Faulty router & no help

[locknut]

Well, my first dealings with support, and I'm not impressed at all. 

THG3000 router. After 2½ years with absolutely no problems, we suddenly started having random disconnections from WiFi on some devices. Sometimes just momentary disconnection & reconnection, occasionally devices cannot see the router for hours. Signal strength is also very erratic, even when connected. This is only affecting devices connecting via 2.4GHz, all 5GHz devices are connecting perfectly.

When the router becomes 'invisible', the devices can see, and will happily connect, to neighbour's routers. I also found by accident that during these episodes, devices will reconnect if they are literally touching the router. 

To me, it's obvious that the router is faulty, but support insist that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the router, and wanted to give them access to my phone camera so they could look around my house, at my router arrangements and all the devices. I refused. 

The adviser changed the channel on the router and told me to reboot it, after which they assured me it would work perfectly. I told them that I had less confidence in their solution, but they were adamant that it would 100% fix the problem. 

Of course it didn't, the laptop in front of me here is still happily disconnecting every few minutes, and the printer can't see the router at all, so totally unusable. The link they sent me takes me to the broadband line test, which of course reports nothing wrong, and gives me no option to open a fault report. I can see with WiFi analyzer that the 2.4GHz channel has changed from 1 to 6, but even WiFi Analyzer can see the signal dropping out & coming back, then reporting that I'm hundreds of metres away from the router, when I'm sat beside it. 

So, what do I have to do to make them take this seriously? I feel like I've just been talked to like an idiot and fobbed off. They don't seem to want to accept that a router can develop faults. I do know where I might borrow another THG3000 to substitute, it sounds like it should work, but not sure about the VoIP phone line - but then why should I have to resort to this? 

[locknut]

As expected, no improvement at all, and in fact unable to connect any 2.4GHz devices at all this morning.

After a further 2 hours onto support this morning, that's over 3 hours in total going around in circles, they finally relented and are sending out a new router - to arrive "no earlier than 24th December" now, so it may not even get here before Xmas.

It got to the point where the adviser was refusing to help any further until I had literally contacted all of the manufacturers of ALL the devices that wouldn't connect - to find out why their devices would happily connect to any other access point, except this one. They simply don't accept that the router could be faulty. What a crazy situation.

So, my advice to anyone with similar issues is to persevere, and be blunt with them. They are taking your money every month, paying customers shouldn't have to go through this to get a working service.

[Cynric]

Did you try doing a factory reset?

[locknut]

Yes, the paper clip factory reset was the first thing I tried. Also, multiple reboots, splitting SSIDs, pretty much everything I could think of trying. 

[Cynric]

Oh well, that just leaves the trusty 5lb lump hammer 🙂

My THG3000 is in its box on a shelf gathering dust.

[locknut]

The lump hammer probably qualifies as the best answer  

[locknut]

I had to contact support again today, about the promised delivery tomorrow. Noticed on the DPD tracking email that they were expecting to take the old unit in exchange, which was a bit of a surprise - I would have thought they would just include a returns bag or shipping label.

Anyway, no instructions whatsoever from Vodafone, and no idea whether they were supplying a complete router package or a bare unit, or whether the package needed any label etc., so had to spend a while being passed around by support to find out. They did make a point of telling me I had to supply my own packaging, but the DPD person would take it from there. I also asked if delivery would be within a timed slot, they said between 8am and 6pm, which isn't very helpful.

I'll be glad when this is over and done with.

[locknut · Accepted solution]

Well, just to round this thread off, brand new router arrived a short while ago. All connected up and wifi is now working perfectly, 100% signal on this old laptop and I can print stuff again!

DPD sent an email this morning with an hour slot, which is good 👍

However, driver was a bit put out when the old router didn't have a returns label. I told him that Vodafone said that the DPD driver would supply the label, he replied that "they always do this!". Anyway, he was pleasant enough, and after exchanging some details, went on his way.

After opening the box for the new router, guess what I found inside with all the paperwork... yes, a returns label sticker. Couldn't support have told me where it would be when I asked? Didn't they even know? This is pretty basic stuff.

Apart from the 3+ hours of my life lost arguing with support, it's all turned out good in the end. I can't really fault the actual broadband service, but the dire level of technical support has to be experienced to be believed.

[locknut]

Everything still working on the WiFi front.

Only problem have now is that the app won't connect to the new router, it insists that I'm connected to the wrong router. I tried resetting the app from scratch by deleting all data & cache, but it still won't have it. As soon as it gets the account info, it refuses to go any further. I guess the old router is still registered to my account, and hasn't been updated.

I guess I'll have to contact support again to fix this, but as I can access the router via a browser, it's not desperate - and I'm not desperate to go through that ordeal again.