Sure Signal 3 with BT Home Hub 3 Problems

[bigcat49]

New to Vodafone. Live in a small village so Sure Signal seemed like a godsend. Reason I changed to Vodafone. No luck with SS3 connections. Opened ports as requested, IP is PPPOA, MTU field set to 1500. Download 6 MB, upload .36MB, iMac with latest O/S, so should work. I get a solid Red light and a 'slowly pulsating' white light next to it. Tried all manner of resets. No change. SS3 info. PN 3JR09113ABBA (V3 -EC - PLUG) S/N 40131013290. Dont know what else to do. Help !!!!!:smileysad:

[richardimiles]

Yes !!!! Finally after a lifetime of fiddling with the router settings / cable etc. it came to life !!!

I think it was messing around with the port forwarding settings that finally did it. This page may be of some help: http://www.tenvis.com/support_service-84.html . I still could not enter all of the IP address information listed within the vodafone troubleshooting guide, but managed to set up the 'ports' that needed forwarding - having created a new profile called "Vodafone SS" and entered the port numbers etc.It (finally) worked after that.

You can discover that your sure signal is actually connected to the hub and which device it is by looking at the home screen within the BT hub-manager with your Sure Signal unplugged and then refresh the home-hub screen once you've plugged it in (and waited a bit) and clicked 'refresh'. The new device that is listed is the Sure Signal - you can rename it 'Sure Signal' once you've identified it (as opposed to B4:C10:A12 or whatever). Link the Sure Signal box to your newly created Port-Forwarding profile.

Also I replaced the vodafone cable with another at the same time. This may have been part of the solution. I have some of those little widgets from BT that plug into the mains (and the router) with another little white box near the BT Youview box - which extend the broadband to the YouView box. Using the cable supplied by Vodafone I got little flashing lights from the ethernet connection on the Sure Signal box. Nonetheless when I tested the cable by using it to plumb the ethernet to the YouView box that connection stopped working - so nothwithstanding that I was getting little flashing lights from the Sure Signal box suggesting that data was getting to it it may not in fact have been getting data, it seems that the cable may have been knackered too. Having got the damned thing working I'm not now about to unplug it and test if that was the fault all along....

I agree though that this is terrible customer service. You simply shouldn't have to mess around with a product this long to get it to work. Can you imagine your mother having to go through this malarkey to get a signal in her little country cottage ? Of course not.... As other on this forum have said, most tech kit simply works with the BT Home Hub without this level of messing around. Virtually everything you buy these days is 'plug and play' and simply works. The only reason I persevered to get the Sure Signal working was because I don't really have a choice: I've moved to a house where there is no signal and I'm tied into Vodafone for some time to come. If I wasn't I'd have moved to EE who claim to have a little App that will make your 'phone run off your ordinary wireless internet...sounds much easier than all this faffing around.

So for those still struggling: yes, Sure Signal 3  does eventually work on an ordinary Home Hub 3. I can only suggest that you methodically work through every bit of the troubleshooting guide before eventually 'phoning vodafone to scream at them. They'll only make you go through it step by step otherwise. And yes, it seems it can be made to work (I feel like making that admission grudgingly after all the hassle). Once it is working you get a perfect 5 bars on your phone signal.......

[richardimiles]

Dear Vodafone, Further to your fatuous little automated message below please acknowledge this message in reply: get stuffed ! I have only bothered to put a reply on this forum to give hope to the thousands of lost souls out there that your ghastly over-priced product can be made to work, eventually, not because I want to earn a litlte gold star from you for contributing to your forum. My son is at primary school and he earns little reward stars for behaving well and quite frankly even he doesn't seem all that impressed by them. I am an adult and have no need of a little pat on the back from you. RM (Disgruntled Customer No 4758002) Congratulations! You have a new rank in Vodafone eForum From: Administrator Administrator Sent: ‎24-09-2013 03:34 PM Add to Friends Ignore Congratulations, richardimiles! As the result of your contributions to the community, you have earned a new rank. Your new rank is First Poster. We appreciate your efforts and hope you will continue to be an active member of the community. Thanks! The Vodafone eForum Team

[grolschuk]

So you contribute to the community to let the general public know that things work and what you went though to get there...

And then are miffed that the system saw you contribute and said thanks.

No pleasing some people eh.

Am glad the SS is working though, and the port forwarding is the way to go.

[Katrinafox]

I'd feel the same about the patronising comment - VF should have sorted this not you. Mine  suresignal is STILL not working and we're moving offices because of not being able to get it to work. Vodafone customer service sucks. But I feel all mobile providers are the same....

[richardimiles]

Help !

My sure signal worked for a few days (see earlier message). It then went (literally) on the blink for a couple of days then came back on for a day and has now been off for 5 days. I have not touched it in the meantime so I assumed that this "on-off" business was down to some "routine maintenance" at Vodafone end....but obviously not...

In fact, even when it has been "on" it has provided a poor signal, but I figured this might be down to the distance from the router and thought I'd try getting a longer ethernet cable and moving it away from the hub before I complained about that problem...

I have re-set my router (Home Hub 3) for good measure and re-traced the steps I took to get the little blighter working in the first place... I've done all of the port-settings etc. so far to no avail. It has blinked its way through just about every sequence of lights on your troubleshooting list, plust its favourite (not on your list) or constant power + blinking internet light.

What should I do now ? It worked, it doesn't work. Nothing has been touched in the interim.

Serial Number 40132733748

[tattyyaya]

Thank you for your posts - I have found them useful (in that I am not alone) and amusing.  

My VSS3 has been causing me the same problems.  It will not connect evern after port forwarding and resetting and resyncing and every other bloody thing under the sun!  

Numerous calls later and it still doesn't work for me.  They have acknowledged there is a problem with BT Home Hub and Sure Signal on the eForum, but this was posted in May - bit worrying that there's no resolution or any more info about it now it is October, and there's never been any mention of this on the phone...

We got our VSS3 in July, it worked fine for a bit, then stopped (it had been de-registered...how I don't know), worked again after that and then conked out last week.  Along with the Vodafone system switch my Sure Signal had disappeared off my account so was not able to add new users.  With this in mind, and the fact it only conked out last week and worked intermittantly before this, my problem was going to be resolved by reactivation and a reset (Yup apparently it had been de-registered in July AGAIN!), this hasn't worked I even left it for 48 hours just to make sure.  Okay, so port forwarding next with restarts on Sure Signal, Router - definiately will work this time....nope.  Re-syncing your phone with the Sure Signal with a reset on Sure Signal and Mobile AND Router, just in case (couldn't see how this would work when it wasn't connecting with internet) - surprise - didn't work.

Still the red light leers at me and the internet light winks tauntingly at me before stopping altogether and starting up again.

I feel the techies follow a list of things to do without actually having the full knowledge of how the thing works.  They also do not listen very attentively either to all the things you have done and re-done and re-done again.  I also feel my Sure Signal is broken, but they won't have a bar of that, it's something else, let's try....

*rolls eyes and sighs*