BT Hub6 - Wireless connection repeatedly dropped

I recently upgraded my previous router BT home Hub5 to BT Home Hub6.

Installation was easy. It recommened I change my password. However, according to three password checkers, my existing password was very strong.

I was disappointed to find MAC filtering was not included.

No noticeable improvement in speed.

Wireless connection drops every two days and comes up with a "disconnected" icon against ALL wireless devices. Solution is to unplug and restart the router.

I can not see any advantage in this router over it's predecessor apart from the fact that the strong wireless signal makes it more hackable!

Firmware Version: SG4B100021F4 (22-Jun-2016) updated automatically (you cannot do it yourself).

Many adverse comments about this router on other forums.

There are multiple problems with BT hub6, including degraded speed. Took ages to go to some websites.

Reinstalling BT hub5 resolved these problems.

Try the following:

1) Turn off smart setup
2) split the 5ghz and 2.4ghz SSID and use the 5Ghz wherever the signal is strong enough
3) disable smart wireless and set a fixed channel (try a few out for best speeds)

The above setup means I have no drop outs for 14 days at a time

If it continues to drop every two days it needs replacing as that indicates a fault.

I tried 2 HH6, sold both on ebay and went back to my Plusnet1 router and have had no issues

Using HH6, there was a heavily degraded performance even with an ethernet only connection.

So I reinstalled HH5 and everything worked fine (as it did before installing HH6).

The question Is: Is the problem in HH6 with the hardware or firmware or both?

My previous BELKIN router contained MAC filtering. As it is a simple thing to incorporate, I cannot understand why BT do not include it in all their Home Hubs.

Surely, companies such as BT, should be doing everything possible to cut down on hacking into people's networks?

As somebody who works in the security industry my view is that, if an attacker is able to compromise the WPA2 encryption and / or WPS using tools such as reaver then they will almost certainly compromise MAC address filtering in a few seconds. MAC filtering should not be regarded as adding any level of security to the WiFi and you would be fooling yourself to consider it a security enhancement of any kind unless you are trying to keep out somebody with a low level of IT Skill who almost certainly would not be able to compromise WPA2/WPS in the first instance.

In my view BT do right not to include it on a mass market home router, less to go wrong. Someone somewhere will enable it by mistake, & others will enable it and have a false sense of security, perhaps some will even disable WPA2 entirely and only setup MAC filtering believing it adequately protects them.

Hello UkHardy

Thank you so much for your reply.

I used to be involved in designing encryption based systems, but retired some years ago.

Things have obviously moved on quite a lot since then. I looked at Reaver on the LifeHacker Web site and found the following:

"In a phone conversation, Craig Heffner said that the inability to shut this vulnerability down is widespread. He and others have found it to occur with every Linksys and Cisco Valet wireless access point they've tested. "On all of the Linksys routers, you cannot manually disable WPS," he said. While the Web interface has a radio button that allegedly turns off WPS configuration, "it's still on and still vulnerable.

So that's kind of a bummer. You may still want to try disabling WPS on your router if you can, and test it against Reaver to see if it helps.

You could also set up MAC address filtering on your router (which only allows specifically whitelisted devices to connect to your network), but a sufficiently savvy hacker could detect the MAC address of a whitelisted device and use MAC address spoofing to imitate that computer.

Double bummer. So what will work?

I have the open-source router firmware DD-WRT installed on my router and I was unable to use Reaver to crack its password. As it turns out, DD-WRT does not support WPS, so there's yet another reason to love the free router-booster. If that's got you interested in DD-WRT, check their supported devices list to see if your router's supported. It's a good security upgrade, and DD-WRT can also do cool things like monitor your internet usage, set up a network hard drive, act as a whole-house ad blocker, boost the range of your Wi-Fi network, and more. It essentially turns your $60 router into a $600 router."

I'll have to think more on this.

Once again, thank you for pointing this out to me.

Paul

Here is a quick guide on obtaining the MACs of devices connected to a router if interested. It quickly shows you how easy the security measure can be bypassed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAWlEJvDanA

WPS is a huge security flaw, when cracked it essentially passes over the WPA2 key. Since the vulnerability is on WPS, even setting a 60 digit WPA2 password will not slow a hacker down, they would get the full 60 digit WPA2 password in the same time frame as if an 8 digit WPA2 key was used. Of course if a home user notices the compromise, they may change their WPA2 key, usually leaving WPS to be re-exploited in the same way.

