Smarthub 2 restarting - options ?

[wkirkman]

@stevie_b1 better be quick. Philip Jansen is stepping down as CEO. Don't want him to miss your letter.

[stevie_b1]

I expect him to personally deal with it before he leaves !! haha !!

The lady from the ombudsman said that email address is the best chance of getting through to some smart technical people apparently. I'm super curious to see how smart they are.

She even asked me if I dealt with on-shore or off-shore people. TBH - that shouldnt really matter - I'm the customer, they are the supplier, but she was effectively implying I could have gone to a team that delivers poor customer service. 

[stevie_b1]

I've heard there is a Smart Hub 3 (EE Branded or BT Business Branded) that runs a completely different hardware and software platform compared to SH2.

Does anyone running SH3 experience the same random reboot issues?

My router reboots persist and seem to happen between 2-4 week time peroid - there really is no pattern I can find. 

Router restarted 29th August 2023, Afternoon 3:02pm
Router restarted 25th September, Evening 10:16pm
Router restarted 10th October, Morning 11:35am
Router restarted 4th November, Afternoon 2:46pm
Router restarted 19th November, Night 2:42am

Doesnt look like a pattern from remote management, which is why I keep thinking it is flaky software or the software developers have programmed in a reboot to mask memory leaks or something.

Anyway - would be interested to understand if the new equipment has this issue described on this thread.

[steephill]

The SH2 14 day reboot is a feature not a bug so if that is what you are experiencing then you are wasting your time complaining about it. Essentially it is doing its own version of the IT Crowd - switch itself off and back on again. Why does it do it? Who knows? Maybe it is clearing buffers or technical logs but it doesn't really matter as there is nothing you can do to stop it. I have set mine so that the regular 14 day reboot takes place when nobody is likely to be using it. A break in service of a couple of minutes every 14 days is hardly a disaster, total up time over the 14 days is 99.99% availability.

If you are getting additional random reboots then it might be the stability of your house power supply that is the cause. It might be minor brown-outs or a nearby EMI source that triggers a reboot. Your router's technical log will show you when this happens but of course it can't tell you exactly what caused it.

[stevie_b1]

Its not power. 

I've provided logs to BT. They just dont want to know.

I've had Broadband at this house for years, and had no issues with service (FTTC or Phone Line). Its only since switching to BT that I've had these outages and they happen when I'm trying to use the service.

I think Openreach is doing its job, but BT Retail is absolutely not - and I'd say at BT is worse that Moss and Roy.

The pattern has been:

Router restarted 29th August 2023, Afternoon 3:02pm
Router restarted 25th September, Evening 10:16pm
Router restarted 10th October, Morning 11:35am
Router restarted 4th November, Afternoon 2:46pm
Router restarted 19th November, Night 2:42am

My FTTC service with my Draytek router was rock solid. 

Does anyone on this Forum work for BT or is it just customers sharing experiences and trying to sympathise with each other, or give up battling this corporation ?

[StuartHK]

It will reboot again sometime soon.  New firmware version 41.01.10137

Seems to be an update on 41.00.07076

[stevie_b1]

Already got that new firmware.

I bet they have not updated the firmware to stop the reboots. I still consider it to be absolute trash. 

SH2 is the weakest link of BT's Full Fibre service and marketing. 

[stevie_b1]

Just looked again in the logs and done some excel filtering by "system restart".

Looks like the reason codes are:

- TR069 - guess that is BT remote management wanting a restart - maybe for firmware (makes sense)

- SAAF - which seems to be their pre-programmed random reboots to mask software/performance issues

- GUIReboot - which is me rebooting the router from the router GUI

Its the SAAF restarts that needs to be stopped. You dont get this forced outage on quality equipment. As I say, the SH2 feels like its junk / ewaste, and really BT should be focusing their software developers on better stability and performance. 

02:42:17 19 Nov. System restart reason: TR69
14:46:35 04 Nov. System restart reason: SAAF
11:35:40 21 Oct. System restart reason: SAAF
10:14:45 07 Oct. System restart reason: SAAF
22:16:17 25 Sep. System restart reason: SAAF
19:31:22 11 Sep. System restart reason: SAAF
15:02:50 29 Aug. System restart reason: SAAF
05:11:29 28 Aug. System restart reason: SAAF
04:56:33 14 Aug. System restart reason: SAAF
03:52:38 31 Jul. System restart reason: SAAF
03:33:45 17 Jul. System restart reason: SAAF
12:53:17 02 Jul. System restart reason: SAAF
12:43:50 24 Jun. System restart reason: SAAF
08:44:50 09 Jun. System restart reason: SAAF
18:38:27 25 May. System restart reason: GUIReboot
12:15:11 04 May. System restart reason: SAAF
00:41:55 20 Apr. System restart reason: SAAF
00:09:03 06 Apr. System restart reason: SAAF

[WSH]

Mine reboots every two weeks.  Doesn’t bother me, as it’s usually in the early hours of the morning.  I only thing I object to is if the speed goes to hell when it restarts, but it’s a pretty stable line so that doesn’t happen often.

To be fair there is a degree of truth in the old adage that the quickest way to sort something out is “turn it off and turn it back on again”.   Minor issues do build up with all long running software. Speaking as a retired tech, time was when nobody rebooted a server unless they had to.  Now most get a reboot once a month as a matter of routine, even if only for Microsoft updates.  It actually helps in keeping things stable.

What makes you think it is a memory leak exactly?

[chrisjp]

I agree that restarting the SH2 every 2 weeks or so is not a bad idea, but I wish BT would provide a user option to define the time of day this happens. Even the much maligned WIN10 & 11 update process allows you to decide when your computer should reboot.
Having a reboot of the SH2 happen when you're in the middle of an important call, or a Zoom meeting, is just not acceptable in my view.