Power on, Internet light flashing slowly

[b81499]

Hi,

I've had my Sure Signal for a few months - worked fine to start with but now power light is on and Internet light is flashing. I've phone Tech Support a few times but I don't get mobile signal at home (hence the need for VSS!) and I've got fed up of the strange looks I get standing outside my house in the rain trying to get this sorted, only for the call to drop before I get anywhere.

So Sky Broadband router. Worked fine, then cut in and out a few times before completely failing. I've done all the troubleshooting and done a hard reset. Resync done at your end already. Below is the information you're hopefully about to ask for:

Download speed: 7.15Mbps

Upload speed: 0.84Mbps

Ping: 45ms

IP: 94.12.213.105

IPv6: ::ffff:5e0c:d569 (if required)

Serial no: 40131552230

Traceroute results:

Traceroute has started…

traceroute to 212.183.133.177 (212.183.133.177), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets

 1  skyrouter.home (192.168.0.1)  66.078 ms  1.443 ms  1.893 ms

 2  * * *

 3  ip-84-38-37-30.easynet.co.uk (84.38.37.30)  34.158 ms  35.593 ms  31.927 ms

 4  027809a9.bb.sky.com (2.120.9.169)  30.751 ms  34.547 ms  32.519 ms

 5  195.50.122.113 (195.50.122.113)  29.896 ms  32.620 ms  31.803 ms

 6  195.50.122.66 (195.50.122.66)  44.753 ms  49.784 ms  48.075 ms

 7  85.205.116.14 (85.205.116.14)  44.639 ms  43.855 ms  45.409 ms

 8  * * *

 9  * * *

10  * * *

11  * * *

12  * * *

13  * * *

14  * * *

15  * * *

16  * * *

17  * * *

18  * * *

19  * * *

20  * * *

And so on to 64 ***

Please help me!!

[Retired-Dave]

Hi b81499,

Thanks for posting those details. They all look fine. 

I've given the Sure Signal a resync, so can you reset the box for me to pick that up?

• Locate the button on the base of the box next to the Ethernet ports.
• Press and hold the button for approximately 30 seconds.
• Once the lights come back on, release the button.
• The Sure Signal will come online in around 1 hour.

If that fails, there are a few other things to check. You may have covered these in the general troubleshooting, but I want to make sure we don't miss any.

 - What is the specific model of the router?

 - Ensure the following ports on the router are open for forwarding - 8, 50, 123, 500, 1723, 4500.

 - Check the router's Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) is set to 1500. If it won't go that high, pick the highest available.

 - Check the Ethernet port lights on the Sure Signal. Are they lit, flashing or off?

Dave

[b81499]

Dave,

Thanks for response - I've reset via pressing button on bottom of VSS for 30 secs until the white lights go out - no change.

Taken me a while but below are responses:

Router model: Sky router, no model name but made by Sagemcom and serial number is NP1205401043178

Following ports: To do this I logged into the router, went to Security > Firewall Rules > Inbound Services > Add and looked at the Services drop down list. I could see that I had VPN IPSEC(UDP:500) and VPN PPTP(TCP:1723). So next I went Security > Services > Add custom service and added port forwarding for 8, 50, 123, 4500. I then returned to Security > Firewall Services > Inbound Services > Add and then added the two existing (500 & 1723) and 4 custom services (8, 50, 123, 4500), with action = Always Allow, WAN Users = Any and Log = Never. To get the IP address I went to (on Macbook Pro) Applications > Utilities > Network Utility > Selected Wi-Fi from network interface and found the internal IP address of 192:168:0:2 which I then added to each of the Inbound Services under 'Send to LAN Server'. The result is the following under the Inbound Service table in Firewal Rules:

Inbound Services  Default

# Enable Service Name Action LAN Server IP address WAN Users Log	1	VSS2	ALLOW always	192.168.0.2 (50:50)	0.0.0.0 (1:65535)	Never
2	VSS4	ALLOW always	192.168.0.2 (4500:4500)	0.0.0.0 (1:65535)	Never
3	VPN PPTP	ALLOW always	192.168.0.2 (1723)	0.0.0.0 (1:65535)	Never
4	VSS1	ALLOW always	192.168.0.2 (8:8)	0.0.0.0 (1:65535)	Never
5	VSS3	ALLOW always	192.168.0.2 (123:123)	0.0.0.0 (1:65535)	Never
6	VPN IPSEC	ALLOW always	192.168.0.2 (500)	0.0.0.0 (1:65535)	Never
Yes	Any	BLOCK always	Any	Any	Never

For the MTU I went to Advanced in the router settings. The Router mode was set to auto so I changed this to ADSL Only and the MTU came up as 1500. I then changed Router mode back to Auto.

Finally, the ethernet port lights are good on the VSS, green constant, yellow flickering.

After all this (an hour to work out how to do it!!!!)....back to square one. Red light on with Internet light slowly flashing. Grrrrr!

Please help some more....

[b81499]

Dave,

Note that the table format hasn't come out quite right (titles all messed up) but hopefully you get the gist.

Ta.

[Retired-Andy]

Hi b81499,

The lights you’re seeing show that the Sure Signal is being configured, which can take up to six hours.

Any interruptions to the process will force it to start from scratch again.

Everything looks as though it’s set up correctly.

I’ve checked your serial number and can see it’s not connected to our servers since 31 July.

Do you have the chance to try your Sure Signal on a different internet connection, that of a family member or neighbour?

If it works there, it indicates there’s something in your current set up that may be preventing it from keeping an open connection to our servers.

The next option, if possible, would be to try a different router.

Let me know how you go on.

Cheers,

Andrew

[b81499]

Hi,

I've tried different router - no change. I'll try a different connection tomorrow.

Regards.

[Sukhi]

Hi b81499

Let us know how you get on :).

Thanks

Sukhi

[b81499]

After going through the above diagnostics the solution originally ended up being to change to a new router, although I don't think we ever got to the bottom of the issue. Well after working for another couple of months on the new router my Sure Signal has stopped working again. I've tried to change back to the old router but no success. 

To be honest, I think I was patient and understanding in going through the above steps to solve the original problem but it seems to me that Vodafone has released a product that has issues that the support team (no disrespect) cannot solve. I do not have a third router to try and do not think I should need to go through the hassle of the above steps yet again.

Please can you advise if you've now got the bottom of the above problem without me having to go through all the above diagnostic steps - which didn't really solve the problem anyway? 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Retired-Andy]

Hi b81499,

Did you ever get to try your Sure Signal on a different connection?

If you did, did it work consistently for you?

I can see that it’s not connected to our servers since 18 October so, to make sure everything is as up-to-date as possible, I’ve just resynced it for you.

So that the resync completes, can you do a factory reset for me:-

• Find the button on the base of the unit next to the Ethernet ports
• Press and hold the button for approximately 30 seconds
• Once the lights come back on, release the button
• The Sure Signal will come online in around one hour

If this doesn’t work and due to the length of time that’s passed, can you provide the original information again please:-

Your speed test results from here.
Your ping test results from here.
Your external IP address from here.
The results of a traceroute.

VSS Traceroute command

On a PC:

Click on Start and select Run
Type CMD into the Run box and press enter/click ok
A black box will appear.
In this box type tracert 212.183.133.177 press Enter
Paste the output of this command into your reply.

Thanks,

Andrew

[b81499]

Andrew,

Here we go again!!!

Just reset the VSS. Can you provide the VSS traceroute instructions of Mac please?

Ta.