In reply to a post by Tantalus:

I recently upgraded my previous router BT home Hub5 to BT Home Hub6.

Installation was easy. It recommened I change my password. However, according to three password checkers, my existing password was very strong.

I was disappointed to find MAC filtering was not included.

No noticeable improvement in speed.

Wireless connection drops every two days and comes up with a "disconnected" icon against ALL wireless devices. Solution is to unplug and restart the router.

I can not see any advantage in this router over it's predecessor apart from the fact that the strong wireless signal makes it more hackable!

Firmware Version: SG4B100021F4 (22-Jun-2016) updated automatically (you cannot do it yourself).

Many adverse comments about this router on other forums.

There is a problem with SG4B100021F4, BT are about to push out a new firmware.

Hello UKhardy and Alnath

UKhardy, I looked at the utube video link and I agree it is very simple to bypass mac filtering given the programs the hacker now has at his disposal.

I also agree with your your comments on WPS vulnerability. Given your comments on WPS, I think I will set the password to the maximum number of characters allowed by the firmware.

Alnath, is then anyway of finding out when BT have released their updated firmware?

Paul

https://community.bt.com/t5/Connected-Devices-Other/...

In reply to a post by Tantalus:

Alnath, is then anyway of finding out when BT have released their updated firmware?

Paul

It will just dribble out knowing BT regardless of a date they set.

In reply to a post by Alnath:

In reply to a post by Tantalus:

Alnath, is then anyway of finding out when BT have released their updated firmware?

Paul

It will just dribble out knowing BT regardless of a date they set.

Yep I've not had updates months after release before lol... No rush at BT

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Here is a quick guide on obtaining the MACs of devices connected to a router if interested. It quickly shows you how easy the security measure can be bypassed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAWlEJvDanA

WPS is a huge security flaw, when cracked it essentially passes over the WPA2 key. Since the vulnerability is on WPS, even setting a 60 digit WPA2 password will not slow a hacker down, they would get the full 60 digit WPA2 password in the same time frame as if an 8 digit WPA2 key was used. Of course if a home user notices the compromise, they may change their WPA2 key, usually leaving WPS to be re-exploited in the same way.

Well I can say I just tried it on my HH4, not tried it on my Smart Hub yet, but Reaver doesn't work on the HH4 when WPS is turned off, however it does when I enabled it, so I am assuming its the same for the other BT Home Hubs.

So at least the HH4 fully disables that entire feature when turned off in the GUI, unlike some other brands that I have read about.

So I can say, just turn off WPS if you don't need to use it.

*** update in bold ***

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Sun 09-Oct-16 13:34:33)

Looks like the new firmware is rolling out, i'm not sure you could call this a conclusive success but it certainly seems positive

https://community.bt.com/t5/Connected-Devices-Other/...

In reply to a post by Alnath:

Looks like the new firmware is rolling out, i'm not sure you could call this a conclusive success but it certainly seems positive

https://community.bt.com/t5/Connected-Devices-Other/...

Is there a link to change logs?
Would be nice to see what has been fixed.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

Is there a link to change logs?
Would be nice to see what has been fixed.

Paul

This is BT we're talking about

In reply to a post by Alnath:

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

Is there a link to change logs?
Would be nice to see what has been fixed.

Paul

This is BT we're talking about

True

Well ours hasn't been updated yet.

Firmware version: SG4B100021EC
Firmware updated: 12/05/16
Board version: 1.0
Gui version: 1.28.3
Software variant: -
Boot loader: 7.33.1

So I will see how the Wi-Fi goes.

Paul

Thats the firmware mine has been on since i bought the HH6 Paul, thats got to be 2 months ago now and TBH i wish BT would just leave it at that cos it has been flawless for me.

In reply to a post by Alnath:

Thats the firmware mine has been on since i bought the HH6 Paul, thats got to be 2 months ago now and TBH i wish BT would just leave it at that cos it has been flawless for me.

Well our FTTP only went live this morning so at this point I have no clue how stable it will be.
I know the Smart Hub only like ADSL2+ connections for 3 days and then it has a hissy fit and keeps dropping the broadband connection, I thought it was my Smart Hub but a neighbour of mine had the same problem with his.

