IP Profile at a low 82% of the Connection Speed

DLM on my line has just completed its change to 3dB SNR margin with G.INP enabled, achieving a connection speed of 60192 kbps. Unfortunately the IP Profile seems stuck at 49.47 Mbps, ie 82% of the connection speed.

What is the best way to resolve this "stuck" IP Profile? My ISP has reset the DLM but initial tests are still showing the IP Profile at 49.47.

Any thoughts on this please, is it a waiting game or does something need to reset the IP Profile?

Is the ISP Plusnet I wonder ?

Yes, you must have seen my help request ?

In reply to a post by dgilbert2:

Yes, you must have seen my help request ?

Probably not. Plusnet are just bad for still having this issue that other providers stopped being a problem many years ago.

With Plusnet it's mainly an issue for customers who pay extra for a static IP. I would not be surprised to hear you pay for a static IP.

They need to reset your line profile/IP Profile. A DLM reset won't help. In fact a DLM reset would send you straight back to a 6dB SNRM target.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

.....With Plusnet it's mainly an issue for customers who pay extra for a static IP. I would not be surprised to hear you pay for a static IP.....

In my case I do not have a static IP but yes, I'm now straight back at a 6dB SNRM target following the DLM reset.

I have seen various comments that the IP Profile is not something that can be reset by the ISP or BT, which I find most odd when its clearly "capping" at a lower profile. I'm well confused at the moment on how this can get resolved even though its a recognised "profile mismatch" fault

This is an issue with Plusnet and I believe it has got worse in recent months. For reference I have a business VDSL connection with them with /29 of IPv4.

Years ago you could beat the IP profile into shape by dropping PPP, waiting ten minutes and reconnecting.

At some point things changed so that I would have to drop PPP, wait 10 minutes, reconnect and the IP profile would come right in the small hours of the next morning.

Now my best guess is you have to drop PPP, wait 30s, drop VDSL, wait some amount of time (30 minutes was enough), then re-establish link (I gave it a minute between VDSL sync and starting PPPoE) - and it will update overnight.

Having seen the OP's thread on the Plusnet Forum I don't think the Plusnet's Current Line Speed profile is to blame in this case.
The BT Wholesale IP profile is stuck at 49.47Mbps. When DLM reduced the SNRM target to 3dB resulting in a increase of around 4.5Mbps the IP profile did not change.

Plusnet do not seem to have realised that it is the IP profile that is stuck so have carried out a DLM reset which as you say will not help and the sync speed has dropped to 52.15Mbps with a 6.3db SNRM, the IP profile is still stuck, it should be around 47.45Mbps or even less because the line appears to be on G.Inp with retransmission high.

The problem is the BT Wholesale IP profile is not tracking the current sync speed.

In reply to a post by ft247:

.....Now my best guess is you have to drop PPP, wait 30s, drop VDSL, wait some amount of time (30 minutes was enough), then re-establish link (I gave it a minute between VDSL sync and starting PPPoE) - and it will update overnight.

Thank you for your suggestion. When DLM has "lost interest" following yesterdays reset, I will give this a try in a couple of weeks.

In reply to a post by Realalemadrid:

....Plusnet do not seem to have realised that it is the IP profile that is stuck so have carried out a DLM reset which as you say will not help .....

....The problem is the BT Wholesale IP profile is not tracking the current sync speed.

This was my original thought, but I've not seen any examples of how this is resolved. I'm wondering though if I changed to a static IP if this would bypass the current profile speed restriction? The other suggestion by ft247 to drop the connection for 30 minutes could be another one to try when DLM has put me back on 3dB SNRM in a couple of weeks.

A static IP will not help, the speed would still be capped by the BT Wholesale (or is it Openreach?) profile and by Plusnet's internal profile which is supposed to track the BT one and it sometimes doesn't!. This has been long standing problem and is possibly what ft247 has been suffering from on a static IP address.

You could try dropping the connection now to see if the IP profile changes as it is not correct for your sync speed, a single drop and re-connection should not upset DLM.

If you eventually have to get an Openreach engineer to visit I have a feeling they might be a bit baffled by this problem.

Plusnet are the worst provider for the IP Profile stuck many times over the years. I did complaint and raised with PN many times in the past - nothing was fixed as a promise.

Since moving to other ISP the profile struck has disappear and always matched BTw one straight away.

It's PN end - the biggest problem still ONGOING.

In reply to a post by Realalemadrid:

A static IP will not help, the speed would still be capped by the BT Wholesale (or is it Openreach?).....
....... If you eventually have to get an Openreach engineer to visit I have a feeling they might be a bit baffled by this problem.

Thank you, at least I can forget about a static IP option.

I agree, I'm nervous about an engineers visit and being hit with a no fault found call out charge. I will have to see how things progress in the coming days.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

......Since moving to other ISP the profile struck has disappear and always matched BTw one straight away.

It's PN end - the biggest problem still ONGOING.

Having just signed up for another 2 years, I'm hoping lessons have been learnt to fix this otherwise I'm well stuck. Can live in hope!

Hope the engineer didn't pass the call out charge to you from plusnet if no fault is found. It's happen to my parents get billed £65 few months ago, they not happy at all.

Did you check plusnet member account online via current line speed if they are matched to BT side for ip profile.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Did you check plusnet member account online via current line speed if they are matched to BT side for ip profile.

Yes, it does align with the stuck IP Profile from speedtest.btwholesale.com

Update (as also posted on the PN Forum)

Following the feedback from ft247 and Realalemadrid, yesterday afternoon I decided to disconnect for 30 minutes (dropped PPPoE, wait 30s, dropped VDSL, wait 30 minutes, re-established VDSL then PPPoE). I also followed this with a quick reboot this morning. I then must have been bored, (or something like that!) and put a summary table together of what has been happening:

https://i.postimg.cc/PqFq1MWk/IP-Table.png

I will not be manually touching the modem again to avoid upsetting DLM!!!

