This topic

Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

nwlondon — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 11:25:32 GMT

My BT hub regularly loses internet connectivity, often late at night before I go to bed, frequently in the middle of the night and often first thing in the morning. This has become such a pain that I wrote a little monitoring utility to track my broadband connectivity in an attempt to understand what was happening. Last night for example it reported I lost connectivity at 02:22, regained it briefly, lost it again at 04:38 and it was still faulty when I got up in the morning, returning only at 07:40. I've had an engineer visit; he checked the hub (it's a BT Smart Hub Type A), the in-home wiring and everything out to the pole outside my house and found no problems. But that hasn't fixed the issue. This only used to happen occasionally, but now it's pretty much every day. About the only thing I can think of is that now that Autumn's here the house gets a bit colder at night when the heating goes off, but IMHO that shouldn't affect the operation of the hub. Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

imjolly — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 11:29:36 GMT

your heating going off/on can cause electrical interference which may caused the hub to drop internet connection. is hub just dropping connection or is the hub actually resetting?

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

nwlondon — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 11:59:15 GMT

As far as I understand it the connection is dropping. I get the flashing orange light when it's disconnected. What's odd is that when it starts misbehaving it typically goes into a cycle of dropping the connection, reclaiming it 1 to 3 minutes later, then dropping it again. For example last night my logging utility showed the connection dropped and restarted over 70 times between 04:38 and 07:40. The previous night it dropped about 60 times between 0:28 and 03:35. This is clearly not caused by electrical interference as the heating (and most of the other things in the house) were not operating when the trouble started. I'm suspecting some sort of problem with the hub, but can't be certain; I may take a look at the hub management console to see if there are any sort of logs that throw light on what's happening.

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

imjolly — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 12:07:18 GMT

check hub system logs filtered 'WAN' and that should show drops in connection.

have you tried just connecting to test socket with filter eliminating your internal wiring to see if problems still happens?

you could try a factory reset of hub by pressing the recessed button on back and holding until lights flash

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

nwlondon — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 12:21:21 GMT

Just tried that and it shows the perpetual connection and disconnection cycle. See an extract from the log below:

07:39:49, 02 Oct.

ptm0.101:VLAN VLAN_DATA connected

07:39:48, 02 Oct.

:connection ATM_TV disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

07:39:48, 02 Oct.

:connection ATM_DATA disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

07:39:48, 02 Oct.

dsl:VDSL link Up: Down Rate=76029Kbps, Up Rate=20000Kbps, SNR Margin Down=0.00dB, SNR Margin Up=5.00dB

07:39:29, 02 Oct.

:VLAN VLAN_DATA disconnected

07:39:25, 02 Oct.

dsl:VDSL Link Down: duration was 78 seconds

00:01:54, 01 Jan.

:WAN: SENSING AUTO VDSL

00:01:18, 01 Jan.

ptm0.101:VLAN VLAN_DATA connected

00:01:17, 01 Jan.

:connection ATM_TV disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

00:01:17, 01 Jan.

:connection ATM_DATA disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

00:01:17, 01 Jan.

dsl:VDSL link Up: Down Rate=75967Kbps, Up Rate=20000Kbps, SNR Margin Down=0.00dB, SNR Margin Up=5.00dB

00:00:25, 01 Jan.

:WAN: ethernet as LAN

07:33:51, 02 Oct.

ptm0.101:VLAN VLAN_DATA connected

07:33:51, 02 Oct.

:connection ATM_TV disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

07:33:51, 02 Oct.

:connection ATM_DATA disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

07:33:51, 02 Oct.

dsl:VDSL link Up: Down Rate=75782Kbps, Up Rate=20000Kbps, SNR Margin Down=0.00dB, SNR Margin Up=5.00dB

07:33:32, 02 Oct.

:VLAN VLAN_DATA disconnected

07:33:28, 02 Oct.

dsl:VDSL Link Down: duration was 95 seconds

07:32:27, 02 Oct.

:WAN: SENSING AUTO VDSL

07:31:53, 02 Oct.

ptm0.101:VLAN VLAN_DATA connected

07:31:53, 02 Oct.

:connection ATM_TV disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

07:31:53, 02 Oct.

:connection ATM_DATA disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

07:31:53, 02 Oct.

dsl:VDSL link Up: Down Rate=37779Kbps, Up Rate=20000Kbps, SNR Margin Down=0.00dB, SNR Margin Up=5.00dB

07:31:34, 02 Oct.

:VLAN VLAN_DATA disconnected

07:31:30, 02 Oct.

dsl:VDSL Link Down: duration was 48 seconds

07:30:50, 02 Oct.

:WAN: SENSING AUTO VDSL

07:30:43, 02 Oct.

ptm0.101:VLAN VLAN_DATA connected

07:30:43, 02 Oct.

:connection ATM_TV disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

07:30:43, 02 Oct.

:connection ATM_DATA disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

07:30:43, 02 Oct.

dsl:VDSL link Up: Down Rate=36270Kbps, Up Rate=17901Kbps, SNR Margin Down=0.00dB, SNR Margin Up=5.00dB

07:30:23, 02 Oct.

:VLAN VLAN_DATA disconnected

07:30:20, 02 Oct.

dsl:VDSL Link Down: duration was 35 seconds

07:29:46, 02 Oct.

ptm0.101:VLAN VLAN_DATA connected

07:29:46, 02 Oct.

:connection ATM_TV disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

07:29:46, 02 Oct.