I am on the fence whether to setup a PPPoE connection on my Linux box between the ONT and our LAN and only use the Smart Hub if I have any issues.

But for now I will stay with the Smart Hub.

*** update ***
Ooops, forgot to say its a FTTP version of the Smart Hub if there really is a difference.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Fri 14-Oct-16 16:28:59)

I think the only difference is the WAN port but don't hold me to that.

I seem to be the only person that is happy with the HH6, it really is superb and only reboots once a fortnight in typical BT fashion. The range on the 5GHz side is much improved over my HH5 and the speed and range on the 2.4GHz side is a massive improvement.

Lots of WiFi problems seem to be with Apple devices though and we don't have any Apple products.

In reply to a post by Alnath:

Lots of WiFi problems seem to be with Apple devices though and we don't have any Apple products.

It goes pear-shaped?

As well as flashing its orange LED?

In reply to a post by Alnath:

I think the only difference is the WAN port but don't hold me to that.

Yeah, I think that too, the Smart Hub that we have for our FTTP connection is capable of working on BT Broadband, BT Infinity, BT Infinity 3 and 4 so it says on the GUI.
I know for a fact it starts having a hissy fit on ADSL2+ after 3 days, resulting in loosing sync and then reconnecting up to then instantly loosing it again and so on.

In reply to a post by Alnath:

I seem to be the only person that is happy with the HH6, it really is superb and only reboots once a fortnight in typical BT fashion. The range on the 5GHz side is much improved over my HH5 and the speed and range on the 2.4GHz side is a massive improvement.

I don't hate it, infact I think its a hell of a lot better than our HH4 that we use to have, we have only had ours on a FTTP connection for 1 days and it seems fine, the Wi-Fi signal reaches the back of our house through several walls where as the HH4 when in the same place did not.

In reply to a post by Alnath:

Lots of WiFi problems seem to be with Apple devices though and we don't have any Apple products.

Ah, that would explain the issues my sister got on her apple devices.
Thats no biggy if thats the only issue, easy fix would be to turn off its Wi-Fi and install some Wi-Fi points over the house.

Paul

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by Alnath:

Lots of WiFi problems seem to be with Apple devices though and we don't have any Apple products.

It goes pear-shaped?

As well as flashing its orange LED?

whay boom boom

I am very happy. It's funny that both me and you had identical issues with our HH5s and now we have perfect HH6s whereas so many people claim to have had perfect HH5s and hate the HH6 on this forum.

Not sure about the apple issues, we have these apple products in my home:

An Apple TV
4 iPhones
1 iPad
3 MacBooks

No issues with any apple device here.

Reboots once every 14 days. Never faults. It is by far the most stable ISP router I have ever used.

The only notable difference with this router is it seems to push most devices onto 5Ghz by default whereas the HH5 would barley ever put anything on 5Ghz, so maybe this behaviour results in weaker signals etc

It is firmware SG4B100021F4 that is giving problems, if you are on the earlier SG4B100021EC everything is ok .

BT now seem to be pushing out a newer one with the issues resolved one thankfully.

Does this sort the problem where nothing (and I mean nothing) I try would connect to the 2G when the bands are seperated?

Is it better to not separate them?

I still plan to use the HH6 if I get onto a service that will allow so in the future - so thought I would ask

Thanks

Have major issues with Apple devices with both HH4/5. Signal isn't great, jitter is terrible and pages can take 5 seconds to just resolve. Ethernet is perfect mind you.


Split networks, changed channels to no avail. Have ordered Ubiquity UAP-AC-LR as there doesn't seem to be a solution from BT.

In reply to a post by Alnath:

It is firmware SG4B100021F4 that is giving problems, if you are on the earlier SG4B100021EC everything is ok .

BT now seem to be pushing out a newer one with the issues resolved one thankfully.

My dad took his hub off last night and put the HH5 back on because nothing would connect to 2G. Today I put it back on and now everything is connecting without an issue

And he has SG4B100021F4 still.

Odd?

In reply to a post by 23Prince:

My dad took his hub off last night and put the HH5 back on because nothing would connect to 2G. Today I put it back on and now everything is connecting without an issue

And he has SG4B100021F4 still.

Odd?

Well we are still using the following on our SmartHub.

