Random DSL dropouts over 4 months, no solution.

[#1]

What are your thoughts on the minimal amount of crc errors showing RF interference unlikely?

[#2]

So I had a similar intermittent problem to you and eventually it was resolved by an Openreach Broadband Engineer who figured out that the problem was with the green FTTC cabinet equipment (not the wiring)...he changed me to a different 'port' in the cabinet and my problem was resolved.

I believe that at the green FTTC cabinet, Sky also uses Openreach's equipment to first make your connection, before it is then handed off to Sky's own equipment at your local exchange. Consequently, when you moved ISP, the problem moved with you.

If you can get another Openreach visit from a Broadband engineer, I would suggest that you get them to try changing your 'port' on the equipment in the green cabinet.

[#3]

Already been tried, they call it a lift and shift where my connection is moved to another port. I have another Openreach engineer out tomorrow as Plusnet are going through their box ticking exercise. When I’ll call them on Tuesday letting them know I still have the problem I was told they will be looking in to getting a Rein and Shine engineer out to my property. 

[#4]

This is far more than "box ticking" - in circumstances such as this: repeated sync drips with not fault found due to the "usual" causes; IIRC as mandated by BT Openreach, there has to be three engineer visits before BT Openreach will entertain a SHINE / REIN investigation.  It is very positive that this is being considered.

If you are fairly smart with excel, exporting the router log and filtering the log on the resync event will give you some baseline data of how often this happens and when.  Correlation of when (day to day) might be helpful.

[#5]

Attached are the last 15 days of dropouts, as you can see they are totally random with no pattern whatsoever. As I have mentioned before the last Openreach engineer said he’s not seeing extreme cnc errors denoting a possible RF interference issue. On Saturday Plusnet could see a fault on the line, if this is the case surely it can’t be an RF issue as an interference issue wouldn’t show up as a fault. 

[#6]

Things are never simple if there are marginal joints.

A key point not confirmed but assumed given you are a.new customer - is this a SOGEA service? That is FTTC without a phone service (regardless of it not being used)?

Marginal joints can “heal” due to ring or test voltage being applied to the line, thereby a marginal fault can disappear on testing. Some marginal faults can cause DSL to drop when a call is placed on a line. Marginal faults can make a circuit more susceptible to RFI.

The fact that a fault has now been detected is a positive step forward. What now needs to happen is for all the joints on your D-Side to be remade or a D-side swap to be found.

I take it that FTTP is not yet available to your location?

[#7]

Yes I am FTTC with no phone service, my village has yet to have installed FTTP, although it’s in Openreach’s plans. Saying this UPP had installed fibre cable to some BT posts around the village, but when the Ukraine war kicked off the company was sold to Virgin as the owner was Russian who was part of the sanctions. Not sure if Virgin have any intention of coming back soon. Getting info regarding future fibre installation from either Openreach or Virgin is practically impossible.
I will show the engineer this afternoon your message, see what they say.

[#8]

A massive [-Censored-] up between Plusnet and Openreach resulted in a no show yesterday, for which I’m being compensated. This has turned in to a farce…

[#9]

SU escalated.

[#10]

What does SU mean? 

[#11]

Superuser.

[#12]

Thanks. I sometimes feel I’m spending more time on trying to solve my issue than Plusnet or Openreach. 

[#13]

An update, after another lengthy conversation with Plusnet yesterday I was informed that Openreach was working on my line at the local exchange from 8am yesterday, not that I was informed of this at all leading up to the engineer being sent out. I found this highly irregular for the main reason that 2 engineers who had already paid a visit to my property told me there’s nothing in the exchange that would cause my issue, otherwise everyone in the area would be getting it. I was informed by them it would be on my copper line from the cabinet to my home, another piece of conflicting information, I never know who to believe. However, while all of this is going on I haven’t had a drop in 3 1/2 days, although this is good news it is not unusual, the record is 10 days before it reared it’s ugly head again. The odd thing is the router log shows no WAN information from the point of the last dropout over 3 days ago, very unusual. I had this the other day where I didn’t have a drop for 1 1/2 days and the router log showed no WAN info for those 1 1/2 days, like it was stuck until I get another drop. Surely my router log would show some sort of info during this time? Attached is my WAN log that I have just screenshot, it just goes back to the 14th, nothing after that. 

[#14]

I found this highly irregular for the main reason that 2 engineers who had already paid a visit to my property told me there’s nothing in the exchange that would cause my issue, otherwise everyone in the area would be getting it. 

Technically correct, the broadband signal comes from your local cabinet so only the D(Distribution)-side copper line from the cabinet to your house is used. However, even though you don't have a phone service, the E(Exchange)-side copper is still connected from the cabinet back to the exchange. I suspect there is a possibility that an obscure fault on the E-side could interfere with the broadband.

[#15]

An uninterrupted VDSL connection will give rise to no WAN activity. My last WAN entry is 14th May and the DSL session is circa 128 !days. So there is nothing concerning here.

The claim of in exchange work / a potential issue, is very interesting. Being candid I (we?) do not know for sure what happens when a WRL + FTTC line is switched to SOGEA.

Earlier this year I changed the business from that to FTTP - I was surprised to discover that when the telephone was switched to VoIP the WRL service remained, the line having a new number allocated to it. That leaves open the possibility that a switch to SOGEA does / has left a voice service on the line, which though unusable by the subscriber could still be impacted by calls to the number (as suggested previously).

AIUI the e-side connection is still required for running copper diagnostic tests. It would be interesting to investigate if there is a dial tone on the line, if yes, what’s the number (dial 17070). If you get a line number, try dialling it. See what happens.

Three and a half days and counting could be the end of your issues. The lack of clarity of where the detected fault was located and the detail of the work claimed to have been undertaken is deeply frustrating.