Self-rebooting Gigafast Routers and Apple Devices

[Hot_Penguin]

I had Gigafast Broadband installed in December 2018. Everything worked flawlessly up until about six weeks ago when my router started to reboot itself, occasionally at first but then constantly in phases. I had several Nest and Amazon devices connected and they soon complained when they kept losing their internet connections. I also had a Philips hue bridge, and Sky boxes connected in addition to a few computers, tablets and phones. Importantly, all my devices were the same as when Gigafast Broadband was first intalled.

About 4 weeks ago, I contacted Vodafone (VF) Tech Support and followed their standard advice, which involved connecting and disconnecting devices and changing cables. This time-consuming work made no difference. Later, I installed a new Gigafast router (with updated firmware) that VF sent me, and this made no difference. An engineer came and checked the fibre optic cable and connection, which were fine, and changed the ONT box. This made no difference; the router continued to self-boot. About two weeks ago, my fault was elevated up the tech support chain to Level 3 but I have not heard anything back from them.

Also, about two weeks ago, I finally worked out that my iPhone XS Max seemed to be the culprit. When I took my phone away from my home, the router rebooted, and when I came home with my phone the router rebooted. To be fair, VF Tech Support had advised me that there were reports of issues with Apple devices, but they had not been specific. Their advice was to update to the latest version of iOS. I did this; I updated to iOS 13.1.3. The router only stopped rebooting when I also reset the network settings on the phone. So I was happy again.

Everything was dandy up until yesterday when the router started rebooting again. I noticed that my iPad Pro (2015) had updated itself to iPadOS 13.2, and my Apple Watch 4 to WatchOS 6.1. My iPhone was unchanged, and yet on testing, it appeared to be the culprit again. I updated the iPhone to iOS 13.2 and everything is stable again – for how long, who knows!!

What I can deduct from my experience is the following:

• iOS 13 looks like it is may be causing significant issues with some Gigafast routers - others have reported similar problems on this Forum. My rebooting issue seems to have started around the same time that iOS 13 was first released in September. People who read about these things will know that iOS 13 has had lots of bugs and caused a host of problems.
• VF need to fix this issue – I’m assuming it’s a router firmware update that is required. It would be welcome, and even good practice, if VF contacted customers, who have reported issues, to acknowledge that there is an issue and it was working on a solution.

I feel I am being left in the dark.

[Gbh1]

I have just got out my contract. Took some time but did it 

[CliffPepe]

Similar issues as reported in this thread.  Only soluton so far is to try different channels (with & without Watch on!!)

Additional issue with the New Router is a much worse coverage than my previous Vodafone router, not only does it drop internet connection (impacting wifi and wire coneected devices) the WiFi drops completely if more than 15ft away from the router.

[philds]

Have you tried splitting the wif channels, i get much better  coverage  with just 2.4ghz ,use 5ghz for items which are close to router

[bobsgigafast]

I spoke to Vodafone's director's office again today. They were very apologetic and accepted they've dropped the ball. The Gigafast team are saying the firmware fix will take until January. 3 months credit has been applied to the account and I was offered the opportunity to exit the contract. I've said I'll give them til January and if it's not fixed I'll take up that offer then. 

[boardmann]

I was advised by the Directors Office that the new firmware would be pushed to my router some days ago and be monitored over a 48 hour period but this never happened as the firmware version  never changed. 
Why Vodafone continue to lie through there back teeth and treat there customers like  fools is beyond me.

[philds]

Im still on the same firmware as well.

It makes you wonder if they really do not know what they are doing

[boardmann]

Obviously not.......

[bobsgigafast]

@boardmann that's what they told me a couple of weeks ago too but I've since found five threads on this forum full of fellow sufferers with the same issue and some have heard January which the team confirmed today. Very frustrating and I couldn't get an answer to why they're continuing to knowingly sell Gigafast broadband to Apple device owners whilst the problem still exists. 

[boardmann]

I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter who you really speak to within the Vodafone organization it's a near impossibility for an employee to keep a promise from speaking to someone when you ring 191 to the Directors Office.

Ive been let down on multiple occasions even simple tasks can't get accomplished without return calls and complaints and with this router problem the second doesn't seem to help.

[Onescoop]

To add another data point to this: my router suddenly started rebooting itself yesterday as my Apple products started to update themselves to the newest version of iOS over the previous night.

Nearly all of my devices are connected to a mesh network rather than directly to the router, so I can't quite work out which device was causing reboots during the day as I've now swapped out to an older Vodafone router until a replacement arrives.

However, I did notice that starting to stream content on my Apple TV would cause the Gigafast router to reboot writhin a couple of minutes. It is also one of the only devices that was set to connect directly to the router rather than the mesh network. So it doesn't seem to just be Apple watches that are causing the reboots.