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[FTTC] RADIUS incompatability?

twentythree
Grafter
Posts: 151
Registered: ‎20-02-2010

[FTTC] RADIUS incompatability?

I lost my connection at about 11pm on Friday 25th June but didn't notice until Saturday morning. The router hadn't reconnected automatically. I tried to connect manually but this didn't work. I power cycled the router but still couldn't connect so power cycled both the router and VDSL2 modem (despite the modem appearing to be connected OK). I was able to make a manual connection after a few minutes and the connection has been up ever since (apart from a manual reconnection at about 10.30am when I was changing gateways).
The response I got from the CSC staff was:
Quote
I have checked the system and I can see that the password in the router is either invalid or missing. The router is trying to connect but is not able to . Therefore please can you check the password in the router and let us know if this resolves the problem.

and
Quote
I have check on our server logs and it shows approx 30 attempts to connect to the server and the reason why it isn't working is due to the password being incorrect so please can you verify/ retry with your user name and password

This is rather odd as the password has not been changed. I'm guessing this must be a fault with the Thomson firmware as the password is saved in its memory. I neither changed, deleted or re-entered the password at any point. The only way I could reconnect was as described above - a couple of power cycles then a manual connect.
A further CSC Analyst response today says:
Quote
I've just checked the logs and it is showing hundreds of password incorrect errors. We are not showing any active sessions at all. Also, all the errors seem to be occurring on the 26th. The systems seems to indicate no other connections have ever been made which could suggest our RADIUS server is at fault.

All very odd as I am connected and have been pretty much constantly since the FTTC installation on Tuesday 1st June.
Two questions:
Is this a unique RADIUS issue or does it apply to all of the other FTTC trialists?
Why couldn't the Thomson router reconnect automatically? The user name and password are stored in its memory but it appears to have been sending the wrong info to the Plusnet servers...
9 REPLIES 9
twentythree
Grafter
Posts: 151
Registered: ‎20-02-2010

Re: [FTTC] RADIUS incompatability?

Lost my connection again last night shortly after 1am. The router didn't reconnect automatically. The web interface was showing authentication failed. A manual connect i.e. clicking on the connect button in the web interface connected straight away.
So, same two questions - what caused the disconnection and why can't the router reconnect automatically?
dave
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 12,257
Thanks: 306
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: [FTTC] RADIUS incompatability?

Hi,
At least one of the drops was down to maintenance by the looks of it and the other may have been a drop in sync, I can't tell 100% but it looks like it's probably the cause. Why it's not reconnecting I'm not sure but Peter's said the same thing so I've asked Thomson to take a look at it and see if they can see why.
Dave Tomlinson
Enterprise Architect - Network & OSS
Plusnet Technology
dave
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 12,257
Thanks: 306
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: [FTTC] RADIUS incompatability?

Could you do a dump of the current config please.
Go to Thomson Gateway -> Configuration -> At the bottom of the page save/restore configuration then create a backup file. If you can then send it over to me on a ticket I can pass it on to Thomson to check what's wrong with it. Thanks.
Dave Tomlinson
Enterprise Architect - Network & OSS
Plusnet Technology
twentythree
Grafter
Posts: 151
Registered: ‎20-02-2010

Re: [FTTC] RADIUS incompatability?

Dave,
I've attached the configuration file to my FTTC ticket. Hope it helps.
dave
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 12,257
Thanks: 306
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: [FTTC] RADIUS incompatability?

Ta, sent to Thomson to take a look.
Dave Tomlinson
Enterprise Architect - Network & OSS
Plusnet Technology
dave
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 12,257
Thanks: 306
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: [FTTC] RADIUS incompatability?

OK, we think it may be the way the Openreach modem is working that's causing it not to reconnect. Done a bit of trial and error testing but I think if you reboot the BT modem and then Thomson in the right order it will work OK which we think is:
Switch off Thomson
Switch off BT modem
Switch on BT modem, wait for all green lights
Switch on Thomson, should reconnect automatically
Thomson are looking at the Openreach docs to see if there's anything else in there.
Dave Tomlinson
Enterprise Architect - Network & OSS
Plusnet Technology
hulls
Grafter
Posts: 1,699
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: [FTTC] RADIUS incompatability?

Feels like a bit of an anticlimax (although I'm not complaining!)
My set up is telling me that I've been connected for nearly 6 days, and no issues.  There don't appear to have been any connection issues.
Maybe I'm not taxing the download unduly, but everything's very smooth here  Smiley
John
twentythree
Grafter
Posts: 151
Registered: ‎20-02-2010

Re: [FTTC] RADIUS incompatability?

@dave
That's what I did to get it to reconnect but it doesn't really solve the problem of no automatic reconnection does it? I still had to connect manually after rebooting both the modem and the router. I guess I can live with this workaround as disconnections are very rare but it would be nice if it "just worked"...
dave
Plusnet Help Team
Plusnet Help Team
Posts: 12,257
Thanks: 306
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: [FTTC] RADIUS incompatability?

Yeah I know, we're trying to work out the why first and if what we think is the reason is what is the reason I can feed that back in to Thomson and see if we can get something changed in the config. I've seen it on a different router too so I think it's something in the way the BT modem times out the PPPoE session and MAC address of the device connected but we'll see.
Dave Tomlinson
Enterprise Architect - Network & OSS
Plusnet Technology