THG3000 daily disconnections of 8 minutes duration

[UEFI]

New Vodafone service FTTC installed 2nd February.  Speed as expected, but connectivity not reliable.

Connection via openreach Master Socket 5C newly installed by openreach - no legacy extension wiring.

First week any disturbances were put down to bedding in.

Second week started looking at each outage in detail.

Symptoms - all internet services lost, phone gives on/off dial tone, THG3000 Internet LED is red.

Duration usually just under 8 minutes loss of service.

Checking the router syslog shows "Line 0: xDSL link down" at the outage start, then around 7 minutes 40 seconds later, the router will log "Line 0: XDSL G.994 training" and begin to bring up the service and connections can be made when this is complete - usually 25 seconds after the G994 message.

Most days, this happens between 13:00 and 15:00 UK time, but have seen it once at 17:43 to 17:51.

Followed the 'Troubleshooting' advice on the website, but no improvement.

Unable to engage with Chat on website - nothing happens when the icon is clicked.

Can anyone connect me to someone who can help sort this out please ?

[Delta10]

Have you got a mobile phone account with a good amount of data that you do not normally use up to the limit ? If not are you on good terms with a neighbour who will tell you their wi-fi code ?

Say 10 mins before 13:00 log in to your Vodafone account.

When the connection drops run the internet test.

This may find a fault and automatically generate a fault code.

If not next day do the same again except when the connection drops turn off the router then run the test.

I did similar to the latter by turning the router off then running the test as soon as I got to work. I got a fault code and Openreach responded in a few hours finding and rectifying a line fault. I found card through the door when I got home. When connected I now had full speed for Superfast 1, which is all I am subscribed to.

Ultimately for me this was secondary. About 4 days later I had an email from Vodafone that they were investigating. A day or two later a second titled ' Your internet is now activated '. It was never not active just when it did drop sometimes several hours before it reconnected. This may well be different to you but it is the first part that may get Openreach out to check the line is what may help you.

[UEFI]

There was another outage during the 24 hours on monitor. Got a call from the advisor who said the problem would be handed to Vodafone Advanced Technical Team. Got a call about an hour later stating they would upgrade the router firmware and then monitor for another 24 hours.  The router duly re-booted shortly afterwards and as far as I can tell from syslog it is now running different firmware.

Today there was another 8 minute outage.  Vodafone called shortly after the outage to make an appointment for Openreach to investigate and this is set for tomorrow morning.

[Cynric]

@UEFI  That is a relatively quick response from VF. Fingers crossed.

[Jayach]

Those were amazing responses from Vodafone, it almost sounds like they were actively monitoring it. I always though when they say they are monitoring it, it was a way of "kicking it down the road" for a bit.

[UEFI]

May have reached a blocker now.

Openreach tested the line for 15 mins on Saturday and found no problems with it.

About an hour later text from Vodafone saying the problem was fixed.

No problem on Sunday and messages saying the ticket will close in 24 hours unless I contact them.

Monday at 01:27, the line dropped for 8 minutes.

Rang Vodafone 2nd line.  They could see the 8 minute outage at 01:27, but as the connection looked good at the time we were talking there was nothing they could do. I was told Openreach would reject a further call out on this line and that I need to contact Vodafone while the line is down.

[UEFI]

Had a further 8 minute outage beginning at 12:44 today.  I called Vodafone second line support at 12:45 and was answered quickly.  I explained the situation briefly and stressed that I expected the outage would last about 8 minutes.  After security confirmation, they confirmed they could see the loss of connection to the Vodafone servers. The advisor then put me on hold to allow them to speak to another party.  The impression I got was that they were going to arrange another Openreach visit.  By the time they spoke to me again, the service was back up and no appointment was made.  The outcome was I was asked to connect to the test socket on the 5C and they would monitor for 24 hrs. 

[UEFI]

Had a further 8 minute outage beginning at 12:20 today. I called Vodafone second line support at 12:21 and was answered quickly. After security confirmation, they confirmed they could see the loss of connection to the Vodafone servers.  I got the impression that some other diagnostics and an escalation process between Vodafone and Openreach were in place (or going to be put in place).  Regardless of if I misunderstood that part, another Openreach visit is arranged for tomorrow.

[Ripshod]

Any news @UEFI? 

[UEFI]

Yes - I wanted to allow a bit of time before posting.

On the second fault visit, openreach detected that the resistance between the pair of wires from the cabinet to the house was below spec.  Another pair into the house (for a defunct ISDN line) also showed similar leakage.  This was traced to corrosion in a junction box on one of the poles.  The junction was replaced.  Having been dry for several weeks there had been overnight rain before the visit.  This may be why the line tests were in spec at the time of installation and the first fault visit.

In addition to the work to sort the cable, the service was moved onto a different port in the kerbside cabinet.  This effectively made it a new provision, so the bedding in period started again.

Finally, the THG3000 is back to connection via the faceplate rather than the test socket.

In the 5 days since the visit, I've had two outages of 1 minute 30 which may be part of the connection optimisation.

I'm hoping the connection remains stable, but as two significant things were changed at the same time, it is unclear (to me) what the cause of the daily 8 minute outages was.  The key things in this process appear to be getting second line support and being able to report the fault to them while it is live - which is just possible with an 8 minute outage.

Thanks for the interest and help.

[BenjyBoo]

Hi

Did the 8 minute drops still continue. I have Vodafone Fibre and have the same problem.

Before the tech support updated the firmware it used to happen every few days or so  before midnight and be off for exactly 8 minutes, no it can be during the night, early in the morning or the last one yesterday at 15:20 in the afternoon, again for 8 minutes and automatically coming back on.

Again I'm going through 1st line tech, router has been set to defaults, and I'm told not to use the wifi and just use one wired connection to check it is nothing my end for the next 24hours.