Sure Signal woes. Now support asking me to open ports!

[soho100]

Hi

Our SS (21221966969) stopped working 2 weeks ago for some unknown reason and nothing has changed on our network to cause this. I've been on to Tech Support 5 times and been through all the diagnostics such as re-booting, updating firmware etc. etc. but still nothing. Lights 1/2/4 are solid, light 3 never comes on. We have an office here with 7 vodafone users and no-one can get a signal which is very fustrating.

I had yet another conversation with a tech support guy today and he asked me to open ports 8 and 50 on our router. I cant understand why I'm being asked this as its worked fine (sort of) for 3 years without having to mess with opening ports. I have another SS in a different location with the same broadband provider and the same Draytek Vigor 2820 router that we have here and it works fine without opening any specific ports.

So my question is do I really need to configure my router to open these ports if the router is UPnP enabled? 

Furthermore if I try and open the two ports my router asks me what IP address are the open ports to be associated with, and without knowing the IP of the SS I can't set it, in fact I believe SS doesnt have a fixed IP anyway so how will that work? Shouldnt UPnP enabled routers sort this automatically? 

Are Tech Support clutching at straws here or is it a valid request?

They wont simply replace the SS which is annoying and are asking me to take it to a different location and test it there which is a bizarre request.

Can anyone help please? 

[soho100]

I worked out how to get the IP address of the SS. On the back of the box is the MAC address. Once I knew this I could see the IP adress in the DHCP table. So I opened ports 50, 500, 4500 as suggested in other threads but its still not working. What now please tect support??

[Retired-Dave]

Hi soho100,

uPNP usually sets the ports and IPs automatically, but there can sometimes be updates sent to the router or changes made to the connection which affect them. When the Sure Signal fails, we check them just in case.

Does this Sure Signal work if you plug it into the connection used by the working one?

If it does, we'll need to examine the connection it's failing on. I appreciate you'll have given some of these details when you phoned, but we'll need them here as well:

 - Your speed test results from here.
 - Your ping test results from here.
 - Your external IP address from here.

We'll also need the results of a traceroute:

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 and press Enter.

On a Mac

- Open Terminal (Applications, Utilities).

- Type traceroute 212.183.133.177 and press Enter.

Dave

[soho100]

Called tech support for the 8th time on Thursday 6th, they requested speed tests etc but couldnt fix the problem, said it would be escaleted to highest level and they'd call me back before 6pm .. No one got back to me.

Called tech support for the 9th time on Friday 7th, again they requested certain info but couldnt fix the problem, yet again they said it would be escaleted to highest level and they'd call me back before 6pm .. No one got back to me.

Taking the SS to test at our other studio is not an option due to floods.

Ping = 15ms

Download = 7.86Mbps

Upload = 0.67Mbps

Traceroute =

 1  vigor.router (192.168.1.1)  0.808 ms  0.261 ms  0.244 ms

 2  bblns4.namesco.net (195.7.254.131)  52.491 ms  55.652 ms  66.352 ms

[soho100]

sent trace route too soon .. heres the full text

 1  vigor.router (192.168.1.1)  0.808 ms  0.261 ms  0.244 ms

 2  bblns4.namesco.net (195.7.254.131)  52.491 ms  55.652 ms  66.352 ms

 3  195.7.254.174 (195.7.254.174)  55.292 ms  59.500 ms  53.246 ms

 4  195.7.254.173 (195.7.254.173)  51.863 ms  26.622 ms  25.839 ms

 5  195.7.224.210 (195.7.224.210)  26.099 ms  26.310 ms  26.804 ms

 6  xe-4-0-1-501-cr0.the.as29550.net (91.186.17.65)  26.797 ms  55.393 ms  25.519 ms

 7  ldngw1.arcor-ip.net (195.66.224.209)  30.287 ms  29.424 ms  30.016 ms

 8  85.205.116.6 (85.205.116.6)  30.037 ms  28.033 ms  27.825 ms

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[Ben_H]

Hi soho100,

Thanks for posting the results back. I'm very sorry if the technical team were unable to reach you last week.

Your Sure Signal firmware is out of date and for some reason it's not pulled the latest software down.

I can manually send it for you, but I'll need you to keep the unit connected for at least 24 hours while it sets up. After 2:30pm tomorrow (Wednesday), switch your Sure Signal and router off and on and it should come online within the hour. 

Cheers, Ben

[soho100]

Hi Ben 

Thanks for your help.

Let's try the update then please. Although two of your colleagues tried to update the firmware and it didnt take for some reason.. er .. I think .. am i right?

I'll leave it untouched for 24hrs and reboot it 2.30 on Wednesday .. fingers crossed.

Thanks again

[soho100]

Success at last. I presume it was the firmware update that solved it. Cant help thinking why it's taken 3 weeks to sort though if thats all it was.

Thanks Ben

[Gemma]

Hi Ben,

I’m glad to see everything’s now back up and running for you.

Thanks for letting us know.  

Gemma