Connection dropping out since thursday outage

[#1]

hello,
Bit of a strange issue i have. Since the plusnet outage on thursday at 4pm my connection has been dropping out very randomly. Sometimes it will go rather crazy and the connection will drop every 30seconds or so but it will connect again straight away then drop instantly, other times it can last from 20mins to a few hours. I can't stress enough that my connection has been perfect before the outage on thursday. I rarely disconnected for days on end and the speed was the maximum for my line. There isn't any noise on my line never had a issue with that.
I have a ticket open at the moment but im posting this for a bit more information. My ticket ID is: #54637856. The person i have talked to said they put a order in to turn on interleaving on my line but it will take 5-7days which seems completely stupid. Why does it take that long? Before thursday having interleaving turned off hasn't effected my line whatsoever. It doesn't make any sense. I've only been getting these disconnects since the outage.
I'm pretty much certain this isnt on my end. I've tried the test socket and it would still randomly drop, made sure the wiring is fine (im wired to the router not wireless). Seems to me whatever happened on thursday has messed up my connection somewhere. Hoping the plusnet team could shed some light on the issue. Judging by these forums im not the only one this is happening to.
Here are my router stats currently. I havent been disconnected for the past 4hours.
Uptime: 0 days, 4:00:52
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps] 1,225 / 16,079
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.5 / 0.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 8.5 / 19.5
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.5 / 6.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / IFTN
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 11 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 1 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 402 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 1,789,971
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 43
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 35
Should i be concerned with the FEC errors? i have never seen the errors go that high before thursday on my router ever.

[#2]

I'm far from being the most knowledgeable member on here but as far as I know if your router is reporting FEC stats then interleaving is already being applied.
I think it would be worth trying a different microfilter and even router if possible - unlikely as the coincidence might seem there have been quite a few thunderstorms about and a spike could have affected one or the other (you won't know unless you try.)

[#3]

Oh right then maybe its already been turned on :-\. Although i don't see why interleaving would fix the issue when i haven't had need for it being turned on for over 12months or so. Yea ive replaced the filter for a new one, but i don't have a new router to hand i don't really think its the router that's causing this. I was wondering if one option could be the balancing that they are doing to the network i read one of the reports about some customers may lose connection while they fix things but that was on thursday and this connection seems to be going rather crazy since then. disconnecting as much as i have since then seems rather excessive. It's stable at the moment it just seems very random.

[#4]

Any mod know why this thread has been "stickied"?
(Took me ages for find it - never thought of looking right at the top of the page!) 

[#5]

It was done by a member of staff (he probably hit the wrong button) - but it isn't now

[#6]

Hi skib10,
Hmmm, sounds as though you were a bit unlucky with the agent you got not being as knowledgeable as some. The DLM will generally automatically turn on Interleaving if the error rate on the line is high, unless it's been specifically turned Off, and as JayG has already noted FEC errors are being reported, so it's on.  Do you game at all?
The major network outage on Thursday did not affect users connections to their exchanges, only the ppp sessions to Plusnet, so I'm thinking something else may be amiss. You ought to be doing better with sync speed for that line attenuation, so there must be a fair bit of noise.
Can you hear any audible noise on the line when you use the phone?

[#7]

Hey Anotherone,
The phone line is completely silent. Ive tried the silent test from bt i think the number was 17170 or something but pretty much silent really there isnt any distortions or crackling nothing like that. Yea i game quite alot my ping is pretty decent 30-50ping depending on the game / time of day etc, had no problem on that end. But what i don't understand is that it was pretty much perfect with how stable the connection was until the outage which just seems very odd. I haven't had a disconnect since around 7am this morning so i don't know whether its more stable now or if it starts acting up again over the next few days.

[#8]

Yeh, it would be 17070. Your problem may be related to something local - haven't had any new electrical equipment or the like, altered any wiring etc. If you get any more drops check they didn't occur when something like a boiler came on/off etc.
Regarding the Interleaving, phone up asap and get that order for interleaving cancelled. Ask for an order for interleaving to be turned off permanently to be placed as you are a gamer, can only be done when the other is cancelled. That should see you get the best ping times.
Lets hope you don't get any more disconnects.

[#9]

Nah i've had no new wiring or nothing new added to the room the router is in.
About the interleaving i was told it was getting put on my line because of the amount of errors that were happening. If i were to take interleaving back off wouldn't that cause the connection to become less stable again? whether its just luck but since the interleaving was turned on today i haven't been disconnected not yet anyway. Im in a game at the moment and my ping times are pretty much exactly as they have always been for the past year or so.
I think i will give it a few days and see how it pans out i suppose.

[#10]

Yes Interleaving can help if there are lots of errors, but the down side is the increased latency. If you are happy with your current ping times that's ok, but I'd just refer you back to your comment in reply #2. By all means keep an eye on things for a while, best thing to do. I'm not sure how long orders for Interleaving take to progress these days but 5-7 days seems a long time. If the ping times suddenly go up you know what has happened.
That looks as if that's a Thomson modem/router you're using and IIRC that version reports huge FEC errors even with interleaving off - buggy firmware - but I'm not certain. You may be best popping over to the Gaming board to see what FEC errors Thomson users are getting with interleaving off.

[#11]

If you've reported a dropping connection fault turning on interleaving is the first action that is tried. Interleaving might already be active, but on auto, so the depth could vary. I think the diagnostic action forces it to be on with a particular depth. Assuming interleaving didn't fix the problem, once the cause of the problem is resolved interleaving can be turned off (or back to auto) again if the user requests.

[#12]

Hi skib10,
I can see how much it was disconnecting, but it's been solid for the last 24 hours.
Jojo

[#13]

Hi Jo,
Yea it's quite stable at the moment although my speed is a few mb's short of what it used to be. Only getting speeds of around 13mb when i was getting 15/16mb last week. Still wondering as to why the disconnections happened as i don't really want to see them come back again. I've currently got a fault raised and they are doing test's but it just seems a little odd as to why it happened only after the outage last week.
This are my line stats currently:
Link Information

Uptime: 1 day, 1:19:23
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,177 / 16,089
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 0.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 8.5 / 19.5
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.5 / 8.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / IFTN
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 10 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 2 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 1 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): NA / 9,629,732
CRC Errors (Up/Down): NA / 84
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 71
The margin seems to have gone up to 8.0 it had always been 6.0/6.5 normally. Im wondering are these FEC errors normal for the uptime? The crc/hec one's also. I never used to have error's like this. I know the FEC one's are caused by having interleaving turned on but im wondering why is interleaving needed now when my connection had no need for it for 12+months. Also the bandwidth was normally around 17.3 and for some reason it keeps going down to 15.8-16.0. Is this due to the disconnects last week that my ip profile has been lowered? would i see any improvements if the line carries on being stable.

[#14]

You can ignore those FEC errors, those Thomsons seem to misreport/report ridiculous figures there, I've seen -ve figures as well.
The CRC errors are much more important and for that uptime that's good.
Your noise margin has gone up for one of two reasons, the exchange DLM trying to stabilise things, or which I think more likely looking at the sync speed, the noise that was present and possibly causing your drops has gone away, whatever it was. Your profile has gone down because your sync speed is down.
I suggest you leave the modem/router on as it is 24/7 for a day or two and monitor the situation.
Post some more stats tonight after dark, say 10-12 p.m ish, then again tomorrow during the day, and tomorrow night and the following morning.
IF all still looks good and stable, at that time I'd then try a reboot.

[#15]

Thanks Anotherone, I couldn't have put it better myself