Frequent Disconnects - Fibre BB and BT Home Hub 6

[#1]

Since December '21 onwards I've been getting more and more frequent internet connection drops. I am currently using a BT Home Hub 6 as it offer much better wi-fi around our house and I have had very few issues since starting to use it (18months plus). Sometimes it'll go a few days without issue then...

The connection drops three or four times a day, sometimes it won't reconnect and needs hard resetting. I have the old Plusnet Hub 1 (white and pink one?) that I could try but is there anything in the Home Hub event log I should look for? These bits I understand can indicate if anything is up, but I don't know what they should be normally.

Noise margin:

6.7 dB / 4.3 dB

Line attenuation:

19.6 dB

Signal attenuation:

12.6 dB / 19.6 dB

Land line works just fine, not noisy and always working.

What's the steps I should take in looking at this before raising a ticket?

Thanks in advance.

[#2]

@BlueEagle365 I don't know the BT HH6, but is it possible to post a screenshot of the page you obtained that detail from (with personal details obscured/hidden , and an output from the Event logs?

[#3]

Hello @BlueEagle365, thanks a lot for getting in touch and I'm really sorry to hear that you've been having issues with your broadband connection.

Testing the line this afternoon has indeed found a fault on the line, though the source of which appears to be in and around the customer premise, meaning we'd need to do a bit of troubleshooting for raising this with Openreach.

Going forward, I've just created an open fault ticket on the account, where I've provided further information on troubleshooting, and getting back to us in terms of your availability if we do need to raise the matter with our suppliers. 

[#4]

@adam945 Thank you. I have started looking at things today and will continue later. Our master socket is not a standard BT one, but it is a fully approved one. There are only two wires connected, I have re-made those connections and at the moment seems to be some improvement.

When I get a minute I will look at the event log on the HH6 and see if disconnects are still occurring outside of when we are using the internet ourselves.

I do still have our Plusnet Hub 1 that I can try as well if needed.

[#5]

Cheers for trying what you can and for keeping us updated, let us know if that's made any difference for you.

[#6]

---

@BlueEagle365 wrote:

I do still have our Plusnet Hub 1 that I can try as well if needed.

---

A PN HH1 is a BTHH5a for which there is a specific version of Routerstats which works exceptionally well.  I would recommend installing it and monitoring the line 24x7 - see the link below.

Broadband is not going to work well if the "phone" line is not working properly.

Please perform a quiet line test - dial 17070 select option 2 using a corded phone plugged into the test socket behind the face plate of the master socket. It should be silent. A noisy phone line (or no dial tone) will have a marked adverse impact on the performance of broadband.

If the line is noisy or there is no dial tone, then a PHONE LINE fault needs to be raised with your phone provider. If this is PlusNet, you can report a fault on line using the button below.  From the Q&A list, choose the one which matches the problem, 'open' the 'section' and click the trouble-shooter link.  NB: If you receive a failure message (rather than a log-in prompt) then log-in to the user portal in a different browser tab and attempt to use the trouble-shooter again.

• Phone Faults

[#7]

Thanks @Townman . I have installed Routerstats and it is logging now. 

I did the quiet test, there was a very, very slight background noise. Routerstats shows Up 6.6db and Down 4.7db on the top bar will see what happens over night.

[#8]

I recommend 10 second sample rate with 720 points per graph. One graph is then 2 hours and gives good granularity of transient events sufficient to bring down the link.

Can you associate the dropping off the broadband with calls on the line?

[#9]

OK, has been running since late last evening. All looked steady, one very short drop at about 7.20am Sunday 10th (we were not actively using phone or internet. But, since 9:49 this morning things have been happening on the routerstats, We were online at about that time for a few minutes, but at from about 10:15 have been out of the house the whole day, only coming back at about 15:30 (10th April).

Attached are the graphs showing todays ups/downs while we were out. I didn't change settings before but have done so now as per your message above. It's as if someone is getting hold of the cable and yanking it about!

[#10]

That is utterly horrible!

