Sure Signal V3 not connecting

[Innominate]

I am sick of reading endless forum question about problems exactly similar to mine, going back to 2012 and beyond.  Very few of them seem to have produced a satisfactory answer.  My problem, like so many others, is that my VSS V3, once I had got it set up and registered, worked fine - for a week.  Since then I have nothing but alternating solid red light and slowly flashing orange light (the one next to the red light), or flashing red light and solid orange light.

Many of the forum problems I have read abouot have involved port forwarding, pings, jitters, and other jargon words that I don't understand at all.  All I want is for this damn thing to work once I have set it up.  I don't mind that it takes a bit of fiddling to set it up, and a long wait while it thinks about it, but after that why the hell doesn't it just keep on working?

Can anyone offer a solution that doesn';t involve me having to interpret a lot of jargon that I don't understand or take a lot of actions that I don't understand either?  We are not all familiar with all these fancy words and procedures - even those of us who are reasonably intelligent.

[Rahim]

@Innominate We're sorry to hear about your experience. 

Can you take a look at our Sure Signal Troubleshooting thread, and then post back your results if you’re not directed to an existing thread?

We'll be able to diagnose the issue once we've got your results. 

[Innominate]

I have looked at your troubleshooting guide for my particular set of circumstances and its language is almost impenetrable.  I have however got into the configuration page for my router - a new BT Smart Hub.  Your troubleshooting page suggests setting Port Forwarding (whatever that is).  I think I can see how this might be possible and when I get to the appropriate page of the Smart Hub Manager I can find the VSS and go to where I should be able to set up Port Forwarding but then I get stuck.  There are 4 boxes for each new Port Forwarding rule:  External Ports: Start, End and Internal Ports: Start, End.  Your guide merely gives single Port Numbers that have to be set.  So what do I do? Which boxes do I put the number in?

Your guide then gives "Destination IP addresses".  What are they for, and what do I do with them?

Finally, your guide says "Your router also needs to assign the Sure Signal with a DNS address via DHCP".  That's great, but what on earth does it mean?  It would be really helpful if you could find a way of giving your advice in plain English.

[Rahim]

@Innominate Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. 

We're unable to comment on the design lay out of your management system for your router. 

We'd reccomend contacting your ISP (internet service provider) for advice on where to input the port numbers which need to be open. 

Let us know how you get on. 

[Innominate]

Why should I have to contact my ISP (BT) to tell me how modify their hardware in a way I don't understand just on the offchance that it might make some hardware that is specific to Vodafone work properly?  The thought of trying to get anything sensible out of BT fills me with dread.  If this business of port forwarding is so very common as it seems to be from áll the forum comments then Vodafone should make it their business to understand how to do it at least for all the most popular routers.

In any case why should I have to make modifications to other hardware in order to make this work when it did work perfectly well with the very same router for the first week?   What can have changed?

Looking at the volume of forum problems very similar to mine I can only conclude that this is a very unstable piece of hardware and I have wasted my money.

[Sukhi]

@Innominate We're unable to provide support for third party devices, this is why we're asking you to contact your ISP for assistance with the router. 

I can see that we've gone through most of the troubleshooting steps with you, this would be the next step.

[Innominate]

I am not asking for support for third party hardware.  I am asking you to provide appropriate support for your own hardware.  I do not have any confidence in being able to get any useful answer out of BT.  

And you have not answered my question - why do I have to make any modifications at all to hardware that worked perfectly for a week?  If the BT router - the very latest and one of the best available according to the technical commentators - was able to communicate with the VSS at the outset all on its own I cannot see that modifying it now can make any difference even if I could understand how to do it.  

I am reading about all these very similar poroblems in the forum and coming to the conclusion that this VSS is a useless bit oif kit only fit for the waste bin.

[Sukhi]

@Innominate I can only reiterate what you've previously been told. For the Sure Signal to work these ports will need to be opened.