THG3000 username / password anomaly

[P3asa]

2 days ago I had the THG3000 installed for full fibre 900.

All was going well until I changed the Username and Password. Username is 2 words no special characters. Password is 12  characters with 1 upper and a special character to meet the standards.

The router accepted the changes and I connected all my WiFi devices. However within 15 minutes they all fell off the network, and my laptop and mobile report, "Connection Failed". The Lan connection still worked but going in to the Gatewey of the router it reported that nothing was connected, even although the laptop was connected by rj45 to the router. The speed had went from 900 down to 100.

I reset the router and ran with the default name and password for 6 hours with no issues. I then changed it to my preferred username / password and again within 15 minutes the same scenario happened again. The wifi dropped everything.

I have since reset and put a similar username in and similar password and it's been fine but the thought of having to reinstall all my smart devices, including having to take my ring doorbell off the well to gain access to the QR code frightens me, so I then changed username / password again to my preferred and yeah the same thing has happened again. Non wifi connection.

I contacted Vodafone and the technical help could see my speed had dropped dramatically. He couldn't get the issue with the wifi. He has sent out an engineer that is due today.

The router is connected to a Netgear POE switch but I don't think that's anything to do with the problem. Interestingly I downloaded the vodafone app and changed the password that way to my preferred and it appeared to work butbinonly tested it for a few hours.

Has anyone had anything similar?

[Ripshod]

I had the same thing. I believe that even though the support agents have access to all these different pushable configurations, they don't have a scooby what they are/do. 

[P3asa]

I don't have any boosters. I suspect the agent thought he was doing me a favour.

As it turns out I've not resolved the problem at all.

Any time I use a different username that is say just 1 letter different to the Username and Password I want to use, the router appears to work flawlessly. As soon as I change it to my preferred Username it then becomes unreachable. I now believe there must be a file somewhere in the router that isn't deleting when it is reset, that contains a corrupt file of my preferred username / password.

[Jayach]

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@P3asa wrote:
I now believe there must be a file somewhere in the router that isn't deleting when it is reset, that contains a corrupt file of my preferred username / password.

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There is nothing held in the router that should survive a factory reset. I personally prefer to do the factory reset from the firmware.

[CrimsonLiar]

*I don't know so much about certain things managing to survive a hardware reset.  Technicolor was playing around with a system of modular router BIOSs at one point, though unless you are a verified commercial user getting the info is almost impossible.  Though combining that with phone support who don't "have a scooby" seems a recipe for disaster.

On the original point, there is nothing in the WPA2 specs that stops you from having a space in a password, but it's not considered good practice, and some code prevents it.  I would guess that there is some code in the router that allows spaces to be used in passwords and then elsewhere something that throws a wobbly when it comes across the same!
A little bit of research revealed to me, how much less secure WPA2 is than I'd realised.

[P3asa]

Thanks. The password was just one word ending in numbers and a special character. Nothing out of the ordinary. 

I suspect my mobile / laptop are holding a corrupt file somewhere as it just doesn't make sense.

Also quite annoying that I keep getting text messages sating my problem has now been resolved 😀

I'll try again.