 20
Latest 15 minutes time = 4 min 35 sec
SF  = 16936
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 0
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 55505
CRC = 2
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 1
Previous 1 day time = 24 hours 0 sec
SF  = 5320522
CRC = 535
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 167
15 minutes interval [-30 min to -15 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 55443
CRC = 5
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 3
15 minutes interval [-45 min to -30 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 55505
CRC = 4
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 3
15 minutes interval [-60 min to -45 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 55382
CRC = 2
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 1
Showtime Drop Reason:  8000
Last Retrain Reason:    8000
#
Pettitto
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 6,346
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎26-11-2011

Re: Connection still awful at times

Your Fault Ticket should be getting updated very shortly.