Switched from Sky, now frequent disconnects

[#1]

Hi @timjenner,

Thanks for getting back in touch and I am sorry to hear that you feel this way. I've responded to the ticket further regarding this issue and I hope that it helps to answer why we're taking the actions we're taking. If not, or if you have any further queries, please let us know and we'll pick this back up as soon as possible.

[#2]

Another engineer came over yesterday. Surprise surprise, problem still there - broadband connection dropped twice yesterday evening and then again this morning.

Worse still - and somewhat bizarrely - I now seem to be experiencing unreliable LAN connectivity as well! Devices have begun randomly not being able to access anything on the internal network or the Internet even when the broadband connection is working and other devices are fine, despite claiming to still have a strong WiFi signal. When this happens they can't even access the Plusnet One Hub admin interface by IP address! Switching WiFi off then back on again temporarily resolve it! But I also have hard wired ethernet devices which are starting to lose connections to other devices on the local network, again entirely independently of whether the broadband connection is working or not!

I'm starting to wonder if I have a faulty Plusnet Hub which is causing all these issues? Switching from Sky and replacing my old Sky Q hub with the new Plusnet Hub One are the only things which have changed since experiencing all these issues.

Thanks,
Tim

[#3]

Worse still - and somewhat bizarrely - I now seem to be experiencing unreliable LAN connectivity as well! Devices have begun randomly not being able to access anything on the internal network or the Internet even when the broadband connection is working and other devices are fine, despite claiming to still have a strong WiFi signal. When this happens they can't even access the Plusnet One Hub admin interface by IP address! Switching WiFi off then back on again temporarily resolve it! But I also have hard wired ethernet devices which are starting to lose connections to other devices on the local network, again entirely independently of whether the broadband connection is working or not!

What software version is your Hub One running?

You can check this by logging into any router page and scrolling to the bottom, also note the date is was installed.

If it ends in 263 and the issues in the quoted bit only started after the date given, then you could also be having some issues with the current router software release. Mine for example did almost everything you've mentioned above. The timing for mine was also an headache as I too had connection issues which made it hard to work out just what was causing what!!

[#4]

Hi there @timjenner

Sorry to hear that the connection seems no better.

I've taken a look at your connection and reviewed the engineer notes. I've updated the open fault ticket on your account HERE

As a side to this, while we can take a look at replacing your router, I wouldn't expect this to be the cause of the problem since it is less than a month old and highly unlikely that it would be faulty on arrival.

Certainly for the moment my advice would be to monitor the connection for a couple days and see if DLM levels out the connection.

Naturally if you're still noticing a problem we can proceed with a further investigation, so please feel free to let us know should the issue remain in a further couple of days.

[#5]

@DS - Funny old thing...
Plusnet Hub One | Software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.263 | Last updated 15/03/19

[#6]

Oh

I carried out some 'testing' a few weeks back for Plusnet. This 'testing' was after I too had the 263 software installed and had nothing but issues with it. My 'testing' was well documented (to the best of my ability anyway) and it did highlight an issue with the latest software.

The results were going to be 'looked at' by Plusnet, but sadly it's looking very much like I wasted my time and effort.

Of the ISPs I've used, this is the first time I've not used their supplied equipment.

Also, with my own connection issues, having the router software being 'problematic' also made trying to find out just what was causing what was a task in itself.

However, there might be a way to fudge over the fact the latest software is causing issues - now according to Plusnet there are only small numbers reporting issues (via the forum) as so I have no idea if this software is either affecting you or more users or indeed every user.

Anyway, you could click the following http://192.168.1.254/index.cgi?active_page=9105

On the wireless network enable, instead of the default of yes, select no and click apply

(ignore the warning messages, it's normal)

This will turn off the 5GHz and put a red light on the router, ignore this or put tape over it, then see if your devices stop 'acting up'. Clearly this turns off the 5GHz SSID and thus any devices solely connected via this SSID will need to be set to only use the 2.4GHz SSID

This isn't a fix, just a method to overcome this issue.

edit. Plusnet can ask the products team to downgrade the router too. This should also help.

A more permanent solution is to use a BTSH6, this was the method I took.

[#7]

@DS. Thanks. Tried disabling 5GHz - there's something seriously wrong! Doing this then reconnecting on 2.4GHz was unusable - standing next to the router with an allegedly 130mb WiFi connection it took around 2 minutes for speedtest.net to connect, then it gave just 8mb down, mostly zero upload (spiked to 0.51mb at one point!) and 604ms jitter! Connecting over ethernet showed 16mb down/1.39 up and 2ms jitter. Switched 5GHz back on and now my phone shows the same speedtest.net results as ethernet (as expected). Not sure if this terrible performance is what all my 2.4GHz devices are experiencing and I just saw it on my phone when it couldn't connect to 5GHz or if it's worse with 5GHz disabled - might try splitting the network names to see but sick of it to be honest. Already looking at BT Home Hub 6's on eBay but shouldn't have to!

[#8]

I was rather hoping it fixed it for you, as my suggestion has for others. That method means you don't have to mess with splitting the SSID's and passkeys - IF you do decide to split (which is actually the first thing I do with these routers), again from my experience, call one 2.4GHz -Joe-Public and the other 5GHz-boost and not Joe-Public2.4GHz and Joe-Public-5GHz as this has also given me issues. Also consider doing the same with the passkey - something completely different for both.

