Connected but intermittant access

Been struggling with a Sky fibre connection at home where the router never looses its connection but often when surfing the web all connected kit flags up "no connection to server" yet router shows connection light and in settings. Classic scenario is to read thru a page of info and click for more only to find the tab icon revolving. Pulling the router lead until it flags up a lost connection achieves the same as rebooting in that a fresh connection is made, otherwise there can be a 10second to several minutes wait if you just sit there letting it "return". Problem occurs intermittantly and randomly.

Eventually contacted sky and an Openreach linesman checked all his side finding no fault with the exception that the router showed high noise on the line but it did produce a pass on their test equipment. The linesman being unable to delve into the fibre side at the exchange had leave it there and sky admit the noise level is higher than normal but as the system is working they are not keen to order a fibre engineer to check that side (200m to fibre cabinet and 5miles to Basingstoke exchange )

Now there is a recent development in that two BT connections at work in rural locations nearby are also "lagging"- one I solely use daily, 5mbps ADSL to Monk Sherborne exchange and this also keeps the connection but the service drifts off the same as the sky home. The other site a BT 10mbps fibre is fed from a rural fibre cabinet and back to the Sherfield on Loddon exchange, this is also experiencing the same "lagging" as I term it.

All sites have a mixture of wifi and lan connections as at first the culprit seemed to be a wifi issue but all 3 sites lan connections have ruled this out

Is this just a local issue seeing as all 3 exchanges are all next to one another or is this something we are going to see more of as bandwidth issues become ever greater?

How are you connecting to the Sky router?

When you have 'no connection to server' are you able to access the web interface on the sky router?

Thinking about this logically, three separate exchanges, two different ISP�s, two different technology types ....

... the common link here is your equipment you are taking from site to site.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

How are you connecting to the Sky router?

When you have 'no connection to server' are you able to access the web interface on the sky router?

Both wifi & LAN

Able to access the sky router ok both wired & wifi when the no connection to server issue happens.

(SKY did sent a new data lead (!) and a new router to try before the linesman from openreach appointment and as happens the server connection issue never happened while he was there! It never helped the 22-23dbs line noise either. )

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Apr-18 13:28:01)

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Thinking about this logically, three separate exchanges, two different ISP�s, two different technology types ....

... the common link here is your equipment you are taking from site to site.

At all 3 sites there are already equipment there and some hard wired & some wifi so ruling that theory out.

But you can follow my thinking ... for all three sites to have the same issue, then there must be so common factor.

Routers do not report a line noise figure, but a SNR Margin.

What are the full stats for the connection (connection speed, attenuation and margins) and post a link to a speed test done on https://www.thinkbroadbandcom/speedtest

Stalls like this where it seems the xDSL connection stays running is often a symptom of delays in DNS lookups, or others also using the connection e.g. mobile phone doing large upload which impacts on those trying to download at the same time.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Routers do not report a line noise figure, but a SNR Margin.

What are the full stats for the connection (connection speed, attenuation and margins) and post a link to a speed test done on https://www.thinkbroadbandcom/speedtest

Stalls like this where it seems the xDSL connection stays running is often a symptom of delays in DNS lookups, or others also using the connection e.g. mobile phone doing large upload which impacts on those trying to download at the same time.

Well sky mentioned "noise".............................!





Router Statistics
System Up Time: 597:58:05
Port ____Status____TxPkts______RxPkts______CollisionPkts______Tx b/s____Rx b/s___Up Time
WAN____MER _____28441353___82411200 ____0_______________3010_____1080___ 231:28:24
LAN____Up_______25564170___6221902_____31______________5090_____4557____597:58:05
WLAN___Up______ 48768536___26224303 ____0______________618840____14637___597:57:30

Broadband Link ____Downstream___Upstream
Connection Speed__40000 kbps_____9999 kbps
Line Attenuation____9.1 dB_________0.0 dB
Noise Margin_______21.9 dB________22.22 dB

Typical useless response from ISP support, you have very high noise margins (which is a good thing) because you are on a very short line. I guess the FTTC cabinet is just outside your door. You could easily get higher speeds on your line if you upgrade to a higher speed service (80/20). As for your intermittent access I cannot offer any advice, but there is certainly nothing wrong with the speed of your connection.

The router is also reporting 230 hour up time for the WAN connection, so around 9 days and no issues with the speed test a good one for a full sync 40/10 product

In reply to a post by Realalemadrid:

Typical useless response from ISP support, you have very high noise margins (which is a good thing) because you are on a very short line. I guess the FTTC cabinet is just outside your door. You could easily get higher speeds on your line if you upgrade to a higher speed service (80/20). As for your intermittent access I cannot offer any advice, but there is certainly nothing wrong with the speed of your connection.

Speed when its there isn't bad, FTTC Cabinet is approx 200m away. We were with +net on a similar package until 14months ago who emailed to say that we would be "upgraded to a better speed" which was a bit disapointing as were were on 80meg and their "upgrade" reigned us back down to the correct speed!!

A basic okala speed test shows an initial upload of 100meg which rapidly melts down to the 10-15 normal speed. Speed can drop a bit mid evening as you'd expect but weekdays it also wavers as there in a recently built community college/school nearby with heavy IT infrastructure.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The router is also reporting 230 hour up time for the WAN connection, so around 9 days and no issues with the speed test a good one for a full sync 40/10 product

Yes this replacement router and the one before it both held the connection ok, its just its dozed off and if you click while its asleep you have to wait for it to wake from its slumber.

Its not a permanant thing, the rural workshop I'm based at this morning had gone idle, opened the laptop and plugged the lan in only to find the email client timed out unable to reach our server. Pull the data line, wait for the red light and pop it back and as soon as it had logged back on to the exchange we were off. It doesn't drop continusouly as theres a desktop uploading the weather station to the met and our website at regular intervals and it manages those, plus I'm sure its not a local network effecting it as that one also has cctv running 24/7 with no dropouts

We also have another site which is in the same village as the exchange serving it and there are no FTTC cabinets until you get to the outlying villages so that sites line is straight into the exchange which always make the openreach engineers chuckle when the see the lines potential.

I'll see if I can narrow the fault down to a specific trait.

You have a 40 Mbps sync, which means speed test maximum MUST be 38 Mbps so if a test is showing 100 Mbps it is wrong.

What is showing the 10 to 15 normal speed as the speed test you did showed a very good speed

A school will usually not be on a Sky fibre service so their usage should not affect you

I wonder, from the OP�s latest wording of the router �dozing off�, if this problem may be failures to renew the PPP leases for some reason?

The BQM would most likely be top to bottom as no IP to ping at that point, unless it renews very quickly, not sure but I think WAN uptime would also be lower

Data line - is that the phone line? Or Ethernet cable into laptop?

Next time you have this 'idle' log into the router and see what the connection status is before you do anything else.

True. Scrub that idea .

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

You have a 40 Mbps sync, which means speed test maximum MUST be 38 Mbps so if a test is showing 100 Mbps it is wrong.

What is showing the 10 to 15 normal speed as the speed test you did showed a very good speed

A school will usually not be on a Sky fibre service so their usage should not affect you

I use the ookla speed test mainly for convenience and on the sky fibre the download pulls the 35-38 mark most of the time. when it kicks over to upload it romps off straight away to 80+ or more but quickly subsides down to the 10-15 normal result. Just something I've noticed with it!

I can understand a school not using the sky fibre but it just seems noticeable if ever at home around school time that the speed seems to back off a bit similar to early evenings, being a bit of a night owl I'm often around late and you can see the speed results climb back up to their best again then.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Data line - is that the phone line? Or Ethernet cable into laptop?

Next time you have this 'idle' log into the router and see what the connection status is before you do anything else.

That'll be me. I call the RJ11 adsl lead the data lead as I always rig up modems next to the master socket with a two port plate and do away with all the filter aggro. so Data lead and phone lead.................!

I'll see if I can catch it again but IIRC from the past negotiations with sky I did check that for them and pretty sure it shows connected. Thats the weird thing its as if the modem is assuming its all tickity-boo but infact when you click a link or open a page there is nothing, often we will be both browsing away and reading whats cached and then the one who uses the connection finds there's "nothing there" IYKWIM?

In which case next time you to do something very basic when you get to this state, to rule out the going to sleep is because of some PC/router interaction e.g. DNS lookups broken

Open a DOS command prompt and type and try the following command, expected response is shown too

C:\Windows\system32>nslookup labs.thinkbroadband.com
Server:  UnKnown
Address:  192.168.0.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    labs.thinkbroadband.com
Addresses:  2a02:68:1::13
          2a02:68:1::12
          80.249.99.73
          80.249.106.133

then try

C:\Windows\system32>ping 80.249.99.73

Pinging 80.249.99.73 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 80.249.99.73: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=60
Reply from 80.249.99.73: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=60
Reply from 80.249.99.73: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=60
Reply from 80.249.99.73: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=60

Ping statistics for 80.249.99.73:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 24ms, Maximum = 25ms, Average = 24ms

So an incoming call *shouldn�t* be an issue with no filter in place as you have it at present ....

.... but I wonder, might you try fitting a decent filter and using a shop bought RJ11 to RJ11 cable and run with it connected like that for a few days ?

I�m sure you�ll say that you don�t use it as a phone line, but it still gets rung into sporadically.... this might be injecting errors and causing the oddness you are experiencing ?

printed off for future reference as we now seem to be into one of this traits "hibernation" periods. Not a sausage for several days!

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

So an incoming call *shouldn�t* be an issue with no filter in place as you have it at present ....

.... but I wonder, might you try fitting a decent filter and using a shop bought RJ11 to RJ11 cable and run with it connected like that for a few days ?

I�m sure you�ll say that you don�t use it as a phone line, but it still gets rung into sporadically.... this might be injecting errors and causing the oddness you are experiencing ?

The BT master socket has a built in filter (the linesman changed the whole socket just in case, its one of the latest with no screws to fix the faceplate- just simple side clips that are pretty [censored]- too much weight on the two leads can pull the faceplate and unclip it!! It also has flick over clips to hold the incoming wires- no need for the BT chrome tool to terminate connections- linesman wasn't impressed by either "advance" in the product!

RJ11 leads are awash here at the moment, SKY sent one out special before the BT appointment, seemed pointless as the Sky operative also sent a new router which also had a new lead as well.............................!

OK, your description seemed to imply you were running with no filters in place.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

You have a 40 Mbps sync, which means speed test maximum MUST be 38 Mbps so if a test is showing 100 Mbps it is wrong.

What is showing the 10 to 15 normal speed as the speed test you did showed a very good speed

A school will usually not be on a Sky fibre service so their usage should not affect you

Here's a video of a speedtest running to show you what I was on about. Wait for the upload speed- in a previous test it bounced off 150meg! (Done on desktop via 500mbps powerline plugs back to the sky router.)

speedtest


Currently there has been no instances of the lag-sleep problem!!

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Apr-18 20:07:35)