Flashing Power and Solid Amber Signal light

[Mark_B]

I've followed several of these threads to try and get my SS working but I've not been able to get anything other than a Flashing  power light and a solid amber Signal light.  I've registered, de-registered, waited 24hrs between registering and powering the device, etc, etc, but the result is always the same.  I have received text messages from Vodafone saying that it should now work, but nothing.

This is not the only device on my home network that provides a PPTP service on port 1723 .  I've currently disabled all other port forwarding entries and I've added port tiggering as follows so there should not be a problem at the moment.  Once it is working I will need to distinguish between the Vodafone sourced Port 1723 requests so I can distinguish them from the other service.  Can you tell me which source address range it will come from and I can distinguish the two.

I have a static Internet IP address of 92.27.83.75.

Port Triggering Portmap Table

# Enable Service Name Service Type Inbound Connection Service User     1   Port 123 UDP:123 TCP/UDP:123-123 Any     2   Port 8 TCP:8 TCP/UDP:8-8 Any     3   Port 50 TCP:50 TCP/UDP:50-50 Any     4   Port 500 UDP:500 TCP/UDP:500-500 Any     5   Port 4500 UDP:4500 TCP/UDP:4500-4500 Any     6   1723 TCP:1723 TCP:1723-1723 Any

Unit Serial No: 40124247152

Postcode: NP18 1PR

Unit Family Name: Alcatel - Lucent 9361 Home Cell p3.0

Tracing route to cluster4.vap.vodafone.co.uk [212.183.133.177] over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     *        *        *     Request timed out.

  2    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.0.0.2

  3    33 ms    31 ms    32 ms  host-62-24-255-32.as13285.net [62.24.255.32]

  4    39 ms    67 ms    39 ms  host-78-151-225-49.static.as13285.net [78.151.225.49]

  5    40 ms    40 ms    97 ms  host-78-151-225-48.static.as13285.net [78.151.225.48]

  6    40 ms    40 ms    39 ms  xe-11-3-0-rt002.bir.as13285.net [62.24.240.137]

  7    47 ms    47 ms    65 ms  xe-10-1-0-rt001.bre.as13285.net [62.24.240.27]

  8    57 ms    57 ms    57 ms  xe-11-2-0-rt001.the.as13285.net [62.24.240.13]

  9    59 ms    58 ms    58 ms  host-78-144-1-61.as13285.net [78.144.1.61]

 10    58 ms    57 ms    58 ms  host-78-144-0-195.as13285.net [78.144.0.195]

 11    60 ms    61 ms    62 ms  LNDGW2.arcor-ip.net [195.66.224.124]

 12    59 ms    59 ms    59 ms  85.205.116.2

 13     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 16     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 17     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 18     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 19     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 20     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 21     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 22     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 23     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 24     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 25     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 26     *        *        *     Request timed out.

Any help much appreciated.

Mark

[allegoricus]

Hi Mark,

Rather than worrying about ports (which isn't a concern for many people anyway), it's more straightforward to place the Sure Signal into the DMZ if your router supports this.

Although this places the Sure Signal on the outboard side of the firewall, protection of the unit isn't a concern as it doesn't communicate with other devices on your own network.

HTH,

Peter

[Retired-Andy]

Hi Mark_B,

Apart from the initial timeout on hop 1, everything else looks ok on your traceroute. I’ve checked our systems and can see that your Sure Signal has yet to connect to our servers, which version do you have?. Are you able to bypass your home network and plug the Sure Signal directly into the router to see if it makes a connection that way? Alternatively, are you able to try the Sure Signal at a different location?

Have you tired allegoricus’ suggestion? Does this make a difference?

Let us know how you go on.

Thanks

Andrew

[Mark_B]

Thank you both for the replys.

The SS is a brand new V3 unit and is connected directly to the ADSL Router (it's a NetGear DGND3700v2) so it is bypassing my home network.  The tracert I provided to you was from a server on the other side of the home network, I've re-run the tracert from a client device directly on the ADSL Router and it does not have the initial hop 1 timeout.

There's no specific DMZ configuration on the ADSL Router so I've included an explicit Firewall entry to allow anything to the SS IP address, which I can see has been allocated by the Router's DHCP service.  UPnP is enabled and I've removed the port triggering entries but the UPnP port table map is empty of anything from the SS (there are other entries from other devices from time to time).

