Whole Home Wi-Fi - Master disk resetting every few hours

[JM101]

Hello Forum,

I recently purchased a Whole Home Wi-Fi 3-disc pack for my our shared home and wondered if you could help me please.

The configuration is very simple with the master disk plugged into a Virgin Hub 3 cable router via Ethernet running the DHCP in the normal way and the two satellite discs connected to the first via Wi-Fi (-59 and -68dBm signal). We have 10-15 devices connected at any one time. Firmware version is v1.02.08 build02.

When the system is up we get good coverage and speed throughout the house, however the master disk resets at intervals between 1 hour and 23 hours, usually at around 6-7 hours. It takes about 90 seconds to reboot during which the wi-fi is obviously down.

The slightly tricky thing is that the Virgin Home Hub 3 router belongs to our landlord and we have no access to it. It is located in their house next door and has only a couple of devices connected to its own Wi-Fi. I notice that the Ethernet cable looks old and home made which may be an issue - I have asked the landlord to replace it but this will take time.

For the BT discs I have tried:

- swapping the discs 
- swapping the power supplies
- fixing IP addresses of the disks outside of the DHCP range
- fixing the radio channels
- turning off legacy steering

This has not solved the problem. My question is then what specifically can cause the master disk to repeatedly reset itself in this way? What else can I try please? Thanks in advance for any insight.

[lnajr02]

I think the virgin HUB 3 would have to be in modem setting , but contact the help-desk they would help.
Product helpdesk information
By phone: 0808 100 6116
Monday to Friday 9.00am to 5.30pm
Saturday 9.00am to 2.00pm
By email: btconnectedhome@bt.com

if your app opens then select HELP > Email > Share this will open your email on your device and attach some log that they can review.

[JM101]

Thanks for your reply. My understanding is that the BT Whole Home effectively just acts as a Wi-Fi access point and that the Virgin Hub 3 should be in its normal router mode - ie running the NAT and DHCP as per usual.

I did try contacting the BT support line - they confirmed that the disc settings should be OK but suggested changing the Ethernet cable and changing LAN ports on the Virgin router. I am waiting for the landlord to do this.

What else could be causing the Master BT disc to reset every few hours?

[lnajr02]

A few questions :
1. When the master disc is resetting are the LED's on the disc changing?
2. When you look at the Email ( HELP> EMAIL> SHARE) is the master disc time
example : Office(Primary)|+093593+xxxxxxxxx |0 days, 0 hours, 12 minutes, 51 = (0 Days )?
3. Is the time that this happens the same time each day ?
The above is assuming you have not manually reset.

[JM101]

Hi,

1) When the master disc is resetting the LED flashes purple for about 90 seconds then returns to blue. The two other discs do not reset, they just turn red while disconnected then blue again.

2) There is nothing unusual in the logs when the reset happens - all you see is that the master disc is rebooting in the normal way.

3) No the resets are not at the same time of day. They happen seemingly randomly at between 1 to 23 hour intervals, usually around 6 hours.

Thanks for your help. Any more ideas?

[lnajr02]

It could be a problem with power save behaviour of the Ethernet ports on the switch of the Virgin Hub 3.0 on the virgin forums you see that the Hub's Ethernet switch ports drops out after a while and unplugging and reconnecting to the same or another port immediately brings the connection back.
Try set up the Virgin Hub 3.0 in router mode with wifi turned off.

[JM101]

 Thank you for pointing me to the Virgin forums. Yes, it appears that the LAN port on the Virgin Hub 3 may be unreliable in certain circumstances. There are a few possible issues with it:

1) A bad Ethernet cable can cause dropouts and ours seems to be of low quality

2) The Hub 3 Lan ports have an auto power off feature

3) If there is a voltage on the Ethernet cable (as might be the case between our two houses) this can cause dropouts

4) The processor power of the Hub 3 is limited and we are running up to 15 devices simultaneously, which it can't always handle.

Point 1 we are working on. Point 2 doesn't seem to be the issue as it drops out when in use. Point 3 might be helped by adding a small unmanaged switch between the master disc and the Hub 3 - will try this if needed. Point 4 really requires a separate router with the Hub 3 only in modem mode - this would cost another £150 or so.

In all of the above cases though it seems as if the master disc is doing the right thing in resetting itself to re-establish the connection. Thanks for your help - I will post an update when this is resolved. 

[JM101]

A quick update from here...

We have replaced the old Ethernet cable between the master disc and Virgin Hub 3 router with a certified Cat 6 new one.

The disc firmware is now updated to the latest v1.02.11 build 02. Settings are as default except that fixed IP addresses have been set for discs outside of the router's DHCP range and the radio channels are fixed to 1 and 36. All steering is now back on (as per the default).

The result is that the stability has improved with the master disc resets now occurring at between 16 and 45 hours uptime, average 31 hours, instead of several times per day.

I suspect the Virgin Hub 3 router is still doing something unreliable causing these resets. Ideally we would buy a dedicated Ethernet router and use the Virgin box in simple modem mode. At the moment though I don't have the funds.

So, the system is now usable. Any other suggestions as to how to improve it? Thanks...

[JM101]

OK, so after monitoring for a couple of weeks the system resets are still problematic. Nine times out of ten the network comes back up but sometimes it doesn't and the satellite discs have to be switched off and on again. When the resets happen older wifi devices are sometimes left stuck to which ever disc comes back up first.

To improve the stability, I'm proposing investing in a wired ethernet Ubiquity ER-X EdgeRouter to go between the Whole Home master disk and the Virgin Hub 3 which would be relegated to modem mode only. The  Hub 3 wifi (used by the landlord next door) would be turned off and another Whole Home disc wired in instead. There would then be two discs wired (one the master) to the EdgeRouter's LAN ports and two satellite disks connected to the master via the 5GHz backhaul. 

I have read that the Whole Home disks can be finicky about managed switches. Will the two discs plugged in to the EdgeRouter LAN ports see each other and work as planned? 

Thanks for any advice you can give in advance of spending more money...

[SpeedleElite]

Hey Guys,

So I've started experiencing the exact same issue that's being described here, however I've had my 3 disc WholeHome setup for about 2 years now. It's been absolutely faultless up until the most recent update and now I get these random connection drops on the Master Disc where it reboots itself.

I've already Rolled the Firmware back to 1.02.08 build02 as previously it was completely fine. However this has not fixed the issue and when I check the up time it's still rebooting itself at random intervals.. The Router it's connected to has never been updated and any devices connected via cable experience zero issues, it's only the master disc rebooting causing problems. All the other disc's stay up and stable. Very odd and annoying!