Flaky Internet Service Since 2nd November (Kent)

[#1]

Has anyone else got generally flaky Internet service? Normally my service is pretty bullet proof, but since the 2nd, I've got all sorts of 'random' issues, ranging from short connectivity issues to full broadband line drop out and reconnect.

I have OpenHab constantly pinging, and it reports problems on:

* 2nd November, 18.29

* 2nd November, 20.49

* 5th November, 10:12

* 5th November, 14.25-15.31 (multiple issues, and a period of complete downtime)

* 5th November, 23:25

* 6th November, 13:42-13.58 (complete outage)

* 6th November, 14.08-14.10 (outage)

* 7th November, 00:12

* 7th November, 01:21

* 8th November, 00:21-00:29

* 8th November, 00:53-00:59

(all that up to 09:10 on the 8th)

I should also say that I'm a few minutes walk from an exchange, and my phone line is entirely underground, so it seems unlikely the usual "it's the weather" applies as else it might. The problem is not my router or my wifi (the pinging happens via cable), and I've ruled out the router as an issue (it's had a few restarts along the way just to be sure).

Overnight outages are sort of okay (they're annoying because they cause my work VPN to drop, which means I can't leave things running over night so easily). Obviously outages during the day are super annoying, as is "generally a bit dodgy" service.

One thing I haven't tried is customer service - is it worth it, or am I just going to get "switch it off and on", and "well, it's working now, so nothing we can do"?

[#2]

@coofercat Which Hub/router do you have - the event log would be good?

[#3]

I've got a Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite, PPPoE-ing to a Draytek Vigor 130. I hadn't thought about the logs. Here's an example of what they show though:

Nov  2 18:29:15 ubnt pppd[2826]: Serial link appears to be disconnected.
Nov  2 18:29:18 ubnt pppd[2826]: Connection terminated: no multilink.
Nov  2 18:29:48 ubnt pppd[2826]: Connected to a:b:c:d:e:f via interface eth2
Nov  2 18:29:48 ubnt pppd[2826]: Connect: pppoe0 <--> eth2
Nov  2 18:29:48 ubnt pppd[2826]: CHAP authentication succeeded
Nov  2 18:29:48 ubnt pppd[2826]: peer from calling number a:b:c:d:e:f authorized
Nov  2 18:29:49 ubnt pppd[2826]: local  IP address x,x,x,x
Nov  2 18:29:49 ubnt pppd[2826]: remote IP address y.y.y.y
Nov  2 18:29:49 ubnt pppd[2826]: primary   DNS address 212.159.6.10
Nov  2 18:29:49 ubnt pppd[2826]: secondary DNS address 212.159.13.49

At other times I see things like:

Nov  5 15:30:40 ubnt pppd[2826]: Modem hangup
Nov  5 15:31:45 ubnt pppd[2826]: Timeout waiting for PADO packets

but otherwise nothing else seems to be reported there.

[#4]

The suggestion with those day time times you are likely have broadband signal drop outs, the around 01:00 times are likely be the DLM (Digital Line Manager) adjusting the connection to make it more stable.

Phone lines run underground can suffer from water ingress in the joints

If you have a landline phone check for noise on the line dialling 17070 use option 2, if there is noise report a phone line fault. if no noise report a broadband fault

Use this link https://www.plus.net/help/report-a-problem/ 

HTH

[#5]

OK. I don't know either of those devices, but (guessing) the Nov 2nd 'snippet' suggests to me that you lost xDSL connection, although the recovery period is amazingly short.

Don't quite understand the 'modem hangup' comment though.

[#6]

I tried the quiet line test - it seems pretty solid to me, so I'll log a broadband fault. Thanks for the suggestion 🙂

[#7]

I can confirm disconnections happening since yesterday morning. It could be a red herring but happening right after I switch on my laptop which connects to the broadband and within an hour as well, all starting with

WAN connection WAN2_INTERNET_PTM disconnected.[ERROR_NO_CARRIER]

Cheers

[#8]

@iw6dgm I suggest you start your own topic if you require help - 'piggy-backing' on another users topic is not helpful, and makes it harder to offer assistance.