Weird Broadband problem with Plusnet Hub one

[#1]

At 21:21 this evening, my broadband dropped out.

That does happen from time to time (rarely), and so I didn't think much of it. It usually comes back quite quickly.

It seemed to be going on a long time... so I logged into the router, and looked at the "Helpdesk" information.

I noticed that the main status bar on the router itself was orange, rather than blue, and I was getting the constant red symbol on the front panel ("no internet").

I then tried a reset using the button on the top. No joy.

I used my phone's broadband to look into this. I power-cycled the router. It seems to connect and gives a blue light for a short while but then it goes orange and shows the dreaded red "no internet" light.

And the Helpdesk information says that the DSL is up... and has been for some while, but there appears to be some complicated problem when I look at the Event log:

01:16:12, 11 Apr. ( 973.070000) CWMP: session closed due to error: Could not resolve host

01:16:12, 11 Apr. ( 973.050000) CWMP: Server URL: https://dbtpnhdm.bt.mo; Connecting as user: ACS username

01:16:12, 11 Apr. ( 973.040000) CWMP: Session start now. Event code(s): '1 BOOT,4 VALUE CHANGE'

And then I read that other users have had similar problems. And some of them fixed this by pushing a paper clip into the reset button hole for around ten seconds!

As I wasn't keen on running out of mobile broadband quota, I tried the same thing. The main status light went green, then blue, and then brighter blue... and then flashed orange for a long time. And then gave the dreaded "no broadband" light for quite a while. and then turned blue again... and then gave the dreaded "no broadband" light again. And cycled through that again... and then, surprisingly, started to work properly! 

The logs indicate some "BOOTSTRAP" activity, which I assume means it got updated information from BT/PlusNet. 

And now, I have broadband from PlusNet again! I am relatively happy; but I would query whether this was a wise action by me, to use a paper-clip to reset, and trigger a "BOOTSTRAP", or whether it would be likely to clear the problem spontaneously if I had left it alone?

Sadly, the logs are VERY confusing - so I am not reproducing them here. And I work in IT professionally...!

But if this helps other users, it might be a good thing to post. And if a full reset is foolish, we should be told!

[#2]

Well, it's nice to have someone reply - even if it's only me.

So some warnings if you try to do the same kind of reset I did:

I hadn't anticipated that pushing the reset button with the paper clip would reset my username and password (for Broadband) to a default one (something like support@plusdsl.net) AND change my WiFi password(s) to their default values. I suppose it's obvious, with hindsight.

I had to change the main broadband username and password back to my normal PlusNet username@plusdsl.net so that my e-mail would work again! The support@plusdsl.net doesn't support PlusNet e-mail for normal users, I found.

So I had to reconfigure the main login identity and password, to reconnect to broadband and allow my e-mail to work: and the WiFi station IDs and passwords had to be corrected, so my phone and other (WiFi) devices might work again. Fortunately, I remembered them pretty quickly, and they reconnected.

I mention passwords, rather than "the password", as I have had to set up the 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi with different Station IDs. If I don't do that, my Google Chromecast doesn't work. But that's just a detail. The passwords were actually the same, but they have to be entered separately.

The main point is - DON'T do this paper-clip (hard) reset unless you really have severe problems, and make sure you have all the details you need to reconfigure broadband and WiFi. Otherwise, you might have to contact support. I do this kind of thing for a job, so it wasn't too much stress; but otherwise, I think I would have had troubles.

[#3]

Hi @PatMcT, thanks for getting in touch on our forums.

I'm sorry that you were experiencing issues, though it sounds like you've done a good job in resolving this yourself.

I've tested the line but this hasn't detected anything that may have caused the issues in the first place and it looks like your connection has been stable since coming back online. If you do have any further issues however, please just let us know.