Firmware version: SG4B100021EC
Firmware updated: 12/05/16
Board version: 1.0
Gui version: 1.28.3
WAN: PPP Connected
Software variant: -
Boot loader: 7.33.1

Its been connected now for the last "3 Days, 7 Hours 4 Mins 49 Secs" without any glitches, I can see that most of our wireless devices are using 2.4GHz band and about half of them are also on the 5GHz band.

So as far as I can see, its all working fine for us, but I am not using Wi-Fi 24/7 to notice if it did have an issue, also we are not using firmware version SG4B100021F4.

Also have you tried playing about with the different wireless modes for the Wi-Fi?

[Wireless mode]

This mode allows you to tune your wireless features to give you the best performance with all your wireless devices.
Your BT Smart Hub is automatically set to Mode 1

Mode 1 - Gives you the fullest featured Wireless, maximising throughput and range.

Mode 2: Some devices can sometimes struggle to use the latest Wireless features, if you have any devices that can�t get a good wireless connection, try using this mode. Selecting this mode may reduce the wireless range and throughput but improve connectivity.

Mode 3: Change to this mode if your wireless devices don�t perform well using mode 1 or 2. Selecting this mode will reduce the latest features as well as wireless range and throughput compared to Mode 1 and 2. This will allow for the broadest range of devices to operate on the wireless
The features that are reduced include: power saving procedures, traffic aggregation methods and Multiple Concurrent data streams.

Just a thought.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Wed 19-Oct-16 02:27:07)

In reply to a post by Alnath:

It is firmware SG4B100021F4 that is giving problems, if you are on the earlier SG4B100021EC everything is ok .

BT now seem to be pushing out a newer one with the issues resolved one thankfully.

Yep I'm on the EC one.

Thanks for the reply Paul,

I have, and nothing was working so I took it off and put his HH5B back on because that didn't seem to have any problem..

Except for 2 really weird ones.

1. His laptop wouldn't connect - nothing in fact would connect to the 2G band (he has some Lifx light bulbs too)

2. We have a fairly powerful OVH server and through the HH5B his FTP download speeds were being throttled to around 2mbps - no idea why and it happened on every device.

But when I put the Smart Hub on - the problem went away and he was getting full line speed through it. And no where on the internet can I find out why!

In reply to a post by Alnath:

I think the only difference is the WAN port but don't hold me to that.

I seem to be the only person that is happy with the HH6, it really is superb and only reboots once a fortnight in typical BT fashion. The range on the 5GHz side is much improved over my HH5 and the speed and range on the 2.4GHz side is a massive improvement.

Lots of WiFi problems seem to be with Apple devices though and we don't have any Apple products.

We have loads of Apple devices and a HH6 and I've never had a problem. It's been an improvement over the HH5 as far as I'm concerned.

In reply to a post by Alnath:

I think the only difference is the WAN port but don't hold me to that.

I seem to be the only person that is happy with the HH6, it really is superb and only reboots once a fortnight in typical BT fashion. The range on the 5GHz side is much improved over my HH5 and the speed and range on the 2.4GHz side is a massive improvement.

Lots of WiFi problems seem to be with Apple devices though and we don't have any Apple products.

We have loads of Apple devices and a HH6 and I've never had a problem. It's been an improvement over the HH5 as far as I'm concerned.

But does it lead to double posts?

Maybe one was posted on 2.4Ghz and the other on 5Ghz?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

But does it lead to double posts?

Paul

In reply to a post by Icaras:

In reply to a post by Alnath:

I think the only difference is the WAN port but don't hold me to that.

I seem to be the only person that is happy with the HH6, it really is superb and only reboots once a fortnight in typical BT fashion. The range on the 5GHz side is much improved over my HH5 and the speed and range on the 2.4GHz side is a massive improvement.

Lots of WiFi problems seem to be with Apple devices though and we don't have any Apple products.

We have loads of Apple devices and a HH6 and I've never had a problem. It's been an improvement over the HH5 as far as I'm concerned.

You wont have a problem if you aren't running SG4B100021F4

When was this firmware pushed out?

I've had two Hub 6s and neither of them got this firmware.

My first hub 6 I knocked straight off the side and smashed it on the floor! BT took pity on me and replaced for free.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

When was this firmware pushed out?

I've had two Hub 6s and neither of them got this firmware.

My first hub 6 I knocked straight off the side and smashed it on the floor! BT took pity on me and replaced for free.

