Intermittant 'Connected no internet' issue for over 1.5 years! Blue lights stay on.

[Caz321]

We have been having this same issue that no one seems to be able to work out what's wrong. I have searched so many pages to find the answer.

We are on FTTC, full fibre is not available yet. We have a smart hub 2. Our speeds are pretty decent. We have already been given a new hub to see if that solved the issues. We have had 2 BT people out already.

About 1.5 years ago we were swapped over to digital voice and got given a smart hub 2.  It seems to be around then the problems started. Every day or so at some random time, our laptops, phones etc all say 'connected no internet' but the blue lights on the hub are still on, not flashing etc. Strangely our Ring indoor camera and outdoor cameras both continue recording and they are connected wirelesly to the same hub. We can see from the video footage that the blue lights stays on the whole time. It seems the only way to get the laptops and phones back on the internet is to turn the router on and off, it then works ok again for another day or so. We have tried waiting without turning off but it stays the same. Inbetween these episodes I have noticed a lot of times my laptop will say 'your internet connection was restored' it looks like I have been disconnected for a very small fraction of time when it happens but I don't notice apart from that message. Sometimes it happens a lot, like every few minutes, other times I don't notice anything.

Rough timeline of contact with BT. We got our old phoneline switched off and changed to digital voice around june 2024.

1.End 2024 When we realised this was ongoing we got help on bt chat. The person I spoke to did the usual but also said something about us wrongly being put down as being full fibre when we are still part copper. He said he would switch something. I don't know what he did. But the problem reoccured.

2.I did research tried switching settings etc (I can't remember exactly what).

3.We put up with the issue but in 2025 we got someone from BT to come out. He said our speeds were very good, line very quiet etc. He said he had heard of this problem once before and I think he mentioned internet protocol or something like that. He thought we needed an open reach engineer. He changed the hub for us just in case but didn't think that would solve it.  He said to insist on an open reach engineer if it wasn't solved. The new hub did not solve the issue so again we just put up with it for a while. 

4. I contacted BT again and the lady tried to book open reach but it wouldn't let her, she said she needed to send a BT engineer first then they can ask for the open reach. The BT engineer came and again said we were getting very good speeds etc. He was going to replace the master socket but it's already been replaced. He saw that the socket was not pushed in properly so he did that. He didn't think that was the answer but said if we still get the same problem ask for the open reach engineer. It has been ok for about 3 days and then exactly the same happened again today. Phones and laptops connected no internet but the cameras were still connected. I also noticed on my laptop I could connect to the hub via the number you type in the browser. As soon as we turned the hub off it said I wasn't connected. Suggesting my laptop could still communicate with the hub but not get internet. I don't know if that is important. I also noticed the other day that FTTP was marked 'on' when I logged into the hub. I switched this off in case that was causing issues as we are not on FTTP. But I checked again today after todays issues and that setting is still off so that can't be the problem.

5. I am currently onto BT again to see about getting open reach out but wondered if anyone has heard of this issue and anything else I can try. The BT chat people all seem to want me to do the same thing, restart hub, reset etc. Clearly none of that is helping. It needs to be someone with deeper knowledge of this issue.  ***I have just been given an appointment today! Fingers crossed. (I am just across the road from BT so that's maybe how they are getting someone so quickly). Even if they find something I likely won't know until a few days if it has stopped the problem so I still welcome any ideas and input. 

Thankyou

[gg30340]

This might not be the cause of your problem but it is worth considering.

Can you check in all your devices settings to see if they have "MAC Randomisation"  and if they do, if it is turned on try turning it off. 

This is a "privacy" feature on some devices that generates a "random" MAC  address for the device every time that it connects to a wireless network. This is helpful on public wifi but not really necessary on your home network. 

This can cause a problem with the BT hub and other routers which do not clear down MAC addresses when the device leaves the network. The allocation table eventually can not allocate a new MAC address and as such the device can not get onto that network.

Once you have turned MAC Randomisation off carry out a factory reset of the Smarthub in order to clear out any settings.

