Vodafone Connect router crashing several times a day - how to resolve?

[sirvelo]

I moved to Vodafone from BT about a week ago, just to save money. The BT service, using my own Asus router, was faster than its advertised 80Mbps speed, and was 100% solid. Zero downtime logged.

Since moving to Vodafone (having said to the sales person that I'd be using my own router - he never said I couldn't), I now find myself forced to use the Vodafone Connect router, which:

1) Connect router crashes at least daily. This is not WAN down, this is some kind of router reset. The intranet (LAN/wifi) still functions, yet the router web interface (192.168.1.1) is unavailable (indicating probably nothing wrong with WAN), and there is no Internet connection while it restarts. Also of coure the WAN infrastructure is all the same as it was when BT provided the rock solid service.

2) The Event Logs only show me the last 60 or so entries, so at least effectively, restarts on every reboot. AND, the timestamp of the logs reset to Nov 2016 every reboot until the reboot completes. Hence I can only really say the router reboots "at least" daily - the logs never get as far as showing a full day without a Nov 2016 reset. It's 11:53am now, and I know it's crashed at least twice since 08:30. But with no logs from the crashes, no way of identifying the cause. Which is 90% what logs are for!

This post relates to firmware 5.4.8.1.291.1.30.1.6, but from reading around, this lack of reliability has been around a while, exact same symptom, so likely no hardware fault with my specific router.  Is there any way of getting the logs to show more entries so I can try to resolve this, or at least feed those logs back to a tech team to try to resolve it? Last night's crash was mid-paypal payment, never a compfortable time for an outage.

(Ideally of course, I'd rather just be allowed to use my own reliable Asus router... I do believe I was miss-sold this contract by the sales rep saying nothing when I said that was my intention...)

[Becca_P]

@sirvelo

We're sorry to hear you're still experiencing issues with your Vodafone Connect device. 

Please let us know the automated reference number you received from your email to us, it will look like this [#123456]. 

Once received, a member of the team will be able to chase this up for you.

[sirvelo]

@Becca_P, I spoke to someone on the broadband support side today, they said someone will call me Wed-Fri some time. I'm willing to play along with support for a week or so, but, tied to this router, it's no better than 50-50 that I'll stay regardless tbh.

[Amanda]

Hi @sirvelo

Thanks for updating the thread. 

I'm pleased to hear our Broadband team are looking into it. 

If you do need anything else, just let us know. 

Thanks, 

[Amanda]

Hi @sirvelo

Thanks for getting back to us. 

We need to check what's happening with the set up of your router. 

Please follow the steps that I've sent to you in a private message, to get in touch.

Thanks, 

[sirvelo]

@Amanda, since the symptoms are identical to those reported by others, would it not be best to record investigation and resolution here in an open forum for the benefit of others? I'll pick up your pm just now (notification of which had gone straight into my gmail "promotions" spam filter btw), but I don't think this is best for the wider user community.

[Jacste]

Just had a chat with an advisor and this was his last answer.  "okay they will get in contact with you however the drops are within accepatble levels and if the drops are more than it is a wifi issue which is why you have been shown the channels n co however we cannot garantee wifi and only provide simple diagnostics as we provide broadband and homephone as wifias an add on."  This is with the router crashing up to 10 times a day. I am stunned if that is acceptable. 

[EricMears]

It's now 9 days and 21 hours since I plugged in my TP-link router.  The only interruption in service came after  1d 16h when connection was 'training' and came back 10% faster than it had been.  That new higher speed has continued for just over 8 days now with no other stops and no recorded errors.

I can't be absolutely certain the router was the problem since Openreach found another error (their fourth in 4 visits !) just before they reset my local cabinet connection and I haven't tried the Huawei router since then.  However,  if someone at VF is saying that an occasional disconnection is 'normal' for their router ,  I'm quite happy to stick with my 'abnormal' performance <g>

[Becca_P]

@Jacste

I've sent you a private message with details on how to get in touch.

Once you complete the instructions provided we'll put you in contact with the Broadband team.

They'll be happy to investigate this further and help to answer any queries you have.

@EricMears

We're glad to hear that your connection is now stable.

If you need any further assistance, please contact our Broadband Live Chat team. 

[sirvelo]

I think the director-email approach no longer works. Didn't for me anyway, so I am now looking to see my best alternative to Vodafone, I'm definitely leaving, for these reasons:

Mis-selling:

On the broadband sales call, I specifically stated that I didn't need the Vodafone provided router because I would be using my own router. At no point did the sales person mention that I would in fact be unable to do so, that the service is actually by default, locked down to only be usable from the provided Vodafone router.  All he said was that they had to send out a router anyway, whether I used it or not.

I felt cheated when I received the router and service, to find that I had been so seriously misled.

Vodafone router problems:

1) Once I had rebuilt my (non-trivial) home network based upon this Vodafone router, I experienced extreme unreliability from it, as it crashed and rebooted itself multiple times a day. Though this has now improved, it has done so with apparently no permanent change made to the router configuration. This leaves me with no confidence in the router, as nothing has been resolved, it "just seems to be working better currently". I am in my 30-day trial period, and am not happy to continue with so little guarantee of reliability.

2) During investigation of the crashes, it transpired that the logs on the device, are not persisted through a crash, so are of no use in resolving any crash problems. The timestamp of the logs also resets to November 2016 on restart. Completely broken.

3) At times my intranet (machine-to-machine) 1Gb LAN performance has been much slower (1/10th) than it used to be with my own router. Again "currently okay", but again, this leaves me with so little confidence in the router, that I would rather leave within my 30 days.
4) I want to be in full control of my network. By forcing their router on me, Vodafone prevent this. I have performance, security, and reliability concerns with this.

[Nabs]

@sirvelo if you have the chance to leave I would personally take it. It doesnt appear as though a change in policy is going to happen and its obvious that the product is not suitable for your situation. 

There are several other prociders ojt there who do let you use your own equipement so id head off to one of them.