Intermittent Connectivity Problems

Over the last week and a half we have been having intermittent connectivity problems across all devices connected to the router.

The symptoms are that connectivity just stops. Initially it seemed to resolve itself if left for 10-15 minutes with turgid download speeds immediately afterwards and then speeding up to normal. It now it seems to have progressed to needing a restart of the Sky Hub most of the time.

This was all preceded by some browser slowdowns for the last month and a half where it went into rotating beach ball mode (on an iMac). Initially this seemed to be only seen on the iMac, but later on my son's iPad also started exhibiting similar symptoms.

Not sure whether these were directly related or not.

I have been in touch with Sky Support three times now and have now got it escalated to the back office team.

It's taken us a week to get to where we are now with Sky and there is a target solution time of 5 working days for the back office team. I was already looking to migrate away from Sky, but this has certainly raised the ante in terms of making the right decision from a support perspective.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on what might be causing this and how much analysis I should be doing at home, just in case we get to Engineer call out stage. Not keen to get charged by OR!

What do the router statistics in the Sky Hub say when you have this problem? And what are they normally

Also have you checked that it affected Ethernet connected devices the same as wireless ones?

Hi Andrew,

Yes all devices impacted, regardless of whether wired or wireless.

Current stats are:

Router Statistics
System Up Time: 10:28:35
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collision Pkts Tx b/s Rx b/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 651850 825482 0 49703 125504 10:26:43
LAN Up 183193 159222 0 7088 10331 10:28:35
WLAN Up 712293 543387 0 439609 51013 10:28:03

Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 18410 kbps 1040 kbps
Line Attenuation 26.5 dB 15.1 dB
Noise Margin 6.2 dB 7.7 dB

To be honest, I can't see much difference between the router stats when we are and aren't having problems.

Sky's initial line checks also suggest there is no obvious issue with the line.

Try http://labs.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest next time its bad, and before then.

In normal conditions the two different download tests should be almost identical.

When it's bad, it's so bad that in essence it isn't a working connection.

I had a text from Sky yesterday morning suggesting that the issue had been fixed, although when I rang in they couldn't actually tell me anything other than the call had been closed (probably because the agent on Sunday evening hadn't attached the line test results, although she couldn't rule out that the fault had been fixed as they are not provided with any of this information bu their network team.

All was good yesterday, but the connection has failed again this morning. Across two devices this morning (Win laptop & iMac) only one web page tried to load and after ten minutes it was only partially populated, so there is something dribbling through, but to all extent and purposes, it's a non working connection

I have just been on the phone to Sky and they are telling me my line is fine and the router stats support this.

I have proved to the agent this morning that pulling the modem cable out the router resets the WAN connection and resolves the issue, yet all I got from the agent was advice to reset the wireless connections (even though the two devices that I was using were wired connections!). He also advised swapping the ethernet cables over for new ones as well, but I did point out that two ethernet cables failing at the same time was highly improbable.

So Sky say the line is fine, which the front end stats support, but resetting the WAN connection resolves the issue at least temporarily.

The only variables I can change are the faceplate splitter or the router.

I find it difficult to believe that it is the faceplate that is causing the issues otherwise I would be seeing reduced sync speeds and drop outs.

I'm not willing to pay for another Sky router (as I was intending to migrate anyway), but will see if my old 02 wireless box will still connect.

Other than that I'm down to googling how to get the configuration details from a Sky box so I can use one of my collection of aged routers (DG834GT anyone?!!). Happy to take PM advice on how to do this.

It does feel like an equipment problem either with the router or at the exchange, but in essence Sky are washing their hands of the problem and just saying there's nothing they can do.

I might be testing out a few other ISPs in terms of their fault processing steps today. Pulse8 and TTB are in the box seats, but willing to spread the net further if required.

If anybody has got any suggestions of what the fault might be or what else I can do to try and diagnose, please let me know.

I am one very unhappy Sky customer at the moment!

Perhaps this thread would be better appearing in the ISP Unhappiness thread!

Is your sky connection adsl or fibre?

If adsl you can use the default settings

Encapsulation: PPPoA
Username: [email protected]
Password: install
VPI: 0
VCI: 38
Multiplexing: VC-BASED
MTU: 1500

Edited by deleted (Tue 18-Oct-16 09:25:57)

This may seem like a strange question, but do you have any Windows 10 PCs on your network?

Reason I ask is that I had a similar issue where it seemed like the internet connection would just stop intermittently. I eventually found the cause to be my two Win 10 PCs as when they decided to download Windows updates, they would just max out my entire bandwidth with no regard to any other application or device. Until just over a week ago I had a 5Mbit ADSL connection (now finally have 80Mbit fibre) and the update downloads would in some cases take at least an hour and stop me from accessing the internet with no way of pausing them. Disconnecting the internet and resetting the connection may well make Windows see it's lost connection and suspend the download, thus freeing up the connection.

I noticed you said the issue happened again this morning with a Windows laptop connected, and I know there's been quite a few big updates released by Microsoft in the last day or so.

This may well not be the issue, but I thought I'd mention it if only to cover all angles.

ADSL.

I have just reinstalled the 02 Wireless box, which still works so may not need the information, but it's always useful to have (at least for the limited time I intend to say with Sky)

Thanks for your help.