Version 3 VSS Lights (Power - flashing, Internet - off, In Service - orange, In Use - orange)

[Retired-Lee]

This thread has been created to discuss and troubleshoot the version 3 Sure Signal when the light sequence is as follows:

• Power: Flashing
• Internet: Off
• In Service: Solid Orange
• In Use: Solid Orange

Cause

This light sequence indicates the Sure Signal's not active and it has been unable to authenticate on the Vodafone network

Troubleshooting

Please restart your Sure Signal. If the symptoms continue please add the following details to this thread:

• Your speed test results from here
  
• Your ping test results from here
  
• Your external IP address from here
  
• Your Sure Signal serial number
• The results of a traceroute

Traceroute command:

On a PC:

1. Click on Start and select Run
2. Type CMD into the Run box and press enter/click ok
3. A black box will appear
4. In this box type tracert 212.183.133.177 press Enter
5. Paste the output of this command into your reply

On a Mac:

1. Open Terminal (Applications, Utilities)
2. Type 'traceroute 212.183.133.177'
3. Press Enter

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

Thanks

LeeH

[Anonymous]

My sure signal is not working again, I'm really shocked at the common issues being reported here mostly BT users like myself - what ip range do you allow as I can keep rebooting until I get the range you accept, nothing else has changed so I'm at a loss why after following all the advice upgrading to a homehub5 from a 3 as advised and resetting up all the forwarding, port clamping it's no more reliable than it was so a waste of £50 on a home hub 5

I really do not like the last recommendation of a different ISP - this is a sure signal issue which it seems nobody can reliably resolve

Have vodafone tried working through this with BT or the hardware manufacturer of the sure signal ?

[Mustardears]

Trust me it's not limited to BT. My issue is that its a SS problem and they don't actually repair them and don't have any new stock so I can't use my phone at all at home and I've only recently spent £100 on the damned thing which is apoRently broken. Ahhhhhhh! Making zero progress!

[Mustardears]

Matt. I've spoken to numerous Vodafone people who confirm that
A) there appears to be nothing wrong having looked at the trace report.
B) the SS is not contacting Vodafone
C) SS version 2 doesn't work either
D) SS version 3 shows same fault at another location
E) you don't repair them
F) you have no stock of new units and won't have any for approx a month.

NOW WHAT?

[RHannay]

I recently had to change my router for a Netgear DGND3700 and since then my VSS has not worked, showing the symptoms in the title.  I have tried resetting the VSS to no avail.

My test results are as follows:

Speedtest:  2.85 MBs down, 0.78 MBs up

Ping test: 15ms ping, 1ms jitter

IP: 82.71.34.20

Ser No: 40134717533

Trace route results:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600]
(c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\System32>tracert 212.183.133.177

Tracing route to cluster4.vap.vodafone.co.uk [212.183.133.177]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 10 ms 11 ms 11 ms losubs.subs.dsl3.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.84.25]

3 10 ms 10 ms 11 ms ge-0-0-0-117.cr2.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.84.197]

4 14 ms 14 ms 13 ms ldngw1.arcor-ip.net [195.66.224.209]
5 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms 85.205.0.86
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
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.

C:\WINDOWS\System32>

I look forward to hearing from you.

Many thanks.

[DavidHoness]

Hi There,

I suppose I am having the same issue as everyone else here... Perhaps my IP address has been blacklisted? Would you be able to whitelist my IP please.

The details you request are as follows:

SSID:

40124110004

Speed Test:

12.12mbps down

0.75mbps up

Ping Test:

34ms ping

5ms jitter

External IP (fixed):

193.35.56.42

Traceroute results:

dyn1137-148:~ HS$ traceroute 212.183.133.177

traceroute to 212.183.133.177 (212.183.133.177), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets

 1  10.0.10.1 (10.0.10.1)  0.760 ms  0.220 ms  1.394 ms

 2  193.35.56.42 (193.35.56.42)  11.022 ms  10.703 ms  10.955 ms

 3  193.35.56.41 (193.35.56.41)  26.012 ms  13.147 ms  15.767 ms

 4  0.ge-1-0-5.ldex1-csw1.uk.fi.net.uk (176.74.16.225)  15.315 ms  16.016 ms  12.851 ms

 5  ge-2-0-0.ldex1-rt1.uk.as41000.net (176.74.23.146)  15.384 ms  18.582 ms  35.821 ms

 6  ge-1-1.core00.lx1.uk.hso-group.net (77.75.109.100)  13.256 ms  14.980 ms  14.018 ms

 7  ge-1-1.core00.thn.uk.hso-group.net (77.75.108.138)  20.882 ms  19.901 ms  22.085 ms

 8  xe-0-0-3-0.edge00.thn.uk.hso-group.net (93.89.91.14)  13.717 ms  13.215 ms  15.127 ms

 9  lndgw2.arcor-ip.net (195.66.224.124)  17.846 ms  18.719 ms  15.943 ms

10  85.205.0.93 (85.205.0.93)  15.797 ms  17.137 ms  16.178 ms

11  * * *

12  * * *

13  * * *

I would appreciate any help!

Thanks,

David

[Retired-Simon]

Hi @Mustadears

It’s for these reasons that Matt_B asked you to contact us directly.