[iniltous]

This does seem to crop up frequently, as far as your point 1 about BT noticing something set as full fibre when you are not on full fibre , I suspect that was pretty trivial, the hub 4th Ethernet port needs to be set as ‘full fibre on ’ when on FTTP , the cable from the ONT connects to the 4th socket , on FTTC it’s irrelevant if it’s set to on or off unless you have a wired device in that 4th slot , I suspect they noticed your hub set to full fibre ON , but it’s irrelevant, but turn it to off if it hasn’t already been done .
The rest of the points around Openreach needing to visit , in truth there isn’t really any point , search Mac Randomisation , this has been suggested as the possible cause of your issue , it seems the hub doesn’t necessarily play nice with devices that have Mac randomisation set , try looking at your devices and see if they are set for Mac randomisation and if they are , turn it off .

Edit , beaten to it by @gg30340  with message 2

[Caz321]

Hi, thankyou for the suggestion, I checked and 'Random Hardware Addresses' is already switched to off on the laptops. I just switched my mobile to off as it was on but the problem happens on our laptops too so that can't be the reason for it happening on them if that makes sense!

[iniltous]

I’d give it a try , the problem seems (in basic terms) that each random ( made up ) MAC address created by a device is remembered by the hub , it eventually runs out of space for these random MAC numbers and hangs until it’s powered off, that affects all devices not just the ones set to randomisation , so even if the PC’s were not set for randomisation, a mobile with that setting may be causing the issue …if you turn it off on the mobile and it still happens at least you have removed that as a possibility.

[Caz321]

thankyou for explaining, I will give it a try and see if that solves it. Do I need to check devices like tv, ps5, switch, cameras etc or would they not have that feature? Also is a restart of hub enough or does it need to be a factory reset? I only ask so when we were given a replacement hub the engineer told me how to give the new hub the same name or whatever as my old one so I didn't need to set everything up again but I can't remember how he told me to do that! I really appreciate your help today. (p.s if I need to I will of course do it, I just wanted to double check)

[iniltous]

As far as I know , because the idea behind this is to stop others tracking your mobile devices as they connect across multiple networks, so it’s mainly on portable devices that are likely to have this feature , something like a TV that isn’t really a portable device isn’t likely to have a need for this type of feature as it will only really ever connect to its home network …I’d start with laptops , mobiles etc that are likely to connect to networks other than your ‘home’ network, like coffee shops , airports , WiFi hotspots etc.

As far as I know , switching off and on is sufficient to clear this data , although a factory reset may ultimately be the better option , but as  you have changed the WiFi SSID /password to the previous router settings a factory reset isn’t the easy option as you would need to do that again , or use factory settings  , and pair all your mobile devices again , so any future factory reset won’t be an issue .

[gg30340]

I doubt that the TV and camera will have it however I would check the PS5.

A restart of the hub may be enough but a factory reset would be better.

If you are using a wireless device you will first need to use the Smarthub's SSid and Password that is on the hub's label in order to do the following after a factory reset.

If you are using an Ethernet connected device you will not need to use the hubs labels name etc.

To change the SSiD (name) of the Smarthub you need to go to the hubs management pages. Open a new web browser on a device connected to your Hub and type 192.168.1.254 in the address bar. This will open the Hub manager.

Click Advanced Settings then Click Wireless. Enter the admin password found on the label.

Once in the wireless settings click on "Change Settings". You can now change the "Network Name" and the Security Password"  to your "old" hubs name and password. Click "Save" then close the browser.

[Caz321]

Thankyou both so much for your help. We have 2 mobiles and 2 laptops which are now all set to off. I have then restarted the hub. I am going to wait and see if the problem continues and if it does I will then try resetting the hub (thankyou for the instructions for setting it to the old details).  When I was logged into the hub I noticed quite a few items that had been connected previously that I dont' recognise so I am going to work through the list and delete ones we don't need. It could well be family connected at christmas but they can just reconnect if it is. 

Openreach phoned a while ago and thought they were coming to sort a dangerous hanging wire! That was embarressing, I told them the chat person did say they put it as a priority and I hadn't asked them too, I guess they pretended it was an emergency. The guy said they do that sometimes so he knew it wasn't my fault. He said I need to go back on chat and say they need to raise a fault as he didn't have any of our details other than phone number. But for now I think I'll wait and see if this solves the issue and get back to them if it doesn't.

I haven't been on this chat community before so I'm not sure of the correct protocol. Do I mark this as solved or wait and see if it resolves it first? Thanks

[gg30340]

---

@Caz321wrote:

I haven't been on this chat community before so I'm not sure of the correct protocol. Do I mark this as solved or wait and see if it resolves it first? Thanks

---

Your choice but I would just wait and see if it has solved the issue.