But I lost wired and wireless connectivity. My other 'fix' is because I run a secondary router (not 2 phone lines, both connect via ethernet) and I could bounce to my other one for a while and then jump back. If you've got an old router laying around, turning off it's DHCP and connecting it via an ethernet cable to your PNH1 (with this then having the wifi turned off) might also be a way to 'bypass' the current software.

Now, without you knowing, has any of your devices remembered BOTH of your routers networks, even if one device has only used the 2.4GHz? - as in my case my phone was remembering my 5GHz SSID even though I'd split and renamed both SSID's and passkeys on the router. It was impossible for my phone to 'know' this but by having the same beginning to the SSID and passkey (since running 263) my phone was trying to connect to an SSID it couldn't connect to. This was repeatable when using 5GHz only, it would remember the 2.4GHz (after deleting all previous SSID's).

You could, as much as a pita that this is, forget all of your routers saved networks (including and BT routers) and then reconnecting using the manual search for SSID, type of the key and then connect, but only after splitting them.

Regarding the H6, I agree, we shouldn't need to source another router to fix this issue. It's my first time I've never used my ISP supplied router.

[#9]

All my troubles started on the 26th march when they updates the plusnet hub;   wish they would just leave things alone when they work. 

[#10]

I did have to tell the Plusnet hub to forget my phone before it would connect so I suspect it was remembering the 5GHz network. I already have an Asus router which I use in the garden office connected over ethernet and that's working fine (apart from when the Plusnet hub decides it's going to drop hard wired connections too, or drop the broadband connection of course!). Unfortunately that router doesn't have a VDSL modem so I can't try replacing the Plusnet device altogether.
I just won a BT HH6 for a tenner on ebay and am hoping this will help with the broken WiFi (I won't euphemistically call them "issues" - it's broken and not fit for purpose). Maybe it will help with the broadband disconnections too but I'm doubtful. They're still happening, no surprise since Plusnet have done nothing to fix it apart from sending out 2 engineers who both say the line is fine! I can see the thing is syncing too fast for the line and have been saying that for weeks, I believe this is a function of the way Plusnet configure the ports but all they want to do is blame Openreach.

[#11]

It is better if you forget the SSID on the device and at the router. By doing this on the device, any saved connections will be erased completely - though depending on the phone, going to saved networks may still show them in there too. I had to go via the saved networks method. By leaving the device with a remembered network as soon as you delete it from the router it'll reconnect immediately.

In honesty, you are only the second user to confirm wired connections are failing too - I being the other one. I never found out why wired devices were also being affected, but not all of my wired devices were - it was very much hit and miss (My laptop and a Plusnet Youview box had the biggest wired issues)

Regarding the hub 6, you will hopefully be pleasantly surprised..... For me it has better wifi range and certainly connects to the Plusnet network at a faster speed - it also seems to stay connected for longer, in comparison, my PNH1 would struggle to stay connected for 2 days and thus far my BTSH6 has been up for over 5 days!!

I too have had many OR engineers attend, some saying nothing found, but if it keeps dropping (and you're in the test point) just keep on reporting it. They (including OR) may eventually find the cause, but if they don't then if they continue hopefully Plusnet will release you from your contract early without termination fees.

Just keep going, I did;)

[#12]

Hi @timjenner, while I'm sorry to hear you're still experiencing problems with the connection and believe that this is our fault for the connection syncing too high, I'm afraid we can't force the sync to be lower, although the connection is in sync within the estimates for the connection.

If I had the option available to me to apply a profile banding the connection lower than the current sync, I'd certainly try that to rule this out.

Please do let us know how you get on with the new router though.

[#13]

Sorry, but I don't agree that this is nothing to do with Plusnet. As you point out in my fault ticket, the line is NOT syncing within estimates - it is at 19mb with an estimate of 10—17mb. It used to sync at 16mb and was rock solid. You are saying that a line which has been performing faultlesslessly for 2 1/2 years, then suddenly became unstable the second it is switched to Plusnet, is nothing to do with Plusnet and must be an Openreach problem despite two separate engineers saying the opposite! As I understand it Openreach are only responsible for the line itself, which has not changed. The only thing that has changed is switching from Sky to Plusnet. Not turning out to be my best decision.

[#14]

I don't disagree that the connection is in sync above the estimates our suppliers advise for the connection.

Despite this being the case, I'm afraid this does not give us the ability to place some sort of throttling/sync speed cap/banding against the sync speed to bring it in sync below the top end of the estimate.

If this were possible for me to do, I would have done this, as per my previous response.

[#15]

Is there something obvious that I'm missing here....

As for my connection, using the BT DSL checker, my maximum speed is 32Mbps, but my router (BTSH6) is showing 37.49Mbps (it used to be around 18 ), so I too am (now) in excess of the upper limit. I can't comment on the drops I suffered with my connection as its currently sitting at 5 days and 8.5 hours.

But could @timjenner 'cheat' the system, by deliberately switching their router off and on multiple times, for the DLM to 'think' there's a fault and thus drop their speed for stability. Would that work @HarryB 

(though I think DLM checks every 24 hours, so this might become a labour intensive task)

edit. I wished putting an '8' and a ')' together didn't trigger the emoji!!

(8)) - that's suing the above, not selecting one