Well our Smart Hub did a reboot about 16 mins ago and took a lot longer to connect up to the ONT.
When it finally connected all back up I did a speed test and noticed that we now have IPv6 enabled and that our smart hub is now running a newer firmware.

Product name: BT Hub 6A
Firmware version: SG4B10002236
Firmware updated: 24-Oct-2016
Board version: 1.0
Gui version: 1.32.0
WAN: PPP Connected
...
Software variant: -
Boot loader: 7.33.1

Hub IPv6 status: Enabled
IPv6 network status: Enabled

Just in case anyone asks, no Band steering is still not enabled on the Wi-Fi.

I also did a TBB Speed Test and it shows its using IPv6, so I guess its now got IPv6

Paul

Got it as well

I hope it doesnt mess anything up

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Got it as well

I hope it doesnt mess anything up

Well sadly my sister who has all the apple devices (iPhone, Mac Book Pro, etc) just told me this morning that her devices lost Wi-Fi connection and also lost the Wi-Fi connection information on those devices.

So maybe its an apple issue ?

I have not seen any issues with my Android devices, but then again I have them is battery saving mode so it only enables Wi-Fi and connects when I use it, so I probably won't see any issues unless I was using my devices over a long period of time.

Paul

Actually, my android phone works fine, sadly my android tablet fails to connect, it just says saved, then says connecting, and then back to saved.

This is happening to two tablets and a Wii u.

Paul

Having both a type a and type b smart hub - and all apple devices, macbook pro's, iphones, also android devices, never had any issues with either.

SG4B10002236 arrived at 9.19 last night which has to be the oddest time to do something like that with a router, anyway so far so good (but i wasn't having problems anyway)

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

But does it lead to double posts?

Indeed, that's the only problem I've found with the thing.

In reply to a post by Alnath:

SG4B10002236 arrived at 9.19 last night which has to be the oddest time to do something like that with a router, anyway so far so good (but i wasn't having problems anyway)

Yeah, ours was about 03:30 in the morning, was sodding woke up by family member moaning internet was down.

We have had some strange issues with ours with that version, where apple and android devices would say "connecting" then "saved" and back to "connecting" again and kept repeating that.

The strange thing was that my Android Phone had no issues what so ever.

Not tried them today.

Paul

Well, once again Wi-Fi is broken resulting in all our devices "Connecting" then "Saved" then back to "Connecting" and so on.

I have tried having them separated, Joined, both result in the same.

Also on top of that the GUI / Pages on the Smart Hub are 9 / 10 unresponsive and the browser times out the page.
I have tried it in Edge, IE11, Chrome all seem to have this issue.

It took me 5 to 10 mins to actually log onto the damn thing, sadly all I could do is just reboot the thing.

See I had absolutely no issues before they patched the firmware, now I do, so BT have broken something.

In my eyes I must say BT should of called it the [censored] Hub because that's what it is at the moment.
Its a shame because I really did like it when it was working.

One thing I did notice was in our case this time it was the 2.4GHz Band having the issue.

So now I have to either look for an equivalent box to be run in WAN Mode that can handle all the throughput or disable the Wi-Fi and just use it wired connections and use a different box for the Wi-Fi Access Points.

I currently have 2 HH4 (Type A), a Fritz!Box 3390 and the Smart Hub.

So I can play about mixing and matching until its works as intended.

Paul

I have the same issue with the HH5.
So got my self one of thesehttp://www.edimax.com/edimax/merchandise/merchandise_detail/data/edimax/global/home_access_points_ac450/ew-7288apc/

USB powered which powers from the USB port on the back of the Home Hub. Now WiFi coverage in the house is brilliant. Much stronger than the HH and does not drop at all.

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Got it as well

I hope it doesnt mess anything up

Well sadly my sister who has all the apple devices (iPhone, Mac Book Pro, etc) just told me this morning that her devices lost Wi-Fi connection and also lost the Wi-Fi connection information on those devices.

So maybe its an apple issue ?

I have not seen any issues with my Android devices, but then again I have them is battery saving mode so it only enables Wi-Fi and connects when I use it, so I probably won't see any issues unless I was using my devices over a long period of time.

