Gigaclear occasional dropouts

I transferred from PlusNet to Gigaclear early this year (because Openreach had no plans to lay FTTP for at least another couple of years). It's generally OK but from time to time the service drops for a couple of minutes before returning automatically.

I raised a fault ticket with them at the time (around April/May), and they tried several things including replacing the 2 Linksys SPNMX55GC nodes (which don't have backup/restore capability but that's a matter for a separate post!), but because of the intermittent nature it wasn't clear if that solved the problem.

It seems to be OK for a few weeks but then the fault returns, happening mutliple times a day.(11 times so far today). The ONT looks OK, with no change on the LEDs.

The Gigaclear tech people seem to think it's a local (to me) problem, but I spoke to a neighbour earlier today who's also just had Gigaclear installed and they're experiencing the same problem.

Has anyone else experienced this and, if so, was it ever satisfactorily resolved (and how)?

Thanks

So does this problem occur on both wireless and ethernet wired devices?

In reply to a post by DFScale:

So does this problem occur on both wireless and ethernet wired devices?

Yes it's everything. The smart TV is connected via ethernet and that stops as well.

The blue light on the Linksys tower changes from steady to blinking as if it's trying to reconnect - which presumably it is because after a couple of minutes it works OK again

Yes, the flashing blue light is attempting to reconnect - see here https://support.linksys.com/kb/article/403-en/

I note that the linksys is automatically updated by gigaclear, so I will just throw into the mix the possibility it is trying to update

Edited by DFScale (Fri 05-Sep-25 18:28:39)

In reply to a post by DFScale:

Yes, the flashing blue light is attempting to reconnect - see here https://support.linksys.com/kb/article/403-en/

I note that the linksys is automatically updated by gigaclear, so I will just throw into the mix the possibility it is trying to update

Interesting thought, although Gigaclear tech support have never suggested this as a possibility, plus it's odd that it happens so often on some days (15 times on Aug 1st, 11 so far today). When it first started happening they sent me replacement nodes (which didn't fix anything*). I would have thought that they'd be able to see if it was due to an attempted update, whether the update was successful and what the before/after versions were.

(*Since the Aug 1st problems they've sent me another pair of nodes but as there's apparently no way of backing up the config to restore to the new nodes - subsequently confirmed by Linksys - I've told Gigaclear that, having 40+ devices needing reserved IPs, I'm not willing to manually reconfigure the new nodes unless and until they can categorically say that will fix it).

In reply to a post by DFScale:

Yes, the flashing blue light is attempting to reconnect - see here https://support.linksys.com/kb/article/403-en/

I note that the linksys is automatically updated by gigaclear, so I will just throw into the mix the possibility it is trying to update

I think with 27 drops yesterday it's fairly safe to say now that it's not down to updates

I've contacted GC tech support (again), will see where it goes this time...

Despite swapping out the MX5500s for a pair of MX4200s the problem remains

Finally yesterday Gigaclear said "We can see the reason your main node is disconnecting is due to a request" and "check any devices you have that could cause as DHCP interference"

Most of my devices have reserved LAN addresses - where the router doesn't allow multiple devices to be allocated the same IP - so I don't see how this might be.

Can anyone tell me how I might identify these "disconnection requests" and where they're coming from? I'm thinking something like Wireshark might help but I've never used that in anger.

I am sure there might be a more technical answer to this using Wireshark etc but.....

Being a bit old school myself, is it time for a process of elimination? I know your network might contain lots of devices, but it does sound like you have a regularly occurring issue so you might not have long to wait until you unplug the correct device (or start with everything off, and turn things on gradually).

If your network is anything like mine, just turning off the WiFi will take at least half of the devices out of the equation.

Presuming that is, that Gigaclear have identified the correct problem of course, but you have to do these things to move on to the next set of diagnostics from them.

In reply to a post by fguk:

I am sure there might be a more technical answer to this using Wireshark etc but.....

Being a bit old school myself, is it time for a process of elimination? I know your network might contain lots of devices, but it does sound like you have a regularly occurring issue so you might not have long to wait until you unplug the correct device (or start with everything off, and turn things on gradually).

If your network is anything like mine, just turning off the WiFi will take at least half of the devices out of the equation.

Presuming that is, that Gigaclear have identified the correct problem of course, but you have to do these things to move on to the next set of diagnostics from them.

The problem with this approach is that the connection drops are sporadic, sometimes weeks apart, so I might never be able to pin it down to a specific device - it's trying to prove a negative

Yes I could turn off the WiFi and eliminate a bunch of devices, but that would compromise my setup and operation, and yet the same "how long do I leave it" problem exists.

I'm trying to get more detail about the drops (if they're seeing something, tell me what they're seeing!) but I'm starting to get pushback now, they've just said "We do not advise to make configurations and adjustments on Linksys routers". Crazy!

If the commands to disconnect are coming sporadically, it's likely to be a device that's rarely used within your home. If it was daily, it's something you use a lot of.

Are you able to think which devices you rarely turn on are rarely used but connected?