Dropouts?

Anyone else seeing regular drop outs? I'm on FTTP.

My Broadband Ping

It seems to have started on the 8th of August.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 21-Aug-25 16:35:56)

Those dropouts look awfully uniform. Looks like every 3 hours.

In reply to a post by LeJimster:

Those dropouts look awfully uniform. Looks like every 3 hours.

Yup. I've also realised that 8th August is the start of my current billing period. I'm wondering if there's some kind of configuration issue arising from my migration from VDSL to FTTP. I asked them to carry my static IP address over and for a while both services had the same IP address. I wonder if the VDSL deactivation has interfered with the FTTP service somehow.

Anyway I emailed support so now just waiting for a response. To be honest this whole migration has been poorly handled.
* Sent me a router that wasn't correctly configured.
* Charged me for both services after the VDSL had been cancelled (still waiting for a refund on that).
* Charged me late for July and August (both months billed on the same date, yesterday).
* Now it looks like they've misconfigured my FTTP service.

This isn't the IDNet I've come to expect.

I'd be looking at something your router is doing

In reply to a post by jpm:

I'd be looking at something your router is doing

There's nothing at all in its logs - at least nothing relating to the WAN. The Status page is currently showing a PPPoE uptime of 5 days 15:24:25.

That is about 6:30am(UTC) last Saturday morning and that shows on the TBBQM as an extra blip:
Graph

Edited by Andrue (Thu 21-Aug-25 22:07:03)

This isn't going well. I finally got a reply from Support this morning, asking me if I was downloading anything because they 'could see some latency'. I told them I wasn't downloading anything and that in the early hours nothing was powered on or connected (wifi is off overnight on a schedule) yet there were still glitches.

Since then nothing. Not even an acknowledgement of my reply.

It's been a while since I've had to contact IDNet Support - is this what it's now become? I can get this kind of second-rate, lacklustre response for less money from other ISPs.

My Broadband Ping

Edited by Andrue (Tue 26-Aug-25 21:52:55)

Apparently they also think it's the router. I have my doubts, given the timing (first day of billing when I assume the old SOGEA service was terminated). Also it just seems a damn strange fault to me.

But they are sending out another router so I suppose we'll see.

TalkTalk always blamed the router for our poor FTTC and kept sending out new ones, I wonder if there's a Guinness world record for largest collection of routers?

Yeah, it seems quite a standard thing to try a new router. Obviously give that a go first but I would look at swapping the network patch cable from the ONT > Router next. With my most recent router I was provided a flat patch cable, which is terrible when it comes to interference. I ditched that and made some custom CAT6 patch leads. There might be something in your home or close by for example thats kicking on every 3 hours and causing electrical noise.

I think I've just ruled out the router. I power cycled it a few minutes before an expected glitch and the glitch still occurred as expected. I'd have thought that if it was the router it would be occurring a set time after power on or reboot. It seems unlikely that a bug would cause the router to block/lose internet connectivity for half a minute at specific times.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Apparently they also think it's the router. I have my doubts, given the timing (first day of billing when I assume the old SOGEA service was terminated). Also it just seems a damn strange fault to me.

But they are sending out another router so I suppose we'll see.

We may have to eat our words. I dug my old router out and connected that (it was already configured to use PPoE) and after leaving it running for four hours very much to my surprise there were no glitches.

Having plugged the new router back in the first glitch arrived 'on time'. To be fair though the fact the glitches appear to be at specific times rather than intervals also dissuades me from blaming the router. I could understand something like a memory leak gradually building up then causing a crash every three hours. But the new router was switched off while not in use yet the first glitch arrived in less than two hours.

So I dunno. Although as noted in my other thread IDNet appear to have some kind of access to my router that I can't figure out. I remember now that when I first got it I had to manually configure it then a few days later I noticed it had switched over to automatic configuration. So my current theory is some kind of housekeeping task running on IDNet's network that periodically annoys the router.

Out of curiosity what is the make and model of the router with the glitches? TBH, I'm not a fan of ISP's with backdoors into the router. I'm currently with Zen and they can force update my router even though I've turned automatic updates off in favor of notification.

Also, I was going through my logs on my router today and my ISP transmits settings daily to the router. Not sure what they are, maybe thats what is happening with your connection and it's not being handled well. Is there anything in the system logs on the router at the times of the glitches?

Edited by LeJimster (Thu 28-Aug-25 20:31:49)

I'm interested to know this as well, purely because ASUS routers (which are on IDNET's site and are recommended) have a myriad of problems, some of which have been covered in the media, some haven't.

For example, ASUS told me explicitly in email that PPPoE and IPv6 are an unsupported configuration on their routers and will result in issues, despite allowing you to configure it as such.

In reply to a post by LeJimster:

Out of curiosity what is the make and model of the router with the glitches?

TP-Link vx230v. To be fair it seems quite a nice bit of kit and there were no glitches to start with. Seems to be something that started after a couple of weeks.

Have you tried resetting the ONT via the reset button?
I have a Calix one like this:
https://www.calix.com/adobe/dynamicmedia/deliver/dm-...
Just hold the tip of a pen in for a few seconds until the lights flash/go off. It'll pick up its settings again automatically.

Lol! So I was all set to email Support to ask about this text (pointed out in my other thread):

Slow Speeds
If your downstream throughput speed (measured to your router) is lower than the specified minimum speed for 3 consecutive days (tested via our background TR143 speed tests (TP-Link), inbuilt speed test interface (Asus) or our iperf3 instance) and we are unable to help you attain a higher speed through standard fault diagnostics then you can choose to move to a cheaper package or leave your contract without penalty.

Because as well as information about my LAN the portal had been showing a message that my speed was too low. So I think someone/thing has been monitoring my line and running a test every three hours.

However the portal is no longer showing the LAN information it had been (see my other thread) and the expected 8am glitch did not occur. So I think someone/thing has turned off the monitoring and all is now well.