Paul

I have had my HH6 for a few months and have had wi-fi connection issues several times.
My wife's Samsung phone kept dropping the connection, so I sent it back to Samsung and it appeared to be fixed..
Then after a few weeks it wouldn't connect at all. At the same time my printer refused to connect. My phone is a LG3 which so far has not had any trouble.
I decided to get my wife a new phone and replace my printer, but I thought one last throw of the dice, I will restart the router.
Now I was loath to do this as I always lose quite a lot of speed when I restart, still I went ahead. Low and behold both devices connected.
It seems that this lasts some times a week or two or sometimes a few weeks.
No good speaking to BT. I have had a replacement already from an earlier fault. Which was an epic experience.
I have a perfectly good HH5 that never gave me a problem, but I am not sure if it is enabled for IPV6. Also my speed jumped up nearly 10 Mbps a couple of weeks ago and I don't want to lose that.
Choices eh?

Edited by deleted (Thu 03-Nov-16 09:54:36)

This is all a bit bonkers, my HH6 hasn't not missed a beat since day one, i am delighted with it, you do have to wonder if there is a batch of crocked ones in the wild.

In reply to a post by Alnath:

This is all a bit bonkers, my HH6 hasn't not missed a beat since day one, i am delighted with it, you do have to wonder if there is a batch of crocked ones in the wild.

Likewise I have had 2 different firmware versions and 2 hubs and no issues. It's actually the only ISP router I cannot complain about.

I think there is a bad batch - also there are two types A & B and I have never had a type B.

Now I was loath to do this as I always lose quite a lot of speed when I restart, still I went ahead. Low and behold both devices connected.

Worth noting the Homehub reboots every 14 days anyway.

I would try to get a replacement again, I do feel there is a bad batch of these hubs floating around given the amount of complaints.

Just a heads up, you didn't need to reboot the Smart Hub to get the Wi-Fi working again if its not working.
You just need to disable the Wi-Fi, save the settings and then re-enable it and save once again and it should be working.

As for rebooting the entire Smart Hub, I am lucky there due to I am on FTTP and the Smart Hub is used in WAN mode so no matter how many time I reboot the thing I won't have any speed loss.

So the next time your Wi-Fi stops working try the first option first.

Paul

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Now I was loath to do this as I always lose quite a lot of speed when I restart, still I went ahead. Low and behold both devices connected.

Worth noting the Homehub reboots every 14 days anyway.

Is that even if its used in WAN mode for FTTP?
I have had my one for about a few months but only used it for the last 20 days when our FTTP went live and ours has only rebooted the once when it got the latest firmware update and the enabling of IPv6 and that's it.

So I am wondering if used in WAN mode if it still does its reset, I assume the ONT "might" need to do a reboot once and a while, but I am thinking that it might not due to FVA.

But I might be wrong.

Paul

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

In reply to a post by Alnath:

This is all a bit bonkers, my HH6 hasn't not missed a beat since day one, i am delighted with it, you do have to wonder if there is a batch of crocked ones in the wild.

Likewise I have had 2 different firmware versions and 2 hubs and no issues. It's actually the only ISP router I cannot complain about.

I think there is a bad batch - also there are two types A & B and I have never had a type B.

Well ours was fine (well it only affected my sisters apple devices) until we got that SG4B10002236 on the 24th but now it affects all Wi-Fi devices.

So that latest firmware has mad things worse.

I can normally resolve the issue by disabling Wi-Fi, save, enable Wi-Fi save and its fine again, but last night the Smart Hub become very sluggish and took me several mins to login, the hubs pages was very slow to respond to a point where the browser report it being nonresponsive etc and yes it happened in different browsers.
When it got this this stage I had to do a full reboot.

I am going to time how long it takes to get back to this stage again and then try to disable the whole Wi-Fi and use one of our old HH4 or FRITZ!Box 3390 as a Wi-Fi Access Point.

And then see how it goes.

Oh hand ours is a type A (BT Hub 6A) if we have no joy with our Smart Hub I will be phoning BT for a replacement.

Paul

In my experience the only time the hub becomes unresponsive is when it drops broadband connection.

With regards to rebooting with an ONT I feel it likely will still reboot but the firmware for FTTP customers is apparently slightly different so who knows.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

In my experience the only time the hub becomes unresponsive is when it drops broadband connection.

With regards to rebooting with an ONT I feel it likely will still reboot but the firmware for FTTP customers is apparently slightly different so who knows.