If you get in touch, we’ll be able to advise further.

Hi @Betenoir

When we can see from our end that all checks are fine and your Sure Signal is making a connection, there’s little further we can do at this point.

Although to a certain extent we can give advice, we don’t provide ISP or router support so if this is where the issue lies, you’ll need to continue taking the issue up with them.

Hi @sidpr

That Sure Signal shows as deregistered.

You’ll need to register the Sure Signal first before we can help further. You do this on the Sure Signal dashboard on My Vodafone.

Hi @RHannay

Is your connection PPPoE or PPPoA?

Switching to a router that’s not provided by your internet service provider can sometimes cause the Sure Signal to stop working.

Sure Signals only support PPPoA; however some routers have the ability to bridge the connection, whereas others don’t.

Hi @DavidHoness

Your IP is whitelisted and the traceroute is fine.

The Sure Signal is working and transmitting data.

How many mobile numbers are connected to the Sure Signal at one time?

For the amount of registered users on it, the upload speed may not be able to fast enough to handle all the connections.

Thanks,

Simon

[RHannay]

Many thanks.  I have changed from PPPoE to PPPoA and all is now well.  My previous router was not ISP provided either but as it died I was unable to get all the settings off it before replacing it.  Is the PPPoA requirement noted anywhere?

[sidpr]

Hi Simon

Thanks for your reply. I spoke to one of your technical team last week who concluded the brand new box was faulty, so I deregistered it and took it back to the shop. Unfortunetly there are no boxes in stock as there is a severe shortage of the V3 boxes at the moment which, as the store sales person explained, is due to the impending introduction of 4G. Apparently the V3 boxes are not 4G enabled and a "new" version may be introduced in the near future, but they are not sure.

Not a good situation for the many paying customers who cannot get a workable 3G signal and are stuck in limbo until Vodafone get their act together.

Regards

Sid.

[Betenoir]

Simon,

Thanks for your response.  I was totally unaware that my Sure Signal had manged to contact your servers - it is not obvious from this end.  Could you share with me when this has happened, as it might help to understand more about what is going on?  I have just reset my Sure Signal (10:30 17th Nov) if we could use this as a start point.

As for Vodafone not being able to support all makes of routers and ISPs, I quite understand.  However, I think I should point out that according to figures published up to the end of June 2014, of out the 3 million homes and businesses that have taken up fast broadband services so far, 2.3 million of them have signed up with BT.  Furthermore, BT's fibre network  passes outside 17 million premises who have yet to sign up.  So whilst I appreciate it is quite impossible for Vodafone to offer support to all possible combinations of router and ISP, I would have thought that compatability issues between the Sure Signal and the router/ISP combination from the supplier that accounts for over 75% of the UK market should be something you take a close interest in.

I am not expecting you to do BT's job here.  But having approached BT Retail 2nd line support, I have been assured that the router is functioning properly.  BT Wholesale have tested the broadband connection and can show that a PC connected to the router has the ability to access a very wide selection of websites that include high speed downloads and uploads.  You have assured me that everything is correct in how the Sure Signal is setup.  Yet still I have no mobile signal.

I know this is a networked environment and there is mutual responsibility between seperate vendors required to ensure functionality.  But to be fair, the other party can prove their product is working, while the same cannot be said for your product/service. 

So please do not give up quite so easily.  I am prepared to work hard to find a solution here and I would be very grateful if you would do the same.  It's pretty clear that packet fragmentation is the issue - I am not the first and certainly I will not be the last to face this problem.  So how about wheeling out some of your highly skilled networking people to help?

Almost all technical problems can be solved, it just takes skill, willing and determination. I am quite sure that cost is an issue, but look at it this way: this is a tricky problem agreed, but as the numbers grow it is only going to get worse, much worse for you.  The time and money you sink into solving my problem can be ammortised across the tens, hundreds or possibly thousands of such support cases that will before long be lining up behind mine.

Regards,

BN

[arukDave]

Morning All.

FYI...    For all you BT Internet (Infinity) users with a BT "Business Hub", that fail to run a VSS.

We had a router change here in the office, where we have BT Infinity Internet service, that previously comprised the "BT Outreach" VDSL modem, and a "BT Business Hub" router.

Both those have been replaced with a "Draytek Vigor 2860n-plus" security firewall device.  This one device takes the VDSL line from the BT wall plate/filter on one side, and our LAN connects on the other.   OK, these things are not cheap (arround £200 retail!)  But if you want "good", you need to pay for it.   (We needed to change the BT thing anyway, to accomodate another secure tunnel to our head office the other side of the pond.)

The VSS is now happy and working very well in our tin box office.  No other configuration was needed of the VSS, "It just worked" after it's regular thumb twidlling time.   (I had it working previously at home, on another non BT ISP via a "consumer grade" Netgear router, details already posted here in the recent past.)

I do not yet have all the exact details of the Draytek setup pertaining to the VSS, but when the IT related dust has settled (still some monor WiFi issues to sort out) I'll get them documented and post the salient points.

More details when I have them.   (I'm out of the UK all next week, so don't hold your breath!)   There is hope.

Regards.

Dave Baxter.