Router dropping connection / Apple Airplay / Loss of speed

[Andrew1000]

Hello.  I've recently moved over to Vodafone Broadband and in general it's going ok.  

One issue however is that Airplay (used for communication with all my Apple devices) no longer works on the network.  My Amp (which is the Airplay end-point is no longer detectable by any of my devices.  For reference I've turned off the amp & made sure that it's otherwise fully connected to the network. Everything looks fine, but Airplay no longer works.

Please help.  Is there something that needs updating / changing on the router ?

[user2202]

Yes the stats do and thats the problem

[Andrew1000]

Any analysis into the stats Paul ?

• Is memory or CPU generally the one to cause issues ?
• At what level do you start to get concerned.?

I can't help but feel there should be a sticky regarding some of the simple things people can do to help themselves.  Although I'm sure some issues are far greater than this, if it helps you and I, it must surely help some others too.

[paulcormack]

Not sure cause I do not see it now, but I would not be unsuprised for one or two of the modules to increase the CPU/Mem utilisation until the kernel fell out from under the device - also if mem and cpu are thrashing about then you are not going to get the throughput that you would expect from other services.  So I am not surprised at all.

Another stat to pay attention to is SNR - you will notice likely as your devices stays up longer the SNR on the downstream will creep downwards - People do then report disconnects when it reaches "a threshold" this changes from individual to individual.   But on a reconnect the speed may be lower in order to compensate.

This is what I have noticed anyway and so far with PNP and the other things disabled my CPU and mem seems pretty consistent - When it was thrashing I remember my CPU being > 90%.  

[Andrew1000]

Although way better than anything I've seen before the Router eventually failed after just under 12 days uptime.

There is a tiny chance that Vodafone instigated this as my speed has increased slightly from 52 to 55.  However I find this unlikely as (despite the promise of a callback 9 days ago) I've heard nothing from them and I'm sure they'd have been in contact before / after a restart.  Also I had 62 initially, before the router rebooted itself constantly.

[paulcormack]

@Andrew1000 this sounds much more likely to be DLM particularly if it was a convenient time it rebooted... early in the morning.  If there is stability at a reduced speed DLM should in theory increase the speed for you and this likely involves a disconnect/reconnect from the router.

However it seems a pretty small increase for DLM to be increasing it...  I would have expected it closer to what you were initially.  

I found this to be interesting - although not for Vodafone I would assume FTTC is FTTC the world over.

https://community.plus.net/t5/Library/FTTC-DLM-What-it-is-How-it-works/ba-p/1322799

[Andrew1000]

Indeed an interesting article.  I shall have to work out exactly when it dropped the PPP connection and see if it fit the "Any changes made by DLM are executed between 3am-5am". 

I also note that "Unfortunately we are not able to do remote resets on FTTC circuits at present, so this isn’t something that can be requested nor can we send engineers out solely to complete a DLM Reset."

So unless DLM does it's job.....  Then Vodafone's issues with sending out appalling Router BIOS's that are a year old and totally unfit for purpose has cost me a lot of bandwidth (that I'm paying for) which they will never get back.

EDIT  --  The PPP connection was dropped at approx 13:30 (almost 4 days ago).  So it seems that DLM is not the issue.  Just another router "blip", even though my resource utilisation figures appear to steady all the time (around 10 / 32).

[Andrew1000]

Small Update for anyone that has followed this thread.  It certainly seems the disabling of uPnP has had a long-term benificial effect on my service.  I've had a couple of shorter intervals but currently I have a solid connection for over 11 days.  Not only this, but my connection speed has increased from lows of 52 to almost 60, this puts me close to the original connection speed before all the router issues degraded it.

[Andrew1000]

Seems I get to 14 days now and it restarts the connection again.  It's not ideal, but 14 days is livable.  Think I just have to thank my lucky stars it's not a lot worse.  Cheers Paul for the suggestions along the way.

Btw - I HATE this "new" forum layout.  Is there a way to "turn it off" ?

[paulcormack]

Andrew - maybe you have been hit by the downgrade.   Apparantly they are "downgrading"  - would check your version numbers.  That is maybe why you have had this reconnect.  Just a thought.

http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Broadband-Home-Phone/Firmware-downgrade/td-p/2558263

[Alex]

@Andrew1000 Thanks for keeping us updated. :smileytongue:

There's no way to 'turn off' the new layout, however we're open to feedback. :smileyhappy: