Old-style VSS box not being seen by 'phones

[met24]

Hi,

Over the last month or so devices that are registered on my old-style VSS box (serial number 21196904138) don't seem to have been seeing the box and are instead using the local Vodafone 2G signal. I've tried adding and removing the numbers without any apparent effect, and have deregistered and reregistered the box a couple of times as well -- both with my main number which is on a business account and also a separate PAYG number. Again, no luck. The factory reset trick hasn't had any effect either.

Lights 1, 2 and 4 are on, and I can see the NTP and IPsec-in-UDP traffic going between the box and the Vodafone network. Just to eliminate my ADSL line from the investigation, speedtest.net gives a ping of 24ms, download of 18.18Mbits/s and upload of 1.9Mbits/s. The box has worked beautifully in the past on the same line with the same modem, router, ISP etc.

I've very very occasionally seen light 3 flicker but not even with a registered 'phone right next to the box does the 'phone 'see' it.

The first time I tried to edit the numbers on the box it seemed that the box wasn't even registered, which was intriguing -- even though there was one phone (the one to which the box was supposedly registered) that did occasionally get a 3G signal. Trying to register the box at that point succeeded.

I'm wondering whether it needs a kick / purge / resync / whatever from the Vodafone side of things? If you need to deregister it from my account completely that's fine with me 🙂

Many thanks,

Martin

[Retired-Lee]

Hi there met24,

Thanks for your post.

Could you check the VSS serial number for me? I've copied and pasted it into our tool and it's showing as an invalid serial number.

Also, please take a look at our Sure Signal Troubleshooting thread. If this doesn’t resolve your query, please post your reply either below, or in the relevant thread, together with the details requested, including the following information.

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

Your Sure Signal serial number:

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.

This will help us get the quickest possible resolution for you.

Thanks

LeeH

[met24]

Hi Lee,

Oops, sorry, I transposed two of the digits -- it should be 21196904318.

Speed and ping results were in the original message. Traceroute from the firewall to which the VSS is attached as follows:

met@pegasus$ traceroute 212.183.133.177
traceroute to 212.183.133.177 (212.183.133.177), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 concorde.met24.net (81.187.239.182) 3.515 ms 4.043 ms 5.013 ms
2 d.gormless.thn.aa.net.uk (90.155.53.54) 22.054 ms 22.279 ms 23.083 ms
3 d.aimless.thn.aa.net.uk (90.155.53.44) 23.275 ms 23.900 ms 24.093 ms
4 195.50.95.65 (195.50.95.65) 25.382 ms 25.602 ms 25.978 ms
5 * ae-2-52.edge4.London1.Level3.net (4.69.139.106) 25.750 ms 26.118 ms
6 195.50.122.66 (195.50.122.66) 28.735 ms 25.046 ms 25.187 ms
7 85.205.116.6 (85.205.116.6) 35.254 ms 34.845 ms 35.257 ms
8 * * *

9 * * *

10 * * *

... and so on up to 30.

I gather from other threads that the UDP ports that traceroute uses are blocked beyond 85.205.116.6 and its friends. concorde.met24.net is the last step on my side of the ADSL/ISP connect, d.gormless.thn.aa.net.uk is the first step on the far side hence the higher latencies from that point on.

The VSS has its own public IP address of 81.187.236.98, assigned by DHCP. Packet captures on the firewall show the NTP and IPsec (ISAKMP and UDP-encapsulated ESP) traffic going back and forth, so I'm confident that the communications are being established successfully. It shows as active on the dashboard as well.

Many thanks,

MArtin

[Retired-Lee]

Hi met24,

No worries! I thought that might have been the case.

I've checked the VSS and can see it connected this morning at 02:52. Is this still an issue for you?

Cheers,

LeeH

[met24]

Hi Lee,

Most interesting. The 'owning' iPhone picks it up reliably -- by the time I look at them after coming into the flat they are on 3G with a good signal strength. A BlackBerry and Mifi that are also registered do the same. My iPad 3 however needs encouragement each time to switch over -- trying to connect to a different network then reselecting Vodafone usually does the trick, until it goes out of range of the VSS again. The Nokia E51 doesn't even manage that -- it resolutely stays on 2G and if you force it to 3G just about manages to spot the 3G base that's somewhere in town but it can't hold onto it.

