PPP LCP Auth Failure

[#1]

@Townman wrote:

Can you explain how you think a port rebuild will help resolve what you believe to be a RAS issue, rather than an xDSL stability issue?

Thanks for your interest, @Townman.

I think you're confusing me with @ejs, who suggested this. A flex or rebuild seems to be a "solution" proposed in cases such as this. But is "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" really the best way to fix an underlying problem?
 

As a BT Share holder, I would hope that you are directing your frustration on wasted cost towards the BT group as a whole and BTOR in particular.  There is a lot of wasted effort where BTw demands ISPs do unproductive activity...

Absolutely no disagreement from me. When I was with a TTB reseller a few years back (before this exchange was upgraded to 21CN), I had eleven BTOR engineer visits before I got one that would listen to the symptoms I'd patiently describe to each of them. (It was a dodgy tie pair, BTW.)

None of them had any notes, there was zero continuity, nor any problem ownership. How are non-technical customers supposed to deal with this? Are they all expected to email Patterson?

All credit to the reseller, Pulse8, for aggressively rejecting BTOR's attempts to charge for some of those visits, where the engineer had just shrugged, hit the "no fault found" button, and gone for an early lunch.
 

I guess such accountability is not something you'll be voting for?

Unclear how I gave you that impression. Point it out and I'll edit and clarify.
 

In the meantime, all ISPs (including Plusnet) are faced with undertaking nugatory fundamental checks...

Yes indeed, and I'm OK with that for DMT or MPF faults. Where the fault is obviously at a higher layer, not so much. And if BTW wanted to visit to help diagnose a PPP problem, that would be fine, too, but that's not what Plusnet is proposing.
 

no PN touch for 2 weeks

Again, I'm unclear how I gave you that impression. A range of Plusnet CSC analysts have added to ticket 167210889, but can't suggest anything except a BTOR visit (again, I fully understand why). A CSC manager was the last to touch the ticket, to acknowledge that we're monitoring the effect of my first workaround.

[#2]

Hi @richi,

Unclear how I gave you that impression. Point it out and I'll edit and clarify.

Sorry - part tongue in cheek and part distain for shareholder perspectives.  In my experience, shareholders will not often vote for changes which might deliver an improvement in service which has costs and risks profits / dividend payments.  I have worked in that kind of environment in IT where there was more concern for profit, return to shareholders and avoiding take over bids than delivering the right service to customers.

I do have bitter experience with BTOR on multiple occasions - 18 engineer visits to sort out a business line poor performance issue over 8+ months - 3 protracted months to get a new line installed, all stalled due to a tree needing cutting which BTOR identified in their own survey ... but never commissioned the work (in the end I arranged it with the local power company) - service move failure due to the "source line" being the "wrong kind of line".  BTOR fails to impress me far more than they have delivered service which meets expectations.

Again, I'm unclear how I gave you that impression. A range of Plusnet CSC analysts have added to ticket 167210889, but can't suggest anything except a BTOR visit (again, I fully understand why).

Your continued discourse on here, with no comments from a member of the Plusnet staff team, conveys the impression that this issue is not moving forward and is being ignored (at least here) by Plusnet.  Sometimes issues can receive attention through the normal support process, but not be progressing satisfactorily and thus users come here to tap into the greater experience of the PN staff members who support the forum.  The absence of PN staff touch on forum posts does raise concern, as it presents a perception of no touch is no progress to resolution.  PN staff timely touch on forum topics is a subject of specific concern within the Superuser group.

[#3]

OMG, 18! Ouch.

I get what you're saying about "shareholders" but some of us do have a long-term perspective, while others prefer a short-term one. I'm a passive investor in BT, which makes me in the former group. It's the nature of the BTW and BTOR businesses to make long-term investments, but BTR less so I guess.

Anyway, I'm not unhappy with the response times to the ticket (sure, they could be faster, but Plusnet aren't ignoring me). It's just that there doesn't seem to be a viable process to debug a problem like this, which is a shame.

I felt the same five years ago when my 20CN exchange was horribly congested: The only tools Plusnet reps seemed to have were the standard troubleshooting steps (test socket, try another router, use the diagnostic login and the BTW speed-tester, etc.) but nothing else, so repeat until the customer gets bored or migrates away. Hopefully things have improved on that score, because @Pettitto was going to bang heads together.

[#4]

Superuser citation

This topic has been cited by one of the Superusers; the purpose of which is to provide a note for information which might help to focus continued discussion (but might not result in a staff response).

[#5]

Apologies for the delayed response.

I'll update you shortly.

[#6]

No apology needed. I don't think it's delayed, @MatthewWheeler, don't worry. 

Ticket 167210889 has details of my workaround and results so far -- I hope its interesting. Happy to clarify or try other troubleshooting steps.

[#7]

@MatthewWheeler I've just seen the latest update to the ticket. 

I'm biting my tongue hard. I'm curious what your reaction is.

[#8]

Unfortunately I didn't get around to this yesterday afternoon due to other commitments and I've just saw the response this morning.

I think the agent may have got confused between the information on the ticket but I've passed this on as internal feedback just in case it comes up in future.

Just to confirm are you using PPPoE with just the router or is there another device currently acting as a modem?

[#9]

No worries. Please don't treat this as super-urgent. My concern is that I don't experience another multi-hour auth outage, so I feel it would be sensible to get to the bottom of why the auth often times out (but only with PPPoA).

In fact, when I said PPPoE, I strictly-speaking meant PPPoEoA (but most routers call it PPPoE). It's a single box -- a Billion BiPAC 7800NXL with firmware version 2.32e.

Thanks!

[#10]

I did promise @Townman that I'd update this thread with my workaround. I hope Plusnet doesn't object.

Basically, authentication seems to work quickly and flawlessly when I reconfigure my router to do PPPoEoA (which like most routers it calls "PPPoE"). I've now forced countless re-auths at various times of day and have not once seen timeouts, but when I reconfigure it back to PPPoA, I fairly consistently see at least three retries before it works (roughly 50% of the time).

From my research, PPPoEoA is supported by BTW on 21CN with vc-mux. (I did get a ticket reply from a Plusnet BOT person suggesting this was a bad idea, but he seemed to have been confused with a PPPoE connection to a FTTC modem.)

I'm hoping that this means I won't experience more multi-hour outages, but if Plusnet isn't willing to investigate, we'll just have to wait and see. Unless @MatthewWheeler has news for me yet?

[#11]

---

@MatthewWheeler wrote:

I think the agent may have got confused between the information on the ticket but I've passed this on as internal feedback just in case it comes up in future.

---

@MatthewWheeler I've just noticed that another agent added the same incorrect information to ticket 167210889, on Wednesday. You might wish to escalate that feedback, unless I'm misunderstanding something!

[#12]

I'm glad to hear you've found a way to fix the problem.

This sort of points towards the setup of the router causing the issue. Can you replicate using a different router?

[#13]

Yeah, it happens just the same with a Billion 7800NXL on firmware 2.32e and a Netgear DG834GT with DGteam.

While I have your attention, @Gandalf, could you switch my target SNR back to 3 dB (keeping interleaving on), please?

[#14]

Just done that for you now Richi.

Your router should re-sync in a few moments.

[#15]

Many thanks, @Gandalf.

Is there an available profile that also gives 3dB target on the uplink? If so, it would be good to be on that, please. Sorry I wasn't clear last night!