pppoe - CHAP authentication failure

[ianian]

Brand new Vodafone BB customer.  FTTP.

Old service, EE, cut off at 3AM, Voda lit up at 8PM.

Service active and working on the Vodafone router, but I have a complex setup and have my own UniFi equipment, and am very competent in this field - I know what I’m doing.

I got my pppoe creds from Vodafone a few days in advance, and I am using the correct format including @Broadband.vodafone.co.uk (although tried without anyway).

No VLAN should be required for this service.  I know this is true because I do not get a response from Vodafone when using vlan 101 (as a test in troubleshooting), but I do get responses from Vodafone when I don’t enable 802.1q - I see the other ends MAC address.

When I use my own kit, I see the pppoe interface initiate a connection to a  MAC address on vodas end, immediately followed by CHAP authentication failure.  After a few attempts, I’ll start getting PADO timeouts, as you’d expect.

You'd think simple fix - Google searches are littered with stories of incompetent agents giving out incorrect/mistyped creds - I’ll just call up and ask for them again.

Except I have - 3 times in total now.  And they keep on giving me the same details.  On the last call, the guy forced me to reset my edge router to factory settings before he would troubleshoot with me further because ’that would fix it’, even though I told him exactly what the issue is.  To entertain him, I did reset it to factory (after a config backup), setup the pppoe interface, only for the same chap authentication failures to persist……….obviously.  He wants to call me back in 3 days so he can perform an ‘internal investigation’.  So that’ll be 4 days into my brand new Vodafone broadband, that I actually have no broadband. 

What am I supposed to do here.  I don’t want and can’t have the Vodafone router - I don’t want it powered on (don’t have power here - I use PoE for my router), or taking up space, and I certainly  don’t want to run it inline.  I took this service knowing I couldn’t use their router, but was told that would never be a problem.  And now it is.

Is my only option to cancel in the cooling off period, and file a formal complaint? 

What an atrocious support offering.

[Ripshod]

Not your equipment as you're making contact with the gateway just fine. I gave the full login info as you made no mention of the "dsl" prefix.

And point to note - I'm using my own equipment just fine. 

[Cynric]

@ianian You did change the VLANID to an empty setting (assuming you are on Open Reach)? 

[ianian]

Yes on Openreach and I dont have 802.1q enabled - I am communicating with the Nokia kit on the other end just fine.  Just a simple auth issue.

[Ripshod]

Connect the vodafone router again, wait until it's connected, then download the log file. Search that log file for your pppoe username to confirm it's correct. 

[ianian]

Good idea. Is there an easy way to download the logs (not looked at the router properly yet)

[Ripshod]

I'm sure there's a download button when viewing the log. 

[Cynric]

If there isn't an easy way, I'd expect you can copy & paste at least a portion of it, or if you're happy to use F12 dev tools in the browser the log should be a structure in either XML or JSON which you can grab. If it is XML or JSON, there are free websites to convert it to other formats, the editor Notepad++ or Microsoft Visual Studio.

[badgerboy]

I have a similiar problem. No solution but can bring some extra info. My situation: I'm trying to migrate from a draytek router that I set up a few years ago to a different draytek (a 2830). The original one still works fine using creds I got from VF the first time around. The new one will not connect using those same creds. Draytek is lacking clear diagnostics on the reason for the fail. I've also tried using a netgear modem/router with same creds and am getting an explicit 'auth fail' from that. I got VF to re-send the creds a couple of weeks back and the new ones are 100% identical to those I was sent before. I went as far as cut/pasting rather than re-typing to make sure. Format is as discussed elsewhere in this thread. I've tried with and without the VLAN tag on both new devices. So I would count out the possibility that the creds are wrong and look instead at auth mechanism on the line. 

[Cynric]

@badgerboy Are you on Open Reach or City Fibre?

[Ripshod]

If you're getting a CHAP failure then your PPPoE login details are wrong. If the VLAN was wrong then the router wouldn't be able to get as far as authentication.