IPC6023 Error

[RogerSt]

I recently changed my BT Broadband to the EE equivalent. EE sent me an EE hub and Wifi disc as replacements for the BT equivalents. I connected these up in exactly the same way [ethernet over Devolo Magic 2 Powerline] and in the same physical positions as the BT ones they were replacing. Everything worked fine except for my BT Box Pro. On every channel after a few seconds the screen would freeze then say there was an error IPC6023.

This was solved by moving the EE Wifi disc physically further away from the BT Box Pro than the BT disc had been.

[RogerSt]

After posting yesterday the IPC6023 error returned on the BT Box Pro after bweeks without problems. Powering off the EE Wifi Disc and the IPC6023 error disappeared. I then moved the EE Wifi Disc much further away from the BT Box Pro but still plugged into the ethernet and the IPC6023 error reoccured. I then removed the ethernet connection from the EE Wifi Disc [ethernet via Devolo Magic 2 Powerline] and the IPC6023 error went away.

The only thing I can conclude is the BT Box Pro has problems with the EE Wifi Disc which it never had with the BT Wifi Disc.

I wonder is the EE Box Pro an upgrade of the BT Box Pro or just badge engineering?

[Keith_Beddoe]

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/TV/EE-Broadband-and-BT-Box-Pro-Error-IPC6023/td-p/1372342

[Midnight_Voice]

@RogerSt 

As far as I know, it’s just a paint job.

I’d rephrase your question to ask ‘I wonder is the EE Hub truly equivalent to the BT Hub, and the EE WiFi disc truly equivalent to the  BT WiFi Disc?’

I’m not entirely clear how your setup is wired though.
Is it that the Pro box is working over WiFi to the Disc, which is then connected over PLAs to the Hub?
And when you turn off the Disc, the Pro box connects to the Hub instead, and that works OK?

That would make me suspect that the (new and untried) EE Disc is dropping multicast, rather than anything affecting the Pro box, whatever its paint job is.

But I think you will need the nursemaids at BT/EE to check this out, maybe suggest configuration changes, to get this working properly.

[RogerSt]

Thank you for your reply.

To answer your first question my understanding is that the EE hub and EE Wifi Disc use the Wifi6 standard while the BT hub uses Wifi5. Again my understanding is that Wifi6 is faster with greater capacity probably emitting a more powerful signal.

In terms of my connection the broadband comes into my office on the first floor where the hub is situated. From the hub an ethernet network is established which goes via the house electrical wiring [Devolo Magic 2 - Powerline] to the lounge downstairs. In the lounge my smart TV, the BT Box Pro and the EE hub are connected via another Devolo adaptor to the ethernet on the electrical wiring. Using this setup my BT Hub. BT Box Pro and BT Wifi Disc ran with out any problems for a couple of years. We only use Wifi in the lounge for our mobile phones and laptops. As I said previously, disconnecting the EE Wifi Disc from the ethernet, which apparently is not required for it to work, seems to solve the problem as does powering the EE Wifi Disc off.

There seems to be some interference of some form from Wifi6 which the BT Box Pro cannot cope with. The Smart TV, independent of the BT Box Pro,  using the ethernet over the electrical  wiring can access the internet and stream TV from it's apps fine. 

[Midnight_Voice]

@RogerSt 

Sorry, I’m still not entirely clear 😢

I assume when you say ‘in the lounge…WiFi hub’, you mean the Disc? (Except it’s not a disc, I think it’s a mesh repeater, but I think we both know what we are talking about here).

But have you got the smart TV, Pro box and EE repeater all connected by Ethernet to the Devolo? That’s what I’m assuming from what you say.

In which case, the EE repeater shouldn’t be affecting the Pro box at all, at least not by WiFi, and nor should the EE Smart Hub.

And it’s only your mobile phones and laptops that need to connect directly by WiFi with the EE Smart Hub when the EE repeater is switched off or disconnected.

And as regards WiFi 6, the EE Smart Hub can communicate with the EE repeater over this, but for everything else it drops to WiFi 5 or lower. But as above, WiFi is out of the equation for anything we are talking about here.

Are you sure you have the Pro box configured for Ethernet, not just plugged into it and it’s actually on WiFi instead? That might explain a few things.

Other than that, I come back to the EE repeater ‘eating’ all the multicast packets when it’s on, and depriving the Pro box of them. (If that makes any sense, that is). And this doesn’t affect anything else, as only the Pro box relies on multicast.

Looks like you can at least work around it for now, though, until the experts at EE/BT can start their sleuthing.

[RogerSt]

Sorry for the confusion I did mean EE disc not hub. To clarify the BT Box Pro, EE disc and the Smart TV are all connected to an ethernet network on the EE hub upstairs. This ethernet network is carried on the electrical wiring in the house using Devolo Magic 2 powerline kit. The settings for the BT Box Pro confirms it has a wired connection to the hub with it’s own IP address.

This network arrangement worked fine for a couple of years using a BT hub and BT disc.

When the EE hub and EE disc replaced the BT equivalents the BT Box Pro started giving IPC6023 errors.

Initially when this happened I rang 150 and after me being very insistent they sent an engineer to my house. Very nice chap but he was not a BT or EE employee, his company does work for all internet streaming companies. For BT/EE he relies on error update briefing notes which are sent out on a regular basis. He said he had not received any information on IPC6023 errors or why he had to come to my house. While at my house he electronically accessed the BT line records for my connection and found it listed that the BT Box Pro was giving IPC6023 errors. His conclusion was that there was something wrong with BT Pro Box in conjunction with the EE disc. He said he was reporting the problem back to BT/EE and he was sure someone would be getting back to me.

Subsequent to his visit I tried turning off the EE disc and also running the EE disc without the ethernet connection and found the BT Box Pro error IPC6023 went away in both cases.

After you reference to mesh working I looked it up, I was given no information by EE by the way, and the general consensus was all systems of this type worked best when the disc was ethernet connected to the hub.

I started this posting hoping someone from BT/EE would pick up the problem as no one has got back to me. I am sure someone at Martlesham [Yes I worked for BT for 33 years and started when Strowger was king] could work out very quickly what the problem was. I just hope they do not already know about this type of problem and are just keeping quiet.

[RogerSt]

SOLVED For me anyway. After some help from EE Guides Emma and Martin we have found – If your BT TV Pro Box uses an ethernet connection on the EE Smart Hub you need to pair any EE Wifi discs using the ethernet cable pairing method.

Any EE Wifi discs paired to the EE Smart Hub using the wifi method and subsequently connected to the EE Smart Hub by ethernet causes error IPC6023 on the ethernet connected BT Box Pro.

[Les-Gibson]

I suspect you would get the same result if you were to leave the wi-fi discs powered up and power down the powerline converters for (say) 30 secs.

[RogerSt]

Maybe but I didn't think to try that. I did plug in my Wifi paired disc directly into the hub and that managed to produce IPC6023 on the BT Box Pro which was on the  Powerline ethernet lan.