The 30 minute disconnect seems to of had a positive impact:

a) I've now got a new IP, the old one I'd had for almost 6 months, in fact I was beginning to think the system had stopped renewing them after a period of time.

b) The IP Profile changed to 46.85 and again to 48.08 on the last reboot. Now in my mind this is perhaps a positive sign? I.e. the IP profile has actually changed now, tracking the connection speed at around 92.5%, which seems to make sense?

So I'm beginning to hope, with fingers crossed, that when the SNRM starts to drop, I will start to climb above the dreaded stuck IP Profile of 49.47. Now I know I'm tempting fate, but I wonder if in the next couple of days it will increase to around 50.2 :face_with_open_mouth:, lets see.........

Retx High (High G.INP) gives an IP Profile roughly 91-92% of the sync speed.
So that matches what you are seeing now.

Retx Low gives an IP Profile that's exactly 96.69% of the sync speed.
It may only be exactly that figure on Broadcom chipset modems and may differ very slightly on other modems.

Also to add you won't upset the DLM if you leave 30 minutes between disconnecting and reconnecting. It doesn't even count that as a resync.
The DLM monitors lines using 15 minute bins. It's only if you disconnect and reconnect in the same 15 minute bin that it gets counted as 1 resync. So leaving it 30 minutes guarantees that it isn't counted as a resync.

**You are also allowed 5, 10 or 20 resyncs a day, depending on the DLM policy chosen by the ISP, before the DLM thinks there is a problem.
1 or 2 resyncs in a 24 hour period will have no negative consequences to any line.

**The DLM thresholds have changed a bit over the years and those figures may no longer be exact but they haven't (and almost certainly won't) change enough that a couple resyncs will make a difference.

In saying all that it is understandable to not want to upset the temperamental DLM.

Many thanks j0hn83 for the additional information.

I've been updating my PN post, but in summary my IP Profile is once again stuck after the second DLM reset. See updated table below;

https://i.postimg.cc/DzBvbZXp/IP-Profile3.png

So my question is, has anyone else experienced this locking of the IP Profile after a DLM reset in the last few weeks, as I struggle to think I'm the only one?

We had an Openreach engineer visit today who did a thorough job checking everything out, also performing another DLM reset. The IP Profile now aligns again to the connection speed and he also advised there was nothing to suggest any cabling issues between the router and the cabinet.

The Plusnet Hub 2 though is now connected direct rather than going through the Openreach HG612. The engineer wondered if the Openreach modem was blocking some data from the Hub 2, preventing IP profile updates. I'll continue to monitor the Hub 2 with this direct connection over the coming days. If it does indeed need a direct connection, I may go back to the Plusnet Hub One / HG612 when DLM has done it's thing, as that is my preferred setup, which in the past didn't have this issue.

I don't fully understand how the HG612 could be the problem to be honest, but as the Hub 2 is not intended to go with the HG612, I guess this needs proving out one way or another.

Anyway, back to monitoring what happens over the coming days.

Update following Hub 2 direct dsl connection trial as promised.

Over a few days I kept the Hub2 connected direct via dsl to the master socket, monitoring the IP Profile, until DLM dropped the SNRM to 5dB. At this point I swapped back to connecting through the Hub2 WAN port/HG612, updated table attached.

https://i.postimg.cc/kGFFnBj2/IP-Profile-Update.png

What this has shown is that when the Hub2 is connected direct via the dsl port, the IP profile updates whenever there is a DLM re-sync, but when connected through the WAN port/HG612, it doesn’t. What I discovered however, is that a quick reboot (through the Hub2’s Restart tab), but leaving the HG612/VDSL up, correctly updates the IP Profile. It also updates by a quick Hub2 “Broadband Disconnect” and connect cycle.

So the question is why is there an IP Profile update issue with the Hub2/HG612 setup, when it works fine with the Hub One/HG612? I will avoid getting into possible technical reasoning as I’m not familiar enough with the intricacies of PPP/DSLAM/DLM/bRAS/IP Profile etc., all I can do is show my findings and work around.

From the Hub2 Technical Log I can see that when the dsl port connection is lost, PPP detects it and re-establishes PPP again when dsl is restored. However, there is no PPP activity if the vdsl connection through WAN is lost. This suggests that PPP plays a part in the overall IP Profile update?

So now I know all this, going forward I can stick with the Hub2 / HG612, knowing I just need to restart/reconnect the Hub2 if the IP Profile is not updated. Now I’m nearly back on 3dB SNRM though, everything should settle back down to infrequent DLM interest.

In reply to a post by dgilbert2:

From the Hub2 Technical Log I can see that when the dsl port connection is lost, PPP detects it and re-establishes PPP again when dsl is restored. However, there is no PPP activity if the vdsl connection through WAN is lost. This suggests that PPP plays a part in the overall IP Profile update?

That would make sense. When you connect via PPP the IP profile info is sent to the BNG in as part of the setup, this is part of the Radius authorisation message. That would be to the BT Wholesale box if you are on a dynamic IP or the BT Wholesale and Plusnet boxes if you are on a static IP.

If the re-sync is fast enough that it doesn't trigger a PPP drop/reconnect then the profile typically wouldn't get updated. There is a mechanism called Radiius COA to change it on an active PPP session but I don't think BT ever implemented it. Sounds like for some reason the older hub did have a PPP reconnect, so I guess the timers must be different on the Hub 2?

The Hub 2 will be designed to work plugged straight into the VDSL line for FTTC or into a ONT for FTTP so the way you are using is probably not an officially supported scenario/method they would have tested, which could explain why you are seeing this.