SureSignal V2 & BT Homehub5

[lexham]

Just set up a new BT Homehub5 and of course, the Suresignal isn't working.  Just have the single red power light and neither of the white status lights are illuminated.

With my previous router ASUS N66-RTU and BT Openreach Modem, the Suresignal was working fine earlier today.

I didn't have to set up port forwarding or any other tweaking with this setup - it just worked within a few minutes of getting a connection.

Actions taken so far:

• Reset the Suresignal (serial number 40114258128)
• Enabled port clamping on the Homehub5 (Advanced Settings --> Broadband --> VPN)

Update: Sunday am.

Removed HomeHub5 and replaced with Asus+Openreach modem.

Suresignal back and working within 30 mins.

The thread here seems to indicate that HH5 is compatible with VSS:

http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Vodafone-Sure-Signal/Sure-Signal-and-BT-Home-Hub/td-p/1519302

But I'm beginning to suspect otherwise. For something that's supposed to be simple (to the end user) as a plug and play solution, it's really not delivering.

If someone from Vodafone can comment and provide the settings that need to be enabled on HH5, that would be very helpful (and perhaps make a sticky).

I love the idea of the SureSignal, but it's a very flakey implementation as it makes the user jump through so many hoops.

Is the SS3 any better or simply a different footprint?

[Retired-Kay]

Hi lexham, 

From what we've seen from other users it's been plug and play. 

Let us know what happens after leaving it for 24 hours and we'll take it from there. 

Thanks, 

Kay

[lexham]

@Kay - when you say plug and play, did these people not have to do any config changes to the HH5?

If that's the case, I'll reset the hub and leave connected over the weekend.  

Thanks for the help so far and have a good weekend.

[Retired-Simon]

Hi lexham

With the HH5, I’ve not seen any cases where users have had to reconfig any router, port or firewall settings to get it working.

Thanks

Simon

[lexham]

Hello Simon,

That's the mystery (although Bcp's posting also suggests that this isn't isolated).  I'd thought it would be simple plug and play. With the Asus router / openreach modem setup the SS connects within a couple of minutes and works perfectly well.

With the homehub, the SS has been connected for at least 12 hours and it seems to be cycling between single red light and flashing phone/network lights.

Checked the firewall log on the HH5 and see quite a lot of blocks that look like SS traffic...

I've put the Suresignal in a DMZ on the homehub, but as of now, I'm all out of ideas.  

[Retired-James]

Hi lexham,

Thanks for the update.

For most combinations it is plug and play, but for some reason this isn’t the case for your setup.

Looking at the firewall log, it does look like something is blocking the Sure Signal.

I’m not sure if this is to do with it blocking fragmented data packets or a specific port.

If you’ve put the Sure Signal IP address in the DMZ then this should automatically create a passage for the firewall.

In some instances we have seen examples where this has not happened and this is where the port forwarding instructions come in to play.

As we aren’t trained in firewalls and network infrastructure, this is where it begins to get a little over our heads and BT would be the best people to speak to with your firewall logs.

The only options that I can see that could make a difference would be the Strict UDP Session Control and the Inbound Protocol options.

However, I wouldn’t recommend changing these without speaking with BT first.

James

[sidelongmjp]

I have recently started using a HomeHub5, and ever since my SS2 has failed to work. I get the classic solid red light as so often reported on this forum. I have followed all the advice I have found, so far to no avail. I now want to go through the Port Forwarding setup, but find the HH5 setup screen confusing, e.g. what 'Game or Application' do I select. I would be grateful if someone could point me towards a short tutorial on this subject.

Thank you

[Retired-Andy]

Hi sidelongmjp,

You can get help with setting up your router here.

Alternatively, you can speak with BT for their assistance.

The ports you’ll need to forward are:

Port Number

8          TCP      UDP

50         TCP      UDP

53         TCP      UDP

67                     UDP

68                     UDP

123                   UDP

500                   UDP

1723     TCP      UDP

4500                 UDP

33434 - 33445    UDP

Thanks,

Andy

[sidelongmjp]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for all the excellent info. It is exactly what I was hoping for. I have now set up the required Port Forwarding on my HomeHub5. I tested this by using PFPortChecker and setting my computer as the 'device'. All the ports then cam up as open. I then changed the device, on the HomeHub5 browser, to be the Sure Signal (by finding its MAC address in the list of devices), after which the PFPortChecker results became negative 'Your Port is NOT OPEN or not reachable'. I assume this is what should be expected. However the bottom line is that the SureSignal still shows no signs of working (red power light on continuous, no other lights after initial flashing period).

I am about to give up on this SureSignal. Is there anything else I could try?

[Ben_H]

Hi sidelongmjp,

Let me know your Sure Signal serial number, your speedtest results and IP address.

In order to check if the Sure Signal is able to communicate with our NTP server, a PathPing can be performed as a test. In order to do this, you'll need to open the command prompt in Windows as follows:

• For XP just click Start > Run and type cmd then hit enter
• For Vista/Windows 7, press Start and type cmd into the search bar
• Right click the result and click ‘Run As Administrator’

Once you're in the command prompt, type in PathPing 212.183.133.181. This will perform a trace route to the NTP server and will show you the route it took to get there. One of the columns will display packet loss, (if this occurs before hitting our server then you'll need to contact your ISP for further assistance).

Once we have all of the above, we'll see if we can spot anything amiss for you.

Cheers, Ben

[grolschuk]

The newer home hubs have an option called Port Clamping.

If you could take a look around the menus, as I can't remember where it is exactly... somewhere under a VPN header, and enable it.

A reboot of the router and then the sure signal may kick things into life