Internet to Router Disconnects Constantly

[#1]

Since Boxing Day, we've had issues with our broadband just disconnecting from the router. Each time, I've had to go into the router settings via the network webpage and tell it to re-connect again, though sometimes this even takes ages to do.  I've tried restarting the router a few times, but it doesn't seem to help. It seems to play up in the mornings and is worst in the evenings - we can have one or two drops in the morning, hours of no issues, and then non-stop disconnections in the evening.

I've texted the Help line to check for faults and it says it can't find anything wrong between the PlusNet service to our house. We are using the standard PlusNet fibre router as well. There also don't appear to be any outages reported for our area either.

Is there something else that can be checked?

[#2]

@LDav Welcome to the forums. For now, all I can do is post my standard 'help sheet', but if you can supply all the details requested, it may give us something to go on. The automatic tester can only look for what it is programmed to do, humans - other Community members and the PN Help Team, can use our brains to analyse data.

Iinformation from these two sites:-

BT Broadband(obscuring your phone number) and BTW Performance Tester - Over a wired (ethernet) connection please report the 'Additional Diagnostics', and sight of the Help Desk tab from your Hub would be a start.

It may also be a good idea to report the results of a Quiet Line Test - dial 17070 option 2 from a (preferably corded) phone. After the confirmation of you phone number, there should be total silence apart from the regular 'Quiet Line Test' announcement. Any other noise - report a PHONE fault first.

If phone test is OK then take the front off your telephone master socket, you may need to remove two screws. In behind you will find the test socket. Plug a filter in here and connect that to your hub. If it’s still dropping out then report a fault at https://faults.plus.net.

[#3]

Hi jab1 - thanks for coming back to quick!

Results from the BT Availability Checker:

BT Performance Tester - done over ethernet (noted that the download speed is lower than we usually get. We average around 60mbps down usually)

Hub "Helpdesk Agent Info" tab - I obfuscated some lines for privacy, but let me know if there was anything that needed to be seen:

Unfortunately, I'm not able to do the Quiet Line Test, as we don't have a phone hooked up right now. The line is used purely for broadband.

[#4]

OK - thanks for your quick response, too. The only things that jumps out at me at first glance, late at night 😉 are your DSL uptime, which indicates you have had a very recent DSL drop, and the low download speed, as you mention. I assume the Broadband Username is yours, and not 'setup@plusdsl.net'?

Based on that, any chance you could post the results from the WAN tab of the Event log, please? I probably won't get back to you until early tomorrow morning, but this looks like it may need PN Help Team intervention.

[#5]

Thanks for your post @LDav and welcome to our Community Forums.

I'm really sorry to see you're having issues with your connection.

I've tested your line today and the tests aren't showing any causes for this but I can definitely see the drops as shown below:

Is your router plugged into the master telephone socket with no extension cabling between the socket and your router?

If so I'd recommend seeing if the test socket (found behind the faceplate of the master socket) makes a difference. There's instructions Here on how to. 

Let us know how it goes.

[#6]

Hi, @Gandalf ! thanks for coming back!

I've just looked and realised there are two sockets labelled Master Socket! So now I'm really confused. I have the router plugged in directly to one of then, which has separate ethernet and phone ports. There is another master socket though with a single port, I imagine for a filter, at the other end of the property. I'm not sure how to tell which one is that actual master socket, as it's in an apartment building.

[#7]

@LDav Where does the phone cable enter the building from outside? I'm going to suggest that the more modern 2-port socket is your 'true' master socket, but could be wrong.

[#8]

@LDav 

Take the filtered faceplate off the master socket that has one and check that the other socket no longer works. If so you have found the master and the other is an extension. If the other still works then reverse the process, that is replace the first one and remove the other. if neither way around kills the other  socket then your wiring is screwed up and unless that you can follow the wiring and are willing to do some rewiring you need Openreach to wire it correctly for you.

[#9]

Hi @LDav

I'd second @Baldrick1's advice. If you can also take some photos and post them up, this may help.

[#10]

It's Sod's Law - as soon as you contact anyone for support, the issue goes away. You've all scared the outages off at the moment! And the speed is back up to 70 down / 19 up. 🤣 I'll keep an eye on it today and if it goes down again this evening, start taking a looking at the sockets.

[#11]

Hiya @LDav, thanks for getting back to us. I am pleased that things are currently working OK.

How strange, though wouldn't surprise me if the mighty @Gandalf has scared off a fault

Let us know how things go. Hopefully the issue doesn't return!

[#12]

This potentially points to a bad joint issue, which have a tendency to self rectify under line test voltage conditions.  Ringing the line can have the same effect.

Broadband is not going to work well if the "phone" line is not working properly.

Please perform a quiet line test - dial 17070 select option 2 using a corded phone plugged into the test socket behind the face plate of the master socket. It should be silent. A noisy phone line (or no dial tone) will have a marked adverse impact on the performance of broadband.

If the line is noisy or there is no dial tone, then a PHONE LINE fault needs to be raised with your phone provider. If this is PlusNet, you can report a fault on line using the button below.  From the Q&A list, choose the one which matches the problem, 'open' the 'section' and click the trouble-shooter link.  NB: If you receive a failure message (rather than a log-in prompt) then log-in to the user portal in a different browser tab and attempt to use the trouble-shooter again.

• Phone Faults

[#13]

Hi, everyone! Thank you for your patience. It just went out again last night and again just a few minutes ago. Luckily, we've gotten a corded phone and filter to do some testing!

• As @Baldrick1 mentioned for the Master Socket - Tested the two sockets and the one we've been using the router on IS the master socket. Don't know why the one in the hall says it's one, but taking the faceplate off the one in the living room made the hall one stop working. Tested the other way and the living room one still works without a faceplate on the hall one. So we're using the right socket!
• Did a quiet line test into the test port of the master socket and couldn't hear any noise. So that seems clean.
• We did a quick call to the landline, just in case that helps rectify it, like @Townman mentioned.

[#14]

Just been having a look and found this article with the same issue as us:

https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Broadband/Internet-Keeps-Dropping/m-p/1745093#M113177

sure enough, our event log doesn’t show reset button, but watchdog resets.

so, is it that the router has gone faulty? How would I go about getting a new one?

[#15]

Hiya @LDav, thanks for getting back to us. I am really sorry that you have experienced some further issues with the service.

I have tested the line again today and this hasn't highlighted anything, though can see a number of drops yesterday (I'm assuming the few drops around 5pm were from your checks in the test socket etc).

I think the best thing here would be to first look at getting an engineer out to investigate this further. I have created a fault ticket here: https://www.plus.net/wizard/?p=view_question&id=220794628 with the next steps, just let us know once you have added a reply and we will get that picked up for you.