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Connection drop outs increasing in frequency

prae5
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎04-10-2016

Connection drop outs increasing in frequency

I've had a relatively problem free connection, however over the past few months i have seen frequent drop outs and at times the connection has been completely unusable.

 

I have swapped out a number of routers to rule out hardware issues and the problem still persists (including the original router provided by plusnet).

 

Given i frequently work from home, this is less than ideal.

 

The connection for the most part today has been completely unusable, with me lucky to get 10mins of use before it drops.

I've captured a log over a 30min period (15:30 - 16:00) and in that time you can see it dropped 14 times.

 

Current connection setup is:

 

Ubiquity EdgeRouter X <---> pppoe <---> Supplied BTOpenreach VDSL Modem 

 

 

Looking through the logs, the failures are all very similar (across all routers):

Oct  4 15:40:26 router pppd[1663]: Serial link appears to be disconnected.
Oct  4 15:40:32 router pppd[1663]: Connection terminated: no multilink.
Oct  4 15:40:32 router pppd[1663]: Modem hangup
Oct  4 15:41:37 router pppd[1663]: Timeout waiting for PADO packets
Oct  4 15:41:38 router pppd[1663]: Connected to A0:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx via interface eth0
Oct  4 15:41:38 router pppd[1663]: Connect: ppp0 <--> eth0
Oct  4 15:41:38 router pppd[1663]: Couldn't increase MTU to 32725
Oct  4 15:41:39 router pppd[1663]: CHAP authentication succeeded
Oct  4 15:41:39 router pppd[1663]: peer from calling number A0:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx authorized
Oct  4 15:41:39 router pppd[1663]: local  IP address 212.xx.xx.xx
Oct  4 15:41:39 router pppd[1663]: remote IP address 195.xx.xx.xx
Oct  4 15:41:39 router pppd[1663]: primary   DNS address 212.159.6.10
Oct  4 15:41:39 router pppd[1663]: secondary DNS address 212.159.6.9
Oct  4 15:46:19 router pppd[1663]: Serial link appears to be disconnected.
Oct  4 15:46:25 router pppd[1663]: Connection terminated: no multilink.
Oct  4 15:46:25 router pppd[1663]: Modem hangup
Oct  4 15:47:30 router pppd[1663]: Timeout waiting for PADO packets

 

When i've checked the modem, its still showing as having sync and connection - it just seems to be the ppp session thats dying.

 

Full log available at http://pastebin.com/LmhQWx8D

 

I've just been doing some speed checks and i'm also getting much slower speeds to what i typically see - normally closer to 30Mbs 

dslchecker.png

btwspeedcheck.pngplusnetestimate.png

 

Anyone have any pointers?

6 REPLIES 6
Gregg
Grafter
Posts: 78
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎01-07-2016

Re: Connection drop outs increasing in frequency

Sounds like exactly what I have been experiencing. Unfortunately I can't get detailed wan logs like that, from my setup without a lot of hassle.

 

Maybe the problems are with their auth servers, leading to the disconnects and general instability. It wouldn't be impossible for people to experience problems outside of "home network related" and "line issues". Sure those two reasons are many many times more likely, there are other possible causes and considering the issue does not appear to be region specific. It might very well be a problem with their PPPOE auth implementation itself.

I know when using BT the auth details do not matter, one can enter anything @btconnect.com and it will auth, which shows that plusnet have some form of pppoe auth enabled that BT does not. Which could be at fault here.

Still very unlikely.

prae5
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎04-10-2016

Re: Connection drop outs increasing in frequency

I don't believe this is auth related. There is no indication of authentication issues in the logs. The PPPOE session is successfully establish every time, it then dies after a random period when it fails its keep-alive check.

 

In my experience this is typically caused by an upstream fault.

Stu9560
Dabbler
Posts: 18
Thanks: 3
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎24-08-2016

Re: Connection drop outs increasing in frequency

I'm getting something similar. The connection goes down for 30 secs to a minute, then returns. The blue light on the router remains on throughout and sometimes the exclamation mark appears in the notification area of Windows 10, and sometimes not. Happens a few times throughout the day, at random times. Line speed seems okay at 40 Mbps.

It's only a minor annoyance but it is an annoyance and I wish it wouldn't happen!

 

slywolf
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎05-10-2016

Re: Connection drop outs increasing in frequency

i am getting this as well and like the OP i work from home evry few weeks or so and need a stable internet which i dont seem to be getting either

mtwbath
Dabbler
Posts: 22
Thanks: 18
Registered: ‎10-09-2015

Re: Connection drop outs increasing in frequency

You should have a look at

 

Re: High packet loss and other DNS issues

 

and many of the other threads on here.  This I believe is still not fixed - I still have a service that drops all the time in the evening making tv streaming impossible

 

Gregg
Grafter
Posts: 78
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎01-07-2016

Re: Connection drop outs increasing in frequency

I usually have a ssh connection to a rented dedicated server running 24/7 and since moving house with plusnet this connection fails consistently.

In the past at my previous house I could have this connection running for weeks without an issue.

Since moving house, It seems to reset my connection consistently. At least every 12 hours.

 

I setup the packet loss chart tool from thinkbroadband and I have no packet loss occurring. So i think this is a separate issue.

 

I am back to "normal" now..

 

 

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