So that's 3 devices that work and 2 devices that don't. I've tried removing and re-adding but without success. It's been sort-of-working for a few days now -- since the last time I deregistered and reregistered it, I think. It's better than it has been, at least some devices are seeing it!

Is a resync at your end worth trying?

It's not *critical* that the VSS works, I do at least have a usable EDGE signal inside and most of the devices have WiFi, but it definitely worked much better in the past and I can't see that I've changed anything!

Many thanks for your investigations so far!

All the best,

Martin

[rsthomas11]

Hi - I am having the same problem.  I have 3 phones registered and 1 is picking up the 3G signal fine but the other 2 are not picking it up at all or only occasionally.

Phone 1 - Blackberry - worked for approx. 2 years and for last few months occasionally connects on it own or will connect after I select a different network then go back to Vodafone 3G.  A Vodafone Business number.  I did have a new SIM approx. 2 months ago.

Phone 2 - HTC Wildfire - worked fine but now now won't pick up signal.  A Vodafone personal Contract number.

Phone 3 - iPhone 4 - works fine and picks signal up straight away.  A Vodafone personal Contract number.

Phone 3 had recently been upgraded to an iPhone 5 (& therefore a new SIM) and picks up the signal fine whereas the other 2 are still not working.

I have transferred ownership, deleted & re-added numbers etc. and still not working.  Please can you reset the box to see if this helps.

Sure Signal serial number is 21228578056 (original VSS)

Thanks.

[Retired-Dave]

Hi guys,

met24 - I've done a re-sync, so can you try a hard reset for me to ensure this is picked up?

• Hold down the reset button until all the lights show (about 30 seconds)
• Keeping the reset button held down, remove then re-insert the power lead.
• Once all lights display release the reset button.
• The Sure Signal will come online in around 1 hour.

--------------------------------------------

rsthomas11 - looking at your Sure Signal on our system, it looks like you only made changes just before you posted. With any changes, these can take a little time to take effect, so can you confirm if these have now started working?

If not, can you follow the same instructions to perform a factory reset and force the VSS to pick up the current information for me?

--------------------------------------------

Let us know if this helps for each of you.

Dave

[met24]

Hi Dave,

Many thanks for that -- it certainly worked for the iPad although the Nokia wasn't so sure -- it seemed to connect once then never again. I'm away from home for a couple of days so maybe everything will have sorted itself out when I get back. I'll let you know!

Thanks again,

Matin

[met24]

Hi Dave,

It looks to be happy now, looks like every registered device is picking it up. Many thanks!

All the best,

Martin

[met24]

This is very interesting.

Last night the iPhone (whose number is the 'owner' of the VSS) and the iPad both showed the 3G icon and I could see that they were using the VSS by running a packet dump as I used each device -- lots of nice UDP-wrapped ESP traffic to and from the VSS.

This morning, having moved neither device out of range of the VSS, both are back on 2G.

Both of those devices have SIMs on my own contract.

My company Blackberry, with a SIM on my employer's contract in it, will happily switch from 3G to 2G if I remove it from the list of devices, and if I add it back again as soon as I ask the Blackberry to use 3G only it will switch back. Again I can see from a packet dump that it's using the VSS.

The Nokia E51, with a PAYG SIM in it, refuses to acknowledge the existence of the VSS at all.

I've just tried putting the SIM from my company Blackberry into the Nokia. It comes up on full strength 3G. So we know that the Nokia's working okay.

Putting the PAYG SIM into the Blackberry brings it up on 2G happily -- it can't connect to BES but that's understandable, it will make and receive 'phone calls. If I force it onto 3G it won't register -- listing the available networks it doesn't show Vodafone at all.

So this problem appears to be specific to the SIM -- whether it's something confused on the SIM itself or something's got out of sync on the phone number / IMSI.

The other question is, given that the company SIM will happily stay on 3G, why do the iPhone and iPad SIMs drop back from 3G to 2G with no apparent reason?

Most intriguing!

Thanks for your help and apologies if this is giving you a headache!!