BT Wholehome causing line drops

[billgrieve]

I recently moved from EE to Vodafone. Have been having issues with the line dropping. Vodafone sent Openreach and they confirmed that line was OK. Vodafone replaced my router but still getting line drops. They asked me to disconnect my BT Wholehome from the router and the drops stopped so they are suggesting that I do not use my BT Wholehome or get some form of support. Any suggestions.

[KeithAlger]

BT Wholehome pretty much just works as a mesh network that REPLACES the WiFi on your existing router.  Once you've BT Wholehome set up, you should even be able to turn the WiFi on your (Vodafone) router off, and just use the BT Discs.

As the Discs just connect to an Ethernet port on the router they shouldn't be impacting on any other function of the router (their only interface is via IP protocols), so it's pretty much impossible to see how these devices could be causing line drops.

I'd be kind of suspicious that there was a differnet fault was found on the line somewhere, but that your Wholehome is being blamed in order that you can be "blamed" and then charged for the fix.

*I'd retry them, but once set up, disable the WiFi on the router....

[tjb15]

I also have problems using the BT wholehome with the vodafone router; sporadically it seems to cause the router to malfunction - can't even access it using the internal 192.168.1.1 web address, so it's not just a 'line drop'. Resetting the BT system usually causes the router to start working again; though when it doesn't it's all a complete nightmare because it all has to be reset in a particular order to stand any hope of recommencing. I think a replacement of the router is probably the way to go.

[Blair]

Hey @tjb15, are you using only the Whole Home Wi-Fi, or are you also using the Wi-Fi from the router? 

It might be best to switch off the router Wi-Fi.

Blair

[tjb15]

Obviously, to prevent clashing, the wifi from the router ought to be switched off (or at least left using a different network name for redundancy), but that is not the issue here. After  much exasperation, I called vodafone, got my username and password for the PPPoE connection, and used a third party router. Problem now solved.

If anyone has managed to get the BT Whole Home system to work with Vodafone's router they will no doubt declare their genius in reply.

[KeithAlger]

I think one of my projects for the future is to get a loaner of a thermal camera and study what happens to the VF router under different conditions!  It seems to be going wrong in ways that it's terribly hard to justify/fathom!

[simonmcc]

Same or similar issue here. I normally use a Netgear router with my bt whole home, but of course when there are line issues Vodafone ask me to plug in their router, and every time the network completely locks up. The last time I went through devices one by one to find out what was causing the issue and didn't find anything.

It seems the issue is deodepend on startup order somehow .

Today, I only plugged one whole home disc in, literally nothing else and the router becomes unresponsive. 

Very odd behavoube between two huge UK products! If anyone has any suggestions, I'd like to hear them .

Would it be worth trying some sort of network analysis?

[TheObo]

I am having the exact same issues.

My broadband was rock solid for years until I installed a BT Whole Home Mesh for increased Wifi range.

Now I get constant line drops and the Vodafone router (Firmware-Version: 5.4.8.1.291.1.30.1.32.1.2) becomes unresponsive and will not reconnect and requires a reboot to get back up.

As others also say the router is not reachable via 192.168.0.1 and I often have to turn off my BT Whole Home and router and then bring them back up in order - a real pain when it happens almost every day!

I had an OpenReach engineer here this week and checked the line with no errors, he also switched my line at the cabinet.

It seems to happen a lot for me at about 7am and midnight - which is when my phone moves from one wifi hub to another at night, and then waking in the morning and checking my phone first thing... (coincidence? unlikely)

I have now turned off the BT WholeHome and using the Vodafine Wifi and have had no problem in days.

Has anyone found a solution to this please?

It looks like I should either replace the Wifi Mesh or replace the router...

Do Vodafone let you replace their router? Will they give you login details for a third party router?

Can anyone recommend a good router that works well with BT WholeHome?

[simonmcc]

yes , Vodafone allow you to replace your router. I use a netgear D7000 router, which I initially bought because of the relatively great wifi strength, but then turned off the wifi and use the bt whole home.

It still locks up very occasionally, but I mean once every few months, and simply rebooting the router fixes it.

Any third party router should work. Order from somewhere you can easily return it if it doesnt do the job, like argos or amazon.

Contact vodafone via the live chat, and they will give you the broadband username and password

[KeithAlger]

There's some talk on other forums that suggest that routers with poorly implemented multicast protocols tend to suffer issues with the BT Whole Home WiFi.  I would hasten to add though that while it all looks likely, I've not seen any solid proof of this, so we'd be on thin ice presenting this info to VF!

[TheObo]

I've replaced the Vodafone router with a Netgear DM200.

Only £34 at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01GL3YPHI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Works a treat - and gets better speeds than the Vodafone piece of ****

It was pretty simple to setup - (once you add the @broadband.vodafone.co.uk suffix to the username supplied by vodafone that is! - thanks for not mentioning this Vodafone)

[KeithAlger]

Out of interest which firmware do you have on the DM200?  I've one here I bought for £5 on Ebay as spares or repair, which worked at first but now has issues blocking outgoing data - so sites such as speedtest.net don't work with it!

[TheObo]

I spoke too soon...

The NetGear DM200 has other issues - one of which is that Sky Q will no longer work on devices on the LAN.

It also has weird problems forwarding certain ports - I have about 8 different port forwards setup and 5 work and 3 don't - very strange...

Also Vodafone Wifi Calling does not work (although this may be tru of any third party router by the sound of it) - this is a huge loss for me as my Vodafone coverage in the house if terrible and Wifi Calling is clear as a bell.

So the DM200 is on the way back to Amazon...  Any other ideas?

I think switching to BT or Sky may be the answer...

[KeithAlger]

If you want to try something else you can pick up a Huawei HG612 V3B off eBay for about £5.  They're pretty rock solid, but maybe not so fast in some situations as a modem such as the Draytek Vigor 130 (which is much more expensive).

[TheObo]

Some more news... it turns out the issue is with a Samsung TV that I have on the network. (hence why the network would always crash at around 7:30am and midnight - I thought it was when phones were changing mesh points - but turns out it was when turning on the bedroom TV !)

Every time I turn the TV on and it connects to the network (either wired or wireless) the Vodafone router crashes.

The TV is a Samsung UE49M5600 using software version T-KTSDEUC-1270.3, BT-S.

Somehow this TV and the BT WholeHome cause the Vodafone router to drop the broadband connection and become unresponsive, requiring a reboot to bring back up.

NB: The TV works fine when the BT Whole Home mesh is turned off, and the BT Whole Home mesh works fine when the TV is turned off. But when they are both connected it is bad news.

So for now I've disconnected the TV and am using an Amazon Fire TV stick instead...

Since doing this I have had 2 weeks with no broadband outages at all....

It may be a recent TV software update that has caused the issue, I may try and roll back to a previous version...