I cannot ping the SS, is this normal?

Strange that the SS has contacted your servers.  Can you tell me how to do a full reset on the SS.

What error code is represented by the flashing power and solid amber service light?

Mark.

[allegoricus]

Hi Mark,

If you can't ping the Sure Signal from a computer on your own network that sounds like it hasn't been assigned an IP address by your DHCP server (which will be running on the Netgear router unless your network is arranged in a different manner). You should be able to verify this by logging in to your router and viewing the list of connected devices. If you find that an address has been assigned to the Sure Signal, it's better to make this into a permanent assignment, if only for your own benefit when trouble-shooting.

Provided the Sure Signal has been assigned an IP address, and isn't prevented from connecting with the Internet by your firewall, it should connect with Vodafone's backend system. It first needs to establish a VPN connection and then, I understand, will download its configuration. After this has completed successfully, it should become live. All this can take a while - up to 24 hours - which often leads people to assume in the interim that changes they have made to their setups haven't worked.

After making other changes, it's always worth doing a factorry reset on the Sure Signal, as follows: 

• Hold in the reset button until all the light go solid
• Pull the power lead out with the reset button still pushed in
• Continue to hold down the reset button and reconnect the power lead
• Wait for all of the lights to come on the release the reset button

The VSS will now try to contact the network and download its profile.

HTH,

Peter

[Mark_B]

Peter,

I've given the SS a fixed address allocation and the NetGear is showing the allocation of the fixed address following a power cycle of the SS but still the flashing power and solid amber signal light return.

I cannot ping the SS on the fixed address allocation so I've attempted a factory reset.  I cannot get step 1 to work.  I've held the reset button down for over 3 minutes but the lights do not go solid, the SS does nothing other than flashing power and solid amber signal light all the time I hold the reset button.  I've not been able to get all the lights to go solid.

How long should I have to hold the reset button?  Do you think the unit is faulty?

Mark.

[allegoricus]

Mark,

The instructions state that you should hold down the reset button until the lights stop flashing, but I haven't found this to be necessary - several secconds has been sufficient when I've done it. I think it's stated that way to discourage momentary clicking.

It should be OK if you hold the reset button down while disconnecting the power (a third hand can be useful) for a few seconds, reconnect the power, take a few deep breaths and release.

Peter

[Mark_B]

Peter,

Done that and several other combinations but there's no change in any of the lights during the procedure.  The only other light sequence I can get is a Flashing Power light and Solid Amber Users light when the Ethernet cable is disconnected.  Once it is connected it returns to the same Flashing Power and Solid Amber Service light.

I notice the instructions say that a Solid Amber Service light means there is interference from a WiFi source (although it does not say whether this is secondary to the flashing power light or not).  I've disabled all my Wireless Access Points but I still get the same light sequence.

Any other ideas, or is it time to return it?

Mark.

[Mark_B]

OK, we may be starting to get somewhere with this.  I've just pulled my routers logs and I have the following:

[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 21:01:51
[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 21:01:17
[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 21:00:45
[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 21:00:13
[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 20:59:41
[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 20:59:10
[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 20:58:38
[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 20:58:04
[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 20:57:32
[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 20:56:57
[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 20:56:24
[DHCP IP: (10.0.0.30)] to MAC address 0C:4C:39:09:FD:5F Wednesday, January 02,2013 20:55:52

This seems to be the VSS not accepting the DHCP allocation and is constanly requesting it every 30 seconds.

I've then moved the VSS to a Linux DHCP server on my home network and now I have a Solid Power light and a White flashing Internet light, so it has accepted the DHCP response from dhcpd.  I not expecting this to work due to the firewall BUT it does show that there is some DHCP issue here.

I'll do some more investigating to see if I can get some more information but if you've seen this before then let me know.

Mark.

[allegoricus]

Hi Mark,

By way of information, my own Sure Signal (a v2 model) is only about a metre away from the WiFi source and interference has never been an issue.

Anyway, you seem to have demonstrated that your own unit will acquire an address via DHCP, but that this hasn't been happening when your router has been the duty DHCP server.

Dumb question: is the address scope full? Or will removing the existing address assignment from the list help by allowing an entirely new request?

I have the feeling tthat something obvious is eluding us. 😉

Peter