Router drops connection around 1pm every day

Hi, appreciate any thoughts or advice on this issue.

Recently moved into a new home & set up internet with Sky Broadband. Noticed that the wifi drops around 1pm every day.

Sky engineer has visited. He confirmed after speaking with OpenReach that the internet connection has been strong and reliable since I set it up with no outages. He was able to confirm the the internet connection has dropped around 1pm ever since set up & that because the connection has been 100% this must be power related.

The connection returns within 3-4 minutes, so it is like the power to the router is being turned off & back on again every day.

When the wifi drops there are no other power related outages in the house. The Sky engineer was stumped and mentioned that the issue may be specifically related to the power ring in the garage. Earlier today I powered the router from the study but the same wifi outage occurred.

This is a critical issue for us as we both work from home and the wifi drop often occurs during online meetings. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

You could try standing by the router and see what happens with the lights but its very strange if you're losing mains power to the router as it would be normally affecting other things as well. I would suggest getting access to the router's user interface as the security logs section will clearly show if you are losing power or the broadband connection is being lost.

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Jan-23 22:51:24)

Thank you, I had no idea about gaining access to the router's user interface, have Googled it and will try to do this tomorrow. The OpenReach person who the Sky engineer called confirmed the broadband connection itself has been stable but what you suggested should confirm this. Thanks again.

You say WiFi, What if you have a neighbour with a microwave and he always cooks his lunch in that at 1pm every day, same ready meal each time which takes three minutes to cook. Maybe unlikely but microwaves also use the 2.5GHz band and could be interfering with your internet wifi.

It sounds too precise and regular to be an intermittent fault. So either

- if the LED sequence on the router markedly changes (like a power-on sequence) at 1pm the router is probably following a timed reboot sequence, typically set as an option somewhere in the router setup webpages.

- if the LED lights remain otherwise stable, and it is just the WiFi that drops out and restarts it’s possible it is WiFI interference from an external source, as noted above. You can check with a cabled LAN connection rather than WiFi connection if the internet connection thus remains stable and continuous in this brief period.

- it’s also possible that the router is simply faulty. Try a full factory reset first and set it up from scratch.

Hopefully you get to the bottom of it. Good luck.

Sounds like the visiting Sky Engineer is talking out of his back side as he first says this

In reply to a post by MJS1:

after speaking with OpenReach that the internet connection has been strong and reliable since I set it up with no outages.

then says this

In reply to a post by MJS1:

He was able to confirm the the internet connection has dropped around 1pm ever since set up & that because the connection has been 100% this must be power related.

You can't have both, I agree it sounds like the wifi is dropping and as has already been said something external must be causing it, there is no timed reboot option in the Sky firmware.

Edit: Wonder if this is FTTP and both Sky and Openreach are referring to a stable connection upto the ONT

Edited by deleted (Fri 13-Jan-23 11:24:52)

In reply to a post by dect:

]You can't have both, I agree it sounds like the wifi is dropping and as has already been said something external must be causing it, there is no timed reboot option in the Sky firmware.

If Sky used PPP then the Sky system could be disconnecting whilst Openreach is linked, but since Sky uses DHCP it is very odd.

If any testing can be done with an Ethernet cable that would rule out Wifi problems.

Yes a cabled connection will establish whether the whole shooting match is going down or just WiFi.

I've just witnessed what happens to the router when this issue occurs. The are 4 LEDs on the router: power, internet, wi-fi & voice. The power & wi-fi LEDs remained green, the internet & voice LEDs changed to amber. They remained on amber for just over a minute before turning green.

However I wasn't watching the router at the precise moment the issue happened, so there is a possibility that the power LED went off & back on again.

When the issue occurred my wife's laptop connection (on wi-fi) dropped as did the internet connection to my tv (connected via LAN).

Does this information help pinpoint what could be causing this?

Thanks again for all help.

In reply to a post by MJS1:

I've just witnessed what happens to the router when this issue occurs. The are 4 LEDs on the router: power, internet, wi-fi & voice. The power & wi-fi LEDs remained green, the internet & voice LEDs changed to amber. They remained on amber for just over a minute before turning green.

However I wasn't watching the router at the precise moment the issue happened, so there is a possibility that the power LED went off & back on again.

When the issue occurred my wife's laptop connection (on wi-fi) dropped as did the internet connection to my tv (connected via LAN).

Does this information help pinpoint what could be causing this?

Thanks again for all help.

Then the problem has nothing to do with wifi, or interference to your wifi signal.
It's either the router, or the Openreach ONT (if you are on direct fibre ?) or something external to your house.

Probably the next easiest diagnostic tool, is to get Sky to send you a new router, (that'll be cheaper (for them) than calling out a man in a van to visit (from either Sky or Openreach)

Edited by broadbandjockey (Fri 13-Jan-23 16:33:16)

Shame you missed the light show from the beginning so you could be sure if its all lights or just 2 that go out. When I think about it I would guess the internet and voice would be the last to go green but thats purely a guess. If you can't be there to see it happen then I would suggest getting access to the user interface and look at the security logs.

Managed to access the security logs. Have pasted below the detail when the internet connection was lost at 1.46pm. Would be grateful if anyone could help me understand what is happening.

