Smarthub 2 restarting - options ?

[WSH]

I suspect it's not supposed to do that.  I've always got the impression it waits until traffic levels drop below a certain threshold.  Hence the early hours of the morning.  For example, that new firmware I mentioned was sitting on the system from 10:15 until I decided to manually reboot, just before I went to bed, at 23:30.  (There were a couple of other changes I wanted to make at the same time).

May be that digital voice uses so little bandwidth that the system needs a bit of a tweak.

[stevie_b1]

Well this issue is being fixed for me finally - not technically - but contractually!

BT have decided to “waive cancellation fees” due to what they call “technical transition issues” which is basically their way of saying they have no solution to my problem. 

As I said, I was not expecting this level of mini-outages due to their equipment when I signed up. Full Fibre with Digital Voice was supposed to be faster, more reliable and better quality (for phone). That was the promise!!

The impact to my intruder alarm was the main issue that persuaded them that this level of outage was unacceptable. Every time Digital Voice (DV) went down, my alarm would sound because it sees this as a “cut line” tamper condition.

When I was on the PSTN service, the line went down once in 20 years due to a tree issue during some windy weather. Since March on Full Fibre and DV, the service went down 17 times so far. As shared on my post on 02-12-2023 at 00:10am, the times for the reboots shared and completely random (all times of the day and night).

I didn’t understand BT’s explanation that the reboots were for “optimisation”. There is no broadband line optimisation required - the fibre terminates in the Nokia ONT. My Wi-Fi is disabled because I have a mesh. I just didn’t understand why the reboots. This is why I suspected poor SH2 software or masking memory leaks. As mentioned before, my Draytek router would run for 6+ months without a reboot. Just a shame, I had to keep the SH2 plugged in for DV. That lock-in meant there was no option to use other equipment. 

Anyway, a good result, and now I’m investigating other providers. With Vodafone, if their router is junk, I can use my own router for broadband and an ATA device (Analogue Telephony Adapter - or other SIP based VoIP device) if they do the reboots like BT. Got to check other service providers and might even use a separate VoIP provider.

It sounds like you all have ways of coping with this designed-in "feature", but I thought I'd share the final outcome of my own dealings with BT. It’s just a shame I raised this in August, and its taken until this week to get to an agreeable conclusion. 

[Jane2018]

This is a really important issue.  Until tonight I had no idea the hub might reboot and a phone call be cut off! That has never happened to my knowledge with our current home hub 5 (we have not had the smarthub2 yet despite London supposedly moving to DV by end of year) and of course the hours I spent each day on the landline are never cut out - in 25 years I have never even had a line down on the landline.

If the smarthub2 is going to be rebooting left right and centre in a way the hub5 has never done that is a huge worry an at the very least digital voice customers should be warned - "we will be moving you to digital voice; one effect is that the service will not be as constant as now and it is likely your line will go down at least once every two weeks which may mean your call has to be interrupted for a period. The service will not be cheaper even though it will be worse"

[WSH]

No, it's not.  I've been on DV using a Smart Hub 2 since September and it just reboots in the early hours of the morning once a fortnight, just like the old Home Hub 5 used to do.

[stevie_b1]

I'm afraid so @Jane2018 

I shared before, but these were the restarts from my logs. Where it says SAAF this is their code for a soft reset i.e. a reboot. You can see they happen night and day.  I think this is why my release from contract was because of "technical transition issues" because they cannot fix this anytime soon. 

Hopefully in future, they will iron out these issues - but BT providing "battery backup" or "hybrid connect" doesnt fix this. Battery backup is only if you have a power outage in your house. Hybrid connect (4G backup) is only for when the fibre goes down. The issue is their Smart Hub hardware and software that is at the centre of everything (unfortunately!!)

02:42:17 19 Nov. System restart reason: TR69  <---- BT doing remote firmware upgrade
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 <----- me doing a restart from the GUI
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]

...but clearly there is something more than just the routine 14 day reset going on here.

[Jane2018]

If it only reboots in the middle of the night that is brilliant but what I most want is detailed written information on these points from BT eg a statement saying we have set it to GMT 2am to reboot.

Mind you that will be fun in my campaign to stop my  adult sons cooking at 2 and 3am and being up sometimes  almost until I am about to get up some nights as there is someone online in this house day and night as I seem to live with nocturnal animals at times.

Eg if there is a setting I am supposed to go on to when the new hub2 arrives to set it to a certain time it would be good to know.

My other issue is BT said London was moving to digital voice in Nov and Dec with 4 weeks notice - presumably that is not entirely correct now as 4 weeks from today is January and we have still not been given a day. I think they should email all London customers and say there is a delay now into 2024 so we know where we stand instead of being put on tenterhooks by being told it was 2023 when clearly now it is not.

[wkirkman]

No one seems to know why it really does it. I have only had one BT hub do it, and that was the BT Home Hub 4. Since then, from Home Hub 5, Smart Hub and Smart Hub 2, I have not had a single instance of that happening. I usually have a continuous connection of 40 - 50 days before something happens, either I reboot it or a power cut during a storm or something else...

So I was curious as to whether it is actually based on Exchange or region, perhaps something to do with number of customers connected in one area… I'm just randomly guessing here… so people who are going to get the 14 day reboot will always get it no matter the hub, and people that don't won't. Like there is something at the Exchange or cabinets that actually dictate based on your area whether your hub would 'benefit' from a reboot? (Which of course would be Openreach not BT which is why BT Consumer cannot do anything about this).

Perhaps my exchange made a change (which is did from me getting Home Hub 4 - 5 which is FTTC arrived in the village).

I don't believe it is faulty software at all, or a memory leak as being suggested — because if it was, then people would be having this happen randomly, and a random amount of people — surely I would get this a lot also if a software 'fault' or a memory leak.

No, there is something that triggers this, and it's not everyone.

[stevie_b1]

@Jane2018 - there is no way of specifying the time in the router GUI, and given that BT cannot control these reboots, I doubt they will be able to give you any written guarantees as to when their equipment reboots. I referred to it as random with the ombudsman.

You might be best to look at non-BT / non-EE options. Good luck !!

[stevie_b1]

Dont know @wkirkman . I was just suspecting it was poor software.

Fact is - BT can’t explain the issue (isolated or not) or find a fix.

Whether these are widespread issues, or more isolated issues, I still believe it’s wholly wrong for BT Group to just leave customers to figure things out for themselves - either through workarounds or complaints (taken me since August and via Ombudsman).

They really need their engineers to do some proper root cause analysis and software fixes - but then, I guess the big budget holders are the Marketing Department this year and the technical team lose out. I'm sure many millions of pounds being spent on yellow paint and EE branding which doesn’t fix my SH2.