Bt hub red flashing light and won't reset

[Jent]

Last year I installed a home network via my home hub 5 as the hub needed moving to a less central part of the house with poor signal. In the same room I have an old analogue TV which used to work digitally with a BT youview box via an ethernet cable into a booster plug. Today for the first time I tried to get connection into the TV box, initially with the booster plus ethernet cable and then when that didn't work directly with a long ethernet cable going from.tv box to back of home hub 5. Neither worked, the box tried hard but failed to connect! But I also now have my home hub 5 on a permanent red flash even tho my connected network box isn't showing an error.  Help! I've tried button and factory resets and neither work. I'd settle just to get broadband back for mobiles.and our other (smart) TV, but if anyone can help with the TV box too I'd be overjoyed!

Thanks 

[countrypaul]

Home hub 5 flashing red means it is not connecting to Broadband - so it is not surprising the other devices will not work as you want.

Check the wiring bewteen you HH and master socket, try using the test socket of the master socket if the faceplate socket gives no joy. Do you know what sort of faceplate it is?

Do  you have a landline service on the same line as your broadband - if so try a quiet line test and report the results here.

[Jent]

Thank you for replying. The connection and network were functioning fine until I tried connecting the TV box both physically through a long cable and through a booster plug. I seem to somehow have managed to confuse the hub by asking it to connect to the TV box as well as the network and it now can't find its way back to connecting just with the network or indeed receiving broadband at all. 

I'll try your solutions and I'll also try a network reset to see if anything works. But I'm confused as the only thing that's changed from this morning is me plugging in then unplugging another ethernet cable and various failed attempts at connecting the tv box to the new network.  So I don't understand why it won't just return to how it was working before the failed attempts 

Any ideas?

[Keith_Beddoe]

You may have created an Ethernet loopback by accident, this will lock up the hub.

Unplug all the Ethernet connections to the home hub, at the home hub end, then restart the home hub and see if the connection comes back, and you can connect to the Internet on a wireless device.

[Jent]

I've unplugged everything on the home.hub apart from power and after a hopeful blue period it sadly goes back to red flashing 

[Jent]

I've also rung BT tech who say that - big coincidence I feel- there's a problem with the external broadband and they're sending out an engineer but not til Monday. I now wish I hadn't started tinkering with stuff I don't really understand tho it would be a joy to have a working TV in our front room!

[Keith_Beddoe]

You could try a factory reset of the home hub, as that will reset the user config file, a corrupted one can cause a failure.

If that fails to fix the problem, then you need to check the Rj11 connection between the home hub and the master socket or microfilter, as something may have come disconnected.

Use the test socket on the master socket, just in case there is an issue with front section.

[Jent · Accepted solution]

Thank you for all your help. Unbelievably it was simply a cable that had slipped out of the back- a very poor connection. Just assumed it was something more complex.

I've now wired the TV box to the hub as the booster plug attached via cable to the box no longer seems to work. Unless anyone has any ideas about solutions to that I've resigned myself to living with the cable trailing across my room. At least I now have working broadband and tv box after hours of head scratching 

Thanks again and glad I know where to come for future problems... but will always check all wires first!

[Keith_Beddoe]

RJ11 and Ethernet cables must be secured by a locking clip at both ends, otherwise they will not make a good connection. It should not be possible to remove a plug without releasing the locking clip. If forced, then the clip will break.

Cables with broken locking clips should be replaced, they are not expensive, and will save any future problems.

[rbz5416]

What exactly (make/model) is the "booster plug"? Is it one of a pair of powerline ethernet adapters or just a WiFi extender?