Well I have yet to loose our actual connection, I know I have only seen the Smart Hub reboot with the new firmware update + IPv6 and that's it.

As for the ONT, I would never know if that's rebooted or lost the actual connection.
Unless there will be some sort of WAN Logs on the Smart Hub.

So overall I am assuming when the Smart Hub is being used in WAN mode it has less issues that could go wrong than when used as a whole.

Paul

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Now I was loath to do this as I always lose quite a lot of speed when I restart, still I went ahead. Low and behold both devices connected.

Worth noting the Homehub reboots every 14 days anyway.

I would try to get a replacement again, I do feel there is a bad batch of these hubs floating around given the amount of complaints.

Thanks for the advice, I just don't know if I can face the rigmarole of going through the same questions from the tech desk and being told that there is nothing wrong the the kit.
It took weeks to get a replacement last time and was told that because I had trouble with other routers, HH4 and HH5 they thought I was complaining unnecessarily.
Does anyone know how to bypass the initial phase and get on to someone at BT that actually knows what she or he are talking about.
Update on the restart I did yesterday, I notice that it had updated the firmware at the sametime. SG4B10002236.
This morning the Samsung phone had lost connection but the printer was still connected.
We really don't need this. We should not have to know or bother with this stuff.
I don't know anything about my car. I shouldn't have to. Just get in it and drive.

Wi-Fi dropped and broke again, only way to get it working again is to disable Wi-Fi and then re-enable it.

Paul

Hello

I reverted to HH5 and have had no problems over the past month..

With regard to other posts, we have no Apple devices.

In view of the large number of people reporting faulty BT hub 6's, my belief is that there is something fundamentally wrong with the firmware and hardware design.

Paul

Edited by Tantalus (Thu 10-Nov-16 20:25:23)

In reply to a post by Tantalus:

Hello

I reverted to HH5 and have had no problems over the past month..

With regard to other posts, we have no Apple devices.

In view of the large number of people reporting faulty BT hub 6's, my belief is that there is something fundamentally wrong with the firmware and hardware design.

Paul

Well the original firmware that we had on our Smart Hub was fine on all my Android devices and only affected my sisters Apple devices.

Now since the latest firmware it now has issues with both Apple and Android devices, so its now worse.

Like I have said in one of my previous replies, I will most probably just disable the Wi-Fi and connect up one or two Wi-Fi Access Points.

But I might bring up this issue when I speak to my case handler at BT on Tuesday, they might just replace it.

Paul

In reply to a post by Tantalus:

Hello

I reverted to HH5 and have had no problems over the past month..

With regard to other posts, we have no Apple devices.

In view of the large number of people reporting faulty BT hub 6's, my belief is that there is something fundamentally wrong with the firmware and hardware design.

Paul

I noticed my HH5 firmware was update on Tuesday 8th November, if this happens nationally, has it affected things for the better or worse?

In reply to a post by woodroyd:

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Now I was loath to do this as I always lose quite a lot of speed when I restart, still I went ahead. Low and behold both devices connected.

Worth noting the Homehub reboots every 14 days anyway.

I would try to get a replacement again, I do feel there is a bad batch of these hubs floating around given the amount of complaints.

Thanks for the advice, I just don't know if I can face the rigmarole of going through the same questions from the tech desk and being told that there is nothing wrong the the kit.
It took weeks to get a replacement last time and was told that because I had trouble with other routers, HH4 and HH5 they thought I was complaining unnecessarily.
Does anyone know how to bypass the initial phase and get on to someone at BT that actually knows what she or he are talking about.
Update on the restart I did yesterday, I notice that it had updated the firmware at the sametime. SG4B10002236.
This morning the Samsung phone had lost connection but the printer was still connected.
We really don't need this. We should not have to know or bother with this stuff.
I don't know anything about my car. I shouldn't have to. Just get in it and drive.