:connection ATM_DATA disconnected.[ERROR_USER_DISCONNECT]

07:29:45, 02 Oct.

dsl:VDSL link Up: Down Rate=36658Kbps, Up Rate=20000Kbps, SNR Margin Down=0.00dB, SNR Margin Up=5.00dB

07:29:26, 02 Oct.

:VLAN VLAN_DATA disconnected

07:29:23, 02 Oct.

dsl:VDSL Link Down: duration was 91 seconds

07:28:28, 02 Oct.

:WAN: SENSING AUTO VDSL

07:27:52, 02 Oct.

ptm0.101:VLAN VLAN_DATA connected

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

imjolly — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 12:27:13 GMT

if resetting hub does not stop dropping connection then phone 150 and ask for replacement hub

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

DavidM — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 15:22:38 GMT

Hi @nwlondon ,

Did you manage to get this sorted? Can you let us know if you're still having problems.

Cheers

David

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

nwlondon — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 15:58:39 GMT

No, it's unresolved. I had an engineer visit, he tested the cables and the line out to the pole across the road and found no problems. However my internet regularly drops out at about 00:27 just as I'm trying to watch the end of a video before going to bed. It then cycles up and down at intervals of a minute or two. Sometimes it's still dropped out first thing in the morning, and occasionally it drops out during the day for a minute or so. The router log reports "link down" WAN events. I called BT again and they promised another engineer would visit last week (he didn't) but they sent me a text saying they'd fixed the problem - but they obviously haven't. As it's mostly OK during the day when I'm working I've avoided calling BT as I don't have time during the day to sit on the phone for ages waiting for the call centre to talk to me. But I'm going to have to bite the bullet and try again; this time I think I'll make a fuss and demand a new router because if the network is OK and the wires are OK what's left?

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

DavidM — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 18:38:52 GMT

Thanks for getting back @nwlondon .

Sorry you're still having problems. I can help. I'll need a few details so I'll drop you a private message now so you can get in touch.

Cheers

David

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

nwlondon — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 09:05:23 GMT

Thanks for the offer David, but I had some free time as it's Saturday morning and called the helpdesk; plus I have had some more dropouts some of which weren't in the middle of the night. Another engineer visit is scheduled for Monday. Talking to the helpdesk guy suggests that part of the problem is in the exchange because the connection vanishes regularly at half past midnight every day.

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

iniltous — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 09:16:48 GMT

Something switching on or off ( central heating for example ) can cause this type of thing, search for REIN/SHINE ( ADSL ) ….it doesn’t necessarily need to be in the same home, it could even be a neighbour.

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

DavidM — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 10:15:09 GMT

Thanks for getting back to me @nwlondon . Please let me know how the engineer visit goes. I'm happy to step in if needed.

Cheers

David

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

nwlondon — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 13:56:38 GMT

Possible, but I'm fairly sure we don't have anything that generates that level of interference running at 00:27; the heating is off and big power consumers like the dishwasher and washing machine don't run at predictable times. If the interference was outside the house it would have to be pretty high power so I'd imagine the neighbours might also have been seeing problems, but I asked and no-one's reporting any. However I have an SDR that will go down to almost DC, so I may try snooping around the sub 1MHz bands next time the DSL fails to see if anything obvious is radiating a ton of RF in my vicinity. Any idea what precise frequency DSL uses?

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

Keith_Beddoe — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 14:15:34 GMT

ADSL and VDSL spectrum.

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

nwlondon — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 17:31:29 GMT

No joy. Engineer called, tested everything in sight, but couldn't find any problems with the wiring or anything in the vicinity of the house or the pole. But the hub still loses connectivity regularly at 00:27 in the evening. Last night the technical log showed it continuing to make and drop the connection repeatedly every couple of minutes until 03:36 when it stabilised. I'm starting to think that BT have no way to diagnose this problem or fix it. If there isn't a repeatable fault at the time the engineer calls they're flummoxed. It's not so bad losing connectivity in the middle of the night except for the fact that at 0:30 I'm usually trying to watch the last few minutes of a film before going to bed. But the problem also happens in working hours occasionally which is really annoying.

I'm not sure what do do next. Obviously I'll report another fault if it recurs during working hours (as it probably will), but based on past experience it's not obvious that they can diagnose it. I'm planning a bit of geeky investigation over the next few days. I can use one of my SDRs as a spectrum analyser so I'll maybe attach an antenna and sniff around 0 to 10 MHz at 0:30 to see if there's anything in the vicinity radiating huge amounts of RF on VDSL-like frequencies.

I guess I might beg BT to replace the hub, but it's not obvious it's a hub problem. But if anyone has any suggestions for further self-help diagnostics (or anything else) please let me know.

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

RobbieMac — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 19:01:49 GMT

Hi @nwlondon

Many thanks for taking the time to chat with me again this evening.

I'm sorry for the connection problems you had with your broadband recently and for the length of time this has been going on. I am really pleased to have been able to help resolve everything and from checking from my side, things have been much more stable over the last few days.

I'll go ahead and close this off from here as agreed. If you need a hand or have a question about your BT services in future feel free to post back as there is always someone around 😁

All the best,

Robbie

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

pippincp — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 19:45:01 GMT

@RobbieMacSo what was causing it then?

Re: Broadband dropping out regularly in the evening / morning

RobbieMac — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 08:21:00 GMT

@pippincp wrote:

@RobbieMacSo what was causing it then?

@pippincp It was an issue with DLM that was causing the constant retrains.

Cheers,

Robbie