Sure Signal wont stay connected to Vodafone.

[_Aaron_]

 Hi,

After 5 months of issue free working my v3 Sure Signal has stopped working. For the last 2 weeks it will only stay connected and allowing calls for a few hours at a time and will then lose connection back to Vodafone. It will only re-connect if i perform a re-set (button on the bottom for 30 secs), and then only for a few hours before disconnecting again. I've looked at the "Troubleshooting" post but it has not helped. I've not chaged ISP or router. I've even de-registered and re-registered the Sure Signal (on 9/07/13), but it still disconnected after a few hours working. Once it's lost connection the power light flashes with the internet light solid orange, the other lights are off.

Requested details for investigating fault are:

Ser. No.: 40124125846

DL Speed: 62.42Mbps

UL Speed: 3Mbps

Ping: 25ms

IP Address: 82.3.100.17

Tracing route to cluster4.vap.vodafone.co.uk [212.183.133.177]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     *        *        *     Request timed out.

  2     8 ms     7 ms     9 ms  winn-core-2a-ae7-1051.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.121.245]

  3     8 ms     9 ms     8 ms  brnt-bb-1c-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.96.169]

  4    12 ms    17 ms    13 ms  brhm-bb-1c-ae8-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.174.126]

  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.

  6    31 ms    30 ms    34 ms  ldngw1.arcor-ip.net [195.66.224.209]

  7    35 ms    39 ms    30 ms  85.205.116.2

  8     *        *        *     Request timed out.

  9     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 10     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 11     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 12     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 13     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 16     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 17     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 18     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 19     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 20     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 21     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 22     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 23     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 24     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 25     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 26     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 27     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 28     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 29     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 30     *        *        *     Request timed out.

Trace complete.

ISP is Virgin Media, I have a Superhub VMDG-480 router

HELP!

[Retired-Andy]

Hi _Aaron_,

I’ve checked your serial number today and can see that it connected to our servers this morning at 03:10, are you still seeing the flashing power light?

Thanks

Andrew

[_Aaron_]

Hi Andrew,

Connecting is not an issue, staying connected is the problem, it always connects after a power cycle but it has been loosing the connection after a time and often can't reconnect until I cycle the power. After my post yesterday I power cycled the sure signal and within 5 mins it connected. After an hour it disconnected again but reconnected within 10 mins without intervention. It was still connected this morning and it is definitly much better then it was before the re-sync. I think it's best to just leave it for a few days to see how it behaves. If it continues to loose connection I'll let you know.

Aaron.

[_Aaron_]

Sure Signal is definitely unhappy and regularly disconnecting 😞

[_Aaron_]

No connection all day today, finally gave up waiting for it to connect on it's own at 11pm and turned it off and on again, it connected within 3 minutes. Why do I have to continually power cycle the unit to get it to work? This can't be right! Tech Team, please help get this resolved. 

😞

[whatnot]

Exactly the same issues. Been on going for months now. Tried everything; twice with VF customer support. Switch off, power back on - reconnects almost at once: so it doesn't hold the connection. May be it has something to do with the hub - but why? Everything else works OK and stays connected. Ironic really - weak signal from VF? Then pay out another £100 for a SS box! But the signal is still unreliable... and the time wasted!

[Retired-Kay]

Good Evening, 

We would need to know where the issue lies, whether it's with the Sure Signal or with the Internet connection/router. 

The only way to know for sure would be to try it on a different Internet connection (at a friend or family members house) to see if the connection is stable or keeps dropping. 

If you can try this and let us know how you get on we'll take it from there. 

Thanks, 

Kay

[stephenandmindi]

Unfortunately I just don't buy the issue being something other than the SureSignal box or VF system at the other end. At the very least even if I were on a temperamental internet connection, my SS3 box should reliably continue, forever, to try re-connecting to VF and I should see that through the flashing lights.  When my SS box has no lights on other than the power light, well it's given up right?

I'm on Virign fiber broadband using virgin's router. I've had the same issue with SSv1 box and at that time I was using an apple timecapsule router, and now the same with my SS3 going through virgins' router. Different hardware with the only common theme being my ISP - but at least I don't need to reboot my cable modem/router every month for my internet access to work.

 I wouldn't care if my SS box lost connection then automatically re-conencted when possible but it appears at least on the face of it, that the SS box gives up.  I've just reset mine after a week with with the red power light on solid and no other lights on, in the vane hope it would work itself out. I have signal now, but for how long?.....

What I would not be satisfied with is having my ISP hardware/connection proven to be the root cause of the disconnects - as quite frankly I don't care why it disconnected and from reading this thread it sound like most other forum contributors here don't care either - but what I do care about is why it won't re-connect, reliably, even though no other internet enabled device I have requires the same level of attention - e.g. my home phone with Skype built in... no issues with that for over 3 years, ever.

[Retired-Andy]

Hi stephenandmindi,

With the variety of routers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) available, there’s a huge number of possible combinations that the Sure Signal has to work with.

If your issue does reappear, we’ll need some more information to be able to help you.

Can you provide the following please:-

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

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.

Thanks

Andrew

[_Aaron_]

Hi Tech Team,

This issue is now getting worse.

I gave up cycling the power every time it lost connection and just left it alone, as a result it remained in an unconnected state for more then 3 days, then out of the blue on Tuesday 30th July it connected again and remained connected for a full week. I was about to report that it was fixed but yesterday (Tuesday 6th) it again lost connection. I've tried a power cycle and a re-set but it's not recovering. Now all I have is a solid power light with all other lights off, after a short while the internet light will slowly pulse white 14 times and then stop with just the solid power light. After about 35 seconds this sequence will then repeat.

Unless you can help me make progress with this issue I see no other opting then return the sure signal to Vodafone.

Aaron.

[whatnot]

I agree the issue is getting worse. Exactly the same thing - whereas switching off and on again used to cure a disconnection, now only red power light comes on, although everything else on internet is working fine. 

All this nonsense about traceroutes and pings and goodness knows what is a distraction: how are ordinary folk meant to cope with all that technical stuff? One gets a VSS in order to cure a lack of signal, we just want to plug in and go. If VF can't supply something that achieves the desired result easily then VF souldn't be supplying it: the claims about what it does are wrong, and VF is mis-representing a product.

After all, our internet connection isn't being asked to stream a video connection, is it?