I decided to bite the bullet this morning as the HH6 lost wi-fi connection again.
I rang BT and once again spoke to a customer care advisor, who predictably went through his tests and told me that there was no problem with the broadband supply. Eventually I got across the message that it was the router wi-fi that was the problem and that I had to turn it off and then turn it back on to get my devices connected. I pointed out that I never suffered these problems with my HH5 and didn't see why the 6 would.
Wait for it. He suggested that I put the HH5 back on and see how it goes for 2 days.
If it is OK leave it on.
I know, I couldn't believe it either.
What should I do with the HH6? I asked,
I tried to point out that there were many complaints about the device on forums and why would not BT accept the fact that some were faulty.
Getting no where I asked for the complaint to be escalated. He told me that there was a 4 hour wait to speak to a manager. OK I said, I'll wait. In the end I hung up as I had another call to make.
While I was doing that, my mobile rang. It was the advisor I had dealt with, who told me that he was sending out another HH6.
Worth it in the end.
Will the replacement be any better?
I will let you know.

Hope so I think there is a bad batch out there. Mine is flawless as are some others.

Interestingly I have 2, on one of them I struggle to get a connection sometimes, the issue is basically the router gives an IP out such as 192.168.1.75. In the router GUI it says this is "static" even though it was allocated over DHCP. I then connect in another device and the GUI says it has allocated 192.168.1.75 over DHCP to the 2nd device... The new device then gets stuck trying to connect e.g iPhone will just show spinning circle but never resolve an IP.

Both were flawless until recent firmware.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Hope so I think there is a bad batch out there. Mine is flawless as are some others.

Interestingly I have 2, on one of them I struggle to get a connection sometimes, the issue is basically the router gives an IP out such as 192.168.1.75. In the router GUI it says this is "static" even though it was allocated over DHCP. I then connect in another device and the GUI says it has allocated 192.168.1.75 over DHCP to the 2nd device... The new device then gets stuck trying to connect e.g iPhone will just show spinning circle but never resolve an IP.

Both were flawless until recent firmware.

Well like I have said in one of my last replies, our was fine with the default firmware, granted it only affected my sisters apple devices and all our android devices was all fine, now since the latest firmware all Wi-Fi devices fail to connect every 4 to 7 days.

I don't think its a DHCP issue due to we are using our own DHCP Server and have the Smart Hubs one disabled, so its not that.

Its not our devices due to they had no issues on our HH4 and our FRITZ!Box 3390, so the issue is with the Smart Hub.

Don't get me wrong, when it works its great, I still think all the ads referring to the stronger signal is a load of rubbish, it has the same signal strength as our HH4, even my FRITZ!Box was better.

Paul

My talktalk Hg635 blows the range out of the water, so agree with those comments.

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

In reply to a post by Alnath:

This is all a bit bonkers, my HH6 hasn't not missed a beat since day one, i am delighted with it, you do have to wonder if there is a batch of crocked ones in the wild.

Likewise I have had 2 different firmware versions and 2 hubs and no issues. It's actually the only ISP router I cannot complain about.

I think there is a bad batch - also there are two types A & B and I have never had a type B.

Well ours was fine (well it only affected my sisters apple devices) until we got that SG4B10002236 on the 24th but now it affects all Wi-Fi devices.

So that latest firmware has mad things worse.

I can normally resolve the issue by disabling Wi-Fi, save, enable Wi-Fi save and its fine again, but last night the Smart Hub become very sluggish and took me several mins to login, the hubs pages was very slow to respond to a point where the browser report it being nonresponsive etc and yes it happened in different browsers.
When it got this this stage I had to do a full reboot.

I am going to time how long it takes to get back to this stage again and then try to disable the whole Wi-Fi and use one of our old HH4 or FRITZ!Box 3390 as a Wi-Fi Access Point.

And then see how it goes.

Oh hand ours is a type A (BT Hub 6A) if we have no joy with our Smart Hub I will be phoning BT for a replacement.

Paul

Only difference SG4B10002236 has made to me is it now syncs at a higher rate with about a 4Mbit gain and the noise margin has raised by 1db (My Smart Hub is a Type A)

In reply to a post by Alnath:

Only difference SG4B10002236 has made to me is it now syncs at a higher rate with about a 4Mbit gain and the noise margin has raised by 1db (My Smart Hub is a Type A)

Well with FTTP syncing wasn't an issue due to it always syncs at the paid for speed no matter what.

Yeah mine is Type A also.

I am due to get our phone line moved over to FVA Monday and due a phone call on Tuesday I will enquire about the Smart Hub, because its a pile of junk due to the broken Wi-Fi, the same thing is I am limited to what I use due to it has to be used in WAN mode and have a high bandwidth.

Paul