Sure Signal Problem

[DanCull]

two or three days ago my sure signal stopped working - over the past couple of days I have made numerous attempts to reset, reactivate, reconfigure etc my sure signal set up but with no sucess

as I type, there is currently no lights on at all but for the majority of the last 24 hours both the power light and the @ light have been permanently on - most recently i have disconnected the sure signal box, deactivated it, carried out a hard reset, reset mt bt home hub 2 and comletey reconfigured my home network to original settings, reregistered the sure signal box, connected to homehub and waited.

I am pulling my hair out now as I get vitually no signal in my home and so the 4 vodafone handsets we have in the family are unusable unless we go outside - until now, it has been working fine for months!!

[Sukhi]

Hi

Can you take a look at our Sure Signal Troubleshooting thread, and then post back your results?

Thanks

Sukhi

eForum Team

[DanCull]

Troubleshooting steps:

Confirm that your Broadband connection meets our minimum requirements.

I have been running Sure Signal for atleast a couple of years now without any problem so I dont think there is any problem with my broadband connection meeting minimum requirements.

Check for planned maintanence

I cannot see that there is any planned maintenance.

Reset your Sure Signal:

Done this several times.

Configure your Router Firewall

I cannot find any firewall settings on my BT HomeHub 2

I have configured the portforwarding as per portforward.com 

Perform a Pathping to our Server

How do I do this on a Mac?

Just gone through the above again and after resetting the portforwarding I did a hard reset of the sure signal box, following which it went through the sequence of solid power light with flashing @ light for a period which then went solid, the tick light then started to flash (which hasnt done so for a while) but then failed to go solid - when the tick light stop flashing all lights went off and they are now all off!

[Retired-Lee]

Hi there DanCull,

Please can I take the VSS serial number?

To perform a trace route on a Mac please follow the below steps:

• Open Terminal (Applications, Utilities)
• Type 'traceroute 212.183.133.177'
• Enter

Thanks,

LeeH

[DanCull]

Hi Lee,

The VSS serial number is 21231531274

The results of traceroute are:

traceroute to 212.183.133.177 (212.183.133.177), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 bthomehub.home (192.168.1.254) 82.036 ms 89.753 ms 97.494 ms
2 217.32.147.99 (217.32.147.99) 18.620 ms 19.486 ms 18.056 ms
3 217.32.147.126 (217.32.147.126) 432.666 ms 530.976 ms 619.518 ms
4 212.140.206.82 (212.140.206.82) 396.958 ms * 476.849 ms
5 217.41.169.195 (217.41.169.195) 667.863 ms 568.801 ms 613.815 ms
6 217.41.169.109 (217.41.169.109) 615.779 ms 608.970 ms 446.082 ms
7 109.159.251.245 (109.159.251.245) 783.204 ms
109.159.251.229 (109.159.251.229) 612.128 ms
109.159.251.231 (109.159.251.231) 300.079 ms
8 * core1-te-0-3-0-3.ilford.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.251.163) 438.147 ms
core1-te-0-13-0-12.ilford.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.251.127) 379.195 ms
9 peer1-xe10-0-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.254.122) 530.374 ms 422.645 ms 495.790 ms
10 lndgw2.arcor-ip.net (195.66.224.124) 513.526 ms 611.340 ms *
11 85.205.116.10 (85.205.116.10) 536.391 ms 34.004 ms 28.749 ms
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *

After the above it just keeps incrementing the line number followed by three stars.

[Retired-Dave]

Hi DanCull,

The 85.205 IP address is our server, so that's why the traceroute stopped there.

That said, what you've posted there is enough to see the problem. At each step, the times listed are the durations of the data transmission and response for that step. In order to function, the Sure Signal needs times under 200ms at each step, but those you've listed are in places more than three times that maximum.

Whether this is down to limitations of your connection generally or your ISP, you'd need to speak with your provider in order to obtain a faster connection for the Sure Signal to work.

Dave

[DanCull]

I have spoken to BT and they are unable to explain the intermitant reduced quality and speed on my broadband connection, however whilst I have been conducting various tests on BTs request I have notices that most of the traceroutes I carry out do in fact give results well below 200ms so this does not explain why the VSS does not connect all the time.  It is only intermitant that there is reduced speed during which times I accept the VSS would not connect, but why not the rest of the time.

Here is a traceroute just carried out this morning, at the time I did this traceroute at the same time that I saw that teh tick light was flashing on the VSS which I think means it is trying to connect but it failed.

traceroute to 212.183.133.177 (212.183.133.177), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 bthomehub (192.168.1.254) 106.660 ms 93.042 ms 99.658 ms
2 217.32.147.99 (217.32.147.99) 12.364 ms 12.645 ms 12.610 ms
3 217.32.147.126 (217.32.147.126) 13.053 ms 15.843 ms 12.221 ms
4 212.140.206.82 (212.140.206.82) 17.235 ms 16.893 ms 16.847 ms
5 217.41.169.201 (217.41.169.201) 16.560 ms 17.394 ms 16.530 ms
6 217.41.169.109 (217.41.169.109) 17.338 ms 16.976 ms 16.463 ms
7 109.159.251.209 (109.159.251.209) 15.990 ms
109.159.251.233 (109.159.251.233) 16.492 ms
109.159.251.237 (109.159.251.237) 15.979 ms
8 core2-te0-3-0-13.ealing.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.251.37) 30.194 ms 32.821 ms
core2-te0-12-0-6.ealing.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.251.135) 28.332 ms
9 peer1-xe3-2-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.254.209) 24.411 ms 24.501 ms
peer1-xe9-0-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.254.120) 23.445 ms
10 lndgw2.arcor-ip.net (195.66.224.124) 29.411 ms 30.894 ms 34.435 ms
11 85.205.116.14 (85.205.116.14) 24.930 ms 22.182 ms 24.457 ms
12 * * *
13 * * *

[Retired-Andy]

Hi DanCull,  

Your latest traceroute, whilst still high on hop 1 is fast enough to maintain a connection. I’ve checked our systems and can see your Sure Signal connected to our servers in the early hours of this morning. Can you confirm that your connection has now settled down and you’re getting a continuous stable connection? To make sure everything is as up-to-date as possible, I’ve just resynced your device for you so, to make sure the resync completes, can you perform a factory reset:-

• Hold down the reset button until all the lights show/flash (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.

Let me know how you go on.

Thanks

Andrew

[DanCull]

Thank you for your reply Andrew.

I have just checked the VSS and it was not connected; the first two lights (power and @) were both lit up but nothing else.

As suggested I have carried out the full reset and as I type the power light is on and the @ light has just gone from flashing to lit up.  As of yet no further progress but I will check back in a couple of hours.

In addition, I have just carried out a traceroute with the following results which I think show the current speed should be ok.

212.183.133.177 (212.183.133.177), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 bthomehub (192.168.1.254) 19.801 ms 93.403 ms 100.282 ms
2 217.32.147.99 (217.32.147.99) 14.881 ms 12.434 ms 13.410 ms
3 217.32.147.126 (217.32.147.126) 70.734 ms 15.441 ms 15.463 ms
4 212.140.206.82 (212.140.206.82) 26.306 ms 17.491 ms 18.778 ms
5 217.41.169.235 (217.41.169.235) 16.556 ms 17.857 ms 17.902 ms
6 217.41.169.109 (217.41.169.109) 18.040 ms 17.246 ms 17.929 ms
7 109.159.251.201 (109.159.251.201) 16.686 ms
109.159.251.193 (109.159.251.193) 20.754 ms
109.159.251.235 (109.159.251.235) 17.626 ms
8 core1-te-0-13-0-10.ilford.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.251.191) 27.021 ms
core2-te0-3-0-13.ealing.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.251.37) 27.895 ms
core1-te-0-0-0-17.ilford.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.251.189) 26.384 ms
9 peer1-xe3-2-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.254.209) 23.313 ms 26.669 ms 24.287 ms
10 lndgw2.arcor-ip.net (195.66.224.124) 26.663 ms 27.997 ms 29.441 ms
11 85.205.116.14 (85.205.116.14) 28.004 ms 29.449 ms 27.434 ms
12 * *

[DanCull]

No progress :smileysad:

Most of the times I have checked the VSS over the past couple of hours it has just had the first two lights lit up solid.  I checked it five minutes ago and it looked like it had started its process again; the first light was solid and the second light was flashing.  Just checked it again now and all lights are off!

This is becoming more and more infuriating.  I have always stayed with Vodafone because of the VSS facility as I am unable to get any decent mobile phone signal in my house through any provider.  The VSS solved this problem and it has always been worth while paying a higher rate on my contracts knowing that I could always get a signal!!