2023-01-13 13:45:58 syslog: ptm0.1 - WAN link DOWN.
2023-01-13 13:45:58 syslog: DHCP lease invalid(WANoE). Connection DOWN.
2023-01-13 13:46:00 syslog: Clear IP addresses. IP connection DOWN.
2023-01-13 13:46:01 syslog: Voice IP Connection Down
2023-01-13 13:46:01 syslog: [87481.047000] Line 0: xDSL link down
2023-01-13 13:46:03 syslog: sky dhcpc client (v0.0.1) started
2023-01-13 13:46:04 syslog: Voice Disconnected
2023-01-13 13:46:50 syslog: [87507.063000] Line 0: xDSL G.994 training
2023-01-13 13:46:50 syslog: [87521.063000] Line 0: VDSL G.993 started
2023-01-13 13:46:50 syslog: [87532.063000] Line 0: VDSL G.993 channel analysis
2023-01-13 13:46:50 syslog: [87533.541000] Line 0: VDSL2 link up, Bearer 0, us=9353, ds=44092
2023-01-13 13:46:50 syslog: [87533.541000] Line 0: VDSL2 link up, Bearer 1, us=0, ds=0
2023-01-13 13:46:52 syslog: sky dhcpc client (v0.0.1) started
2023-01-13 13:47:24 syslog: ptm0.1 - WAN link UP.
2023-01-13 13:47:24 syslog: Received valid DHCP lease from server. Connection UP.
2023-01-13 13:47:24 syslog: Connection Up. SNO/MAC/IP/SWVER/IPv6: [D210223B022192/00A3883C4A20/94.14.40.45/7.02.0203.R/2a02:c7f:9e22:e00::1]

Your broadband connection coming into your property is going down, not the power to the router.

The snippet shows the connection to the Openreach network being reset/re-established. The question is why everyday around the same time, I can't believe the Sky engineer didn't check these logs. If power had been lost you would have had several rows start with '1970-01-01' before the router sends out a 'Send out NTP request' to get the current time. This issue needs to be given back to Sky, you may have something locally that is kicking in around that time and is interfering with the incoming broadband circuit.

Edited by deleted (Fri 13-Jan-23 21:52:12)

Many thanks for your help dect, I will go back to Sky with this information. I have an engineer booked for Tuesday so I will ask him to investigate if anything is coming in which is interfering with broadband coming in.

Just so you know if you log into the user interface again and select the 'Maintenance' tab and scroll down I believe there is an option that says '> Show Statistics' if you click that it should show the routers up time which should also confirm its not been recently rebooted. There should also be an option that says '> Connection Status' and if you click that it should confirm how long your broadband connection has been up.

Edited by deleted (Fri 13-Jan-23 22:13:50)

Thanks have found both of those options.

It finally appears this issue has been resolved so just posting an update in case anyone is in a similar predicament.

1 further Sky engineer and 2 OpenReach engineers did all their tests & could not diagnose any issues with their various tests.

However the last OpenReach engineer used some sort of amplification device in the immediate vicinity of the router & detected a strong disturbance signal around my satellite box (a Televes NevoSwitch device which my router had been sat on top of). The signal was strong even when the power was turned off which really surprised him.

He suggested to move my router away from this device & since doing that I have not had one internet drop in nearly 3 days. So still unaware of what exactly was causing the dropouts but have found a solution.

Thanks again for all help on this one,

This is called random electrical impulse noise (REIN).

Any electrical device can emit REIN, and most do to a small extent, but a device should not be emitting excessive REIN. Is there a power adapter block in use for this device by any chance? A common fault on power adapters is they begin emitting excessive REIN when they still work and generally it indicates a hardware failure somewhere. Have you got an old school radio? Tune it to AM 612 and place its antenna near the device, is there lots of noise? That’s typically around the frequency that causes broadband to drop, so noise here is bad.

On a more general note routers are best to be away from other electronics especially those which use spectrum eg satellite, other wireless kit etc.

Another common device that causes drops is homeplugs / powerline when they’re in an outlet very close to the hub / the rj11 cable.

When you booked the engineer did you agree too, or was informed of a charge if a fault is found in your home? I’m asking as openreach are likely to bill sky for the work given the fault is not within their network and was outside of their control. Sky may eat the cost or they may pass it on, usually it’s past on when there’s an agreed amount quoted upfront to the customer before the engineer is issued. Commonly they say something such as “you will be charged if the fault is within your home or within your internal wiring, past the master socket. The charge has to be agreed before we can issue an engineer.”

The OpenReach engineers both mentioned REIN as a possible cause but were not REIN qualified. If moving the router did not fix the issue a REIN engineer was the next step.

Yes there is a large 3'' by 3'' power adapter for the satellite box & it was emitting a stronger signal (even when switched off) than the satellite box itself.

Unfortunately I don't have an old school radio to test for noise.

I am aware of the issue with powerlines. We don't require them as the house was built with a panel of ethernet cables running from the garage to every room in the house.

I've been on the phone to Sky several times in the last few weeks & nothing has been mentioned about potential charges.

Been an interesting thread to follow.

In reply to a post by MJS1:

It finally appears this issue has been resolved so just posting an update in case anyone is in a similar predicament.

1 further Sky engineer and 2 OpenReach engineers did all their tests & could not diagnose any issues with their various tests.

However the last OpenReach engineer used some sort of amplification device in the immediate vicinity of the router & detected a strong disturbance signal around my satellite box (a Televes NevoSwitch device which my router had been sat on top of). The signal was strong even when the power was turned off which really surprised him.

He suggested to move my router away from this device & since doing that I have not had one internet drop in nearly 3 days. So still unaware of what exactly was causing the dropouts but have found a solution.

Thanks again for all help on this one,

~Yeah a faulty or poorly shielded power supply will do 'wonders' for RF noise. Wonder if the 1pm timing had anything to do with the timed recording of a program on a set-top then causing the Televes switching unit to wake up and draw some juice. Thereby causing your issue.

I knew I would be tempting fate by posting that this issue looked liked it had been solved, the connection went twice overnight.

REIN trained OpenReach engineer booked for Tuesday...