Is Plusnet Down Again?

[#1]

Well I hope someone is going to tell us exactly what happened (even if they don't know why yet), I'm sick and tired of dumbed down Service Status Notices, never mind the bad advice that comes on some. It undermines the hard work that people like Chris Pettitt have put in in the past.

[#2]

Ha. Still waiting for a "better explanation" about the previous outage. Just assume it was the same as the first one.

[#3]

Well done with the links, save me bookmarking any more than I have already with specific posts.

[#4]

The latest Service Status message as of 9:11, it reached my inbox
With a different way to reconnect ?

Quote

Plusnet Service Status Email To Me Today at 9:11 AM Service: Broadband Posted: Sun, Oct 12 2014 at 09:06:05 Subject: Broadband Connectivity (83130) - Update This is in an update to our previous posts regarding the recent connectivity problem. The majority of our customers have now been able to re-connect to the Internet, however, a small portion of our customers may still be struggling to re-connect. Customers who are still struggling to connect please manually log in to your router and under the 'Technicolor Gateway' section on the left hand side please select 'Configuration' and at the bottom of the screen click 'Setup my Technicolor Gateway' and follow the steps provided. Kind regards, Jessica Booth Customer Relations

My Bold

[#5]

As has already been posted in this thread, damned bad advice - a repeat of what was posted yesterday.

[#6]

I thought I'd post a copy of the users online graph. By about 20:00 yesterday the graph became fairly clear for what did and didn't happen.
Edit: I thought it was fairly obvious, that the problem affected ptn-bng01, ptw-bng01 and pcl-bng02, and other gateways were not affected.

[#7]

It's probably fairly safe to conclude that ptn-bng01 went down, whether ptw-bng01 went down after as a consequence is a bit of a guess, it went down at some point.
Other conclusions could be wrong as we can't trust the graphs and the figures to a degree. I do wish they'd sort out these graphing glitches. I believe some of the problem is related to these Juniper Routers.

[#8]

Yes is been down and apparently back up again.
I've been trying to call for another reason and have been waiting on the line for over an hour and I'm still waiting ... Not good enough!
I'm thinking of getting out as they don't step up to the advertised claims.
I'm probably gonna have to pay for that too!!!

[#9]

Maybe the wrong thread, however I think it is prevalent, under the circumstances of three outages, in as many months (Is clearly not acceptable PN)
I think the suspension of all advertising, until PN upgrades to a new system that can all of their customers online for longevity
However I suppose, the board of stock / share holders will object, as they want our money but not prepared to spend it in the right places, before gaining more customers than the system can handle
Would ASA / OFFCOM etc like to be informed that PN can not keep all their customers online @ any one time, those who have dealt with them can confirm
ATM, PN are heading for the wooden spoon awards,
I beg you PN, please prevent that from happening as there is no way back, from a very bad reputation
You have known of a lot of issues for a very long time in various areas & still in some cases 2 years or more later,, we are still awaiting for fixes to be made, 6 years for forum software updates (for example)
Therefore in comparison I repeat In comparison
How long before we actually, see these Outage issue(s) fixed once & for all
Please do not fob us off with things like "We can not give time frames, as that would mean giving personal details" or "We are working on it"  "We are far too busy working on the issue(s) to provide time-scale(s)" etc
As that looks like you aren't really interested in getting the KNOWN ISSUES fixed & sent to bed once & for all
This time set a time-scale & stick to it, if it genuinely changes, then update accordingly, if your supplier changes it, then update us accordingly
As for, what Kelly said about, lessening the Impact (was pure Hog Wash) & a contradiction

Quote from: Kelly

Hi guys, It was a bit of nasty problem really.  Some known hardware bugs caused a cascade of disconnections from the BNGs, i.e. the disconnections from one BNG caused a similar impact when lots of those customers attempted to reconnect on the next BNG.  We've worked out how to lesson the impact of another failure now so it shouldn't happen again, and we're working with the vendor to get the bugs fixed. <snip>

Quote from: Kelly

<snip> Hindsight is a wonderful thing sometimes We were already working with them on it.   We didn't anticipate the impact of this failure.  It's not really fair to blame it on the vendor. <snip>

So that means it is in house of PN Towers to blame instead, or have PN got another body that they can assign blame to ?
As the vendor should of been able to anticipate the failure & patched it as soon as they knew about it
Maybe with such a large scale of failure(s) from various Vendors, PN need to start looking at alternate Vendors ?
Perhaps PN are paying their vendors peanuts (we know how that saying goes)
As for a get out, the clause should be wavered, for not fit for purpose

[#10]

As I've already stated - Juniper are one of the leading providers of commercial networking equipment. You will pass through their devices thousands of times each day when using the internet without ever even knowing.
Kelly has already stated that it's a complex and unforeseen problem, so the technical explanation is likely to be meaningless to us mere mortals. It's also normal practice for ISPs not to go into detail about their network infrastructure because of the commercial sensitivity and the security risk.
I am sure that in due course, Plusnet will make some kind of announcement when they are 100% sure the problem is identified and fixed. The fact that they have so many different people (PN/BT/vendors) working on the issue is a testament to its complexity. It doesn't really serve much purpose to put out a statement, other than we're working around the clock to fix it, until the problem is actually fixed.

[#11]

What are you expecting them to say, that everything is going to be fixed for sure this time on 23rd October at 15:30?
I think plusnet should have done more the prevent the same issue happening again. I thought they were keeping the BNGs less heavily loaded (although looking at the monthly graph, perhaps I was imagining that), they had a peak of about 80k users at one time, but 2 of them had slowly crept up to about 70k users immediately preceding this latest issue. The new pcl-bng03 should have helped keep to load lower on each of the PCL BNGs. It's almost unbelievable that the same thing can happen for a third time.
I suppose there is also the secondary issue that some customers end up unable to get back online for hours.
The first time it happened it might have been unforeseen - although I thought they said it was a known bug they were already working on. Was the second time unforeseen? This third time still unforeseen?

[#12]

What I am expecting & what will happen will be two (yes) two different things
I am expecting a reasonable time-scale to fix the known issue(s)
What will actually happen (No time-scales) & the issue(s) to crop up again & again
3 X the Issue(s) have reared their ugly head, in such a short space of time, with a mention on Sept 11^th "We've worked out how to lesson the impact of another failure now so it shouldn't happen again, and we're working with the vendor to get the bugs fixed."
Lessening the impact may be a temporary solution, until a solid fix is in place, yet the TEMP solution failed to lessen the impact & ONE month on we are still getting the MSO as a result, & with both PN & their Vendor on the case (it should of been put to bed) or at the very least not far off being put to bed

[#13]

I don't believe it, the Service Status has been updated again with the same bad advice. No-one should have to end up reconfiguring their (modem/)router as a result of a network outage. A Reboot at worst if after trying a Disconnect of the PPP session for half an hour they still can't connect.
Unless there is something Plusnet aren't telling us, such as maybe there is some malicious code around

[#14]

I agree its bizarre to have to reconfigure a router to reconnect after an isp outage, very strange.

[#15]

I've had to join the forums just to try and work out what is going on with my Internet connection. It died at about 6pm last night; and i still can't connect.
I have reconfigured my router(TG582n) about 6 times now, and I'm  still getting 'authentication failed ', and 'No ATM activity on your DSL line '.
I'm not technical so i have no idea what any of it means. I can't hey through to Plusnet, as their hold times are now 1.5 hours!!! Can anyone help?