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.

[Onescoop]

I've not got my replacement router and it is identical in every single way - hardware and all software versions are the same. I wasn't necessarily expecting differently, but not sure how Vodafone support think this might resolve the issue.

In the meantime, I've moved almost everything across to only connect to my separate mesh network. That runs in bridge mode and is fed by the Vodafone router. That seems to have resolved the issue, but not something everyone can do. 

It also seems surprisingly wasteful/not especially green for Vodafone to replace hardware when they know it's not the hardward causing the issue.

[bobsgigafast]

I think many of the support staff still aren't aware of the issue. 

Do you/did you have aVoIP phone attached to the Vodafone router too? Or to the mesh router with an ATA adapter? I'm tempted to invest in a mesh system to solve the problems now but don't particularly want to have to port our landline number back to BT and start paying line rental too. 

[Onescoop]

No, we've just got a standard landline

[MikeyDoodle]

This is so frustrating. I called vodafone yesterday to report yet another problem with my home broadband. It was, similar to other posts I've seen, just constantly stuck in a boot cycle. I have previously had a massive complaint with vodafone, ending up at the "director's office" (otherwise known as customer relations) because of various faults and service drops. They sent me the new Vox 3 router telling me how wonderful it was and that it would solve all my problems. Far from it vodafone. What they didn't tell me was that there was a known problem with apple products, and since 3 of my apple products are from vodafone you'd think they might have mentioned it!

Does anyone know if they are any closer to depoloying a fix on this? It's really annoying to have to keep the WiFi turned off on my apple watch. The advice from 191 was to make sure all my apple products are up to date. They are, but I still have the problem when WiFi on my watch is turned on, so they're just giving out advice now to people in the hopes they'll stop complaining I guess? 

[boardmann]

Hello,

I'm experiencing the exact same issues as yourself.

Have also been in contact with the Directors Office who eventually informed me it was the Apple Watch causing the new router to continually reboot or crash.

Apparently from other people on the forum it seems to be more iOS 13 related as iPhones also cause the same issues for some people.

Just hope that Vodafone release an updated firmware quickly to resolve this situation.

This shouldn't of happened in the first instance mainly due to the connectivity problems with the previous version of Vodafone routers and Apple products, you would of thought that this would of been a priority to get it right for Vodafone.