Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
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- Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
04-08-2009 7:26 PM
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What seems to be happening is that the route through to the PN authentication server is dropping out, as indicated by no data flowing on the network meter and inability to browse. The DSL signal is relatively steady apart from a tiny glitch in the SNR at the instant it happens (see attached snapshot, the orange vertical line at about 10.42), but the Internet light on the router is out. If I enter the router's front page it gives me the option to reconnect via a button, and on clicking it, it tries and eventually returns to the same page (with the Connect button) but without connecting.
The router's error log is showing.
ADSL Sync Pass
ATM OAM F5 Segment Ping Pass
ATM OAM F5 End-to-end Ping Pass
PPP Server Connection Fail
ISP Authentication Fail
Assigned IP Address Fail
Ping Default Gateway Fail.
My router is a BT Voyager 2110, which is designed around BT IPStream Max apparently. Their excellent helpline is telling me that the router will handshake with the ISP Authentication server every five seconds if it detects a loss of internet connection (as opposed to DSL signal) and will keep doing that until it gets one. The ISP authentication server should, they say, return a handshake when it gets my login details and then we're in. This doesn't seem to be happening. The only way I can log back in is to do a hard reboot on the router and then everything's fine for a few hours. It looks as though the route through to PN is not working properly.
I've actually gone to the trouble of getting hold of a second router and this does exactly the same thing, so I very much doubt it's my kit. Could it be that the backhaul from the exchange to PN, or even the PN authentication server, is scrambling the handshake data somehow? Could it be anything to do with the fact that doing a hard reboot connects through a different gateway (and hence a clean connection)? Both routers have the latest firmware installed.
Any help will be gratefully received!! I dread to think what my max. sustainable data rate will be after all this! Thanks.
Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
05-08-2009 11:19 AM
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I've given the faults team a nudge, we should get this raised to BT for you today and hopefully ask them to proactively monitor for drops in PPP. You should get an update to your ticket shortly.
Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
05-08-2009 2:01 PM
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Not sure if it is related to your problem, but it does sound the same. (I'm on PAYG 15GB)
I did notice that I had NO such problems all the time I was connected via the BT RIN trial - as soon as I got dumped off that (because the trial was finally pulled), the drops re-appeared.
HTH with any tracing at PN.
Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
05-08-2009 2:10 PM
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PN have now referred it to BT (thanks to orbrey!) so I'll post any results. I've had two loss of auth's today in close succession. Wouldn't be so bad if the router signed itself in again. Tiscali wasn't such a stable line speed-wise (that did lose sync on occasions) but it certainly didn't do this.
Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
06-08-2009 11:21 AM
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Anyway, If PN or BT do make any progress tracing your fault, please post back here.
Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
06-08-2009 6:17 PM
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And a question for a PN team member .. this fault has meant that I've had to do many hard reboots of the router, all during the training period. My MSR has slowly reduced presumably because the training process has interpreted the shut-downs as instability although I've not actually lost DSL sync once. The MSR is now at 4Mbps, whereas on Tiscali it was stable at 8Mbps. I'll leave it at this value for now until the fault is sorted, but in principle, is it possible for the MSR to be manually reset to a higher figure by PN, or even have the training process restarted after the fault is fixed?
Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
06-08-2009 8:03 PM
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Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
09-08-2009 5:06 PM
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When you lose connection - theres 3 "places" where you can lose it
1. Your ISP can disconnect you - (you lose the PPP session).
2. It can occur between the exchange and the RAS (ATM session) (authentication part 1).
3. You can also lose sync (between your home and the exchange).
I am certainly not losing DSL sync, so item 3 is out. My router's error log (see above) shows that the ATM pings are passing so item 2 is out (I'm not totally sure that this is 100% correct but intuition would seem to indicate that it is). So... item 1... are the PN techs absolutely sure that the authentication server(s) are behaving? It seems to me that maybe the reason my router won't reconnect is that perhaps the authentication server thinks I am still connected for some reason, and therefore won't let me in again unless I physically switch the router off and on again (ie force a DSL resync).
And I do recall that way back in 2006 a large number of PN users who were on Tiscali LLU suffered exactly this for many weeks. It eventually turned out to be one of the PN Gateway servers (LLU customers were successively put on to different gateways to try to isolate the problem and eventually the rogue server was isolated, beaten up and taken to the scrapyard). See the last entry on this thread.
http://usergroup.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,3347.105.html
Has any tweaking been done on the gateways recently... especially overnight on Thursday 6th. This is when this problem seemed to settle down with only one loss of PPP session since then (as opposed to several a day).
Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
11-08-2009 10:05 AM
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Quote from: nozzer Has any tweaking been done on the gateways recently... especially overnight on Thursday 6th. This is when this problem seemed to settle down with only one loss of PPP session since then (as opposed to several a day).
I've looked back through our change control logs and the only thing that springs out at me is some work we did on one of the RADIUS databases on the 6th. This was to add additional tunnel end points (basically inserting a few database table entries) for our next two 622 central pipes and the second WBMC host link (neither of which are live). I can't see how this would have affected anything.
Just a thought, but have you tried giving this a go?
Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵
Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
11-08-2009 10:29 AM
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Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
11-08-2009 10:49 AM
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http://www1.btwebworld.com/sinet/386v3p0.pdf
Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
11-08-2009 11:14 AM
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Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
11-08-2009 11:38 AM
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Quote Yes PPPoE can be used as I have used it but it's normally used if you run the modem in bridge mode
Is that Bridge QoS? If so, how is it set up on this router (Voyager 2110), ie what values?
EDIT.. cancel that! I've found the answer.
Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
11-08-2009 1:01 PM
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http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/ukonline/3682222-frequent-disconnects-on-ipstream.html?vc=1
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?action=printpage;topic=5448.0
.. plus many more on Google! They all refer to a lost PPP session without sync loss. What's BT up to?
Re: Frequent loss of authentication but not DSL
12-08-2009 9:09 AM
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Have you tried changing the connection to PPPoE / LLC at all? Bob's had some luck with this (as I think he posted earlier). This would hint at some kind of large scale firmware upgrade on the exchange kit - just a guess there but it's the most likely explanation at the moment.
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