FTTP Fault

[#1]

I'm typing this on my phone so please excuse any typos etc.

Apparently my connection went down some time after 4:00 today and something is preventing it from re-connecting.

I've reported a fault to PN (ID 227719121) and an OR engineer appointment has been booked for 21/9 pm slot, but I'm wondering if that's actually necessary due to the following;
I reported that a PPPoE connection using my PN login credentials with a PC connected directly to the ONT fails to connect with an error message along the lines of "The remote computer failed to connect ... ", BUT ...

Since logging the fault I've been able to connect using the same connection method using various bt_test_user login IDs, but trying again just now with my PN credentials so I could report the correct text of the previous error message returned a different error. This time it said "Error 651: The modem (or other connecting device) has reported an error."

So I'm wondering if this is possibly a wider system issue, possibly on PNs network?

EDIT: Please disregard the second error message mentioned above, I'd connected the wrong cable in my haste.

The original error message was "Error 718: The connection was terminated because the remote computer did not respond in timely manner."

[#2]

Hi Rob, 

I've had a quick look for you and I can't see any issues this side, but looks like the engineer's picked up the job, so if they've not arrived yet they should be with you soon. Let me know what they say.

[#3]

Thanks for your reply @Gandalf. The appointment's booked for Weds. pm, but I was hoping the fault would be exchange (or some other part of the system) related and cleared automagicly before that, but no such luck so far.

[#4]

Well I obviously need bigger glasses. Not sure how I misread the date!   

Fingers crossed the engineer can fix the problem quickly for you tomorrow. 

[#5 · Accepted solution]

Hi Rob,

It turns out that there is likely nothing an engineer can do as there was an incorrect setting at our suppliers side, which meant that the broadband signal wasn't correctly routed / pointed at us, so your connection couldn't authenticate. 

The cause of the problem wasn't immediately apparent as it's a very rare issue, but having seen two other people reporting similar problems at much the same time, and I rarely believe in coincidence, I brought this to our suppliers helpdesk.

I have no idea how this has happened, but it should be fixed now. Can you get online again?

[#6]

---

@Gandalf wrote:

...Let me know what they say.

---

Not a lot @Gandalf !

I noticed an OR van come up the road but nobody rang the doorbell.  I just happened to check my router status yet again and noticed that the WAN2 light was now lit, showing the Internet connection was back up.  I suspected the OR guy had done something remotely on his phone so went out and asked him if he'd just waved a magic wand as my connection had just started working, but he said he'd done nothing apart from run a remote test.

He came indoors to see for himself and ran another remote test to check the light levels were OK, which he then repeated, and both results were OK.  He was baffled as to why it should suddenly start working, and thinking he might think I'd been doing something wrong, luckily I could show him the 'Up Time' on the router to show it had only just come up in the last 8 minutes (since he parked his van outside).

So a quick fix for him, and he's marking the job "No fault found".

I was just starting to type this reply when I noticed your latest reply @Gandalf which explains why the connection was failing, but what a coincidence that it should come back exactly at the time he arrived!

Thanks to your diligence the problem was rectified, which otherwise may have led to some considerable investigation for the OR guy.  Unfortunately his van had gone when I went out to tell him what the cause was.

Thanks!  

Which just leaves the question, why did OR stuff up the settings which were previously fine?  

EDIT:

PS @Gandalf - is it worth me holding my hand bucket out