Do you have a telephone handset plugged into the line?  If not can you get one plugged in?  You need to determine if there are inbound calls on the line, as inbound calls can cause exactly what you are seeing here.

Keep this logging running.

Look for correlations with electrical equipment being used - think timed devices - think of stuff on power bricks which albeit it on all of the time, might have different operational profiles.

For example, I have an incident involving a CCTVV system: as dusk approached, their IR illuminators kicked in - that put the switched current PSU in to stress mode ... and it blasted out a lot of RFI!!!

@adam945 - what does the line balance look like here please?

[#11]

Thanks for the responses. I have been taking a look. 

We have a landline connected all the time, last incoming call or any sort was yesterday (9th April) between 15:00 and 16:00. 

Just taken a look at the socket again and it is actually a BT one (my mistake in previous posts) fairly old NTE5 with the BT piper logo on it., so I have removed the front plate and connected to the master socket for tests as per PN help page.

Landline quiet test done, slight background noise - so it's not 100% quiet.

The following are connected, I have tried with all disconnected, no effect on things that I can detect. HiSense smart TV (wired), Laptop/desktop upstairs via CAT 6 cable connected to home hub, 2 x phones and a PlayStation 4 on Wi-Fi. A few others devices do connect via Wi-Fi, none connected now.

The BT Socket has a yellow drop cable coming through the wall from outside, green and black not connected, orange and white are on A and B - is it important which terminals they are on?. Cables are well seated and bright/clean at terminals - checked these previously.

I'll leave the filter, landline and router plugged via the master socket for now.

If anyone does look at the line stats for today - there is one long-ish disconnect which was me checking things out.

Thanks everyone, I will update the ticket too.

[#12]

The important thing now is to keep router stats running and see if you can correlate anything switching on / off with jumps in the SNRM plot - ignore the rest, other than sync speed if there is a disconnection.  Across a disconnection, you might see the SNRM go back to "normal" but that will be accompanied with a change in sync rate.

Things to look for "switching" includes: central heating; fridge / freezers; home automation; door bells (especially wireless); anything which runs on a power brick; phone (etc) charges.

Take a look at this - Broadband: Understanding REIN and SHINE (adsl, broadband, interferrence, intermittent, rein, shine) ... and this Broadband problems with REIN interference (briandorey.com)

Are the upstairs and downstairs of your house on separate ring mains?

Are you running the monitor on a laptop running on its battery?

If the answer to each of the above is "yes", then you could in two truancies eliminate half of your house by pulling one or the other ring main fuse.  You'll need a long extension lead to run upstairs for the router.  Alternatively if you are friendly enough with your neighbour and have a cable drum, ask if you can run a cable from their house to power your router and then depower the whole house.  If the interference remains, then it is not inside your property.

If it vanishes, you know you'll have to hunt the Easter egg!

[#13]

Thanks a lot for troubleshooting the issue @BlueEagle365

The ticket on the account remains open so if you'd like to respond to it advising when you might be free for an engineer visit, we'll get it arranged.  

[#14]

Thank you, booked a visit. 

Still dropping but useable for the time being. fingers crossed for a resolution later this week.

[#15]

The engineer has been and we now have a new master socket and a repair was done to the external cable cover and I think maybe something with the cable itself. Initially there seemed to be fewer disconnects but we have been getting more as time goes by. Perhaps you could have a look and see the frequency as I can only see the when routerstats is running or by the connected time on router admin page

Today there have been several (one while I am tying this in @ 11:09) so I have started routerstats again. I can also see the has been a significant drop in line speeds as well. Previously we we achieving 70-75 mps D/L and now it's at 50-54 mbs D/L with up speeds now at 4-5 mbs. I know if profiles are reset they take time to settle and become stable but with the returning disconnects overall performance is much less than expected.

A quiet line test this morning showed some noticeable clicking and crackling that comes and goes. 

Also I note the current speed indicated on my account page falls below the minimum guaranteed speed for my connection.

I will copy this to the open support ticket.

Thanks in advance for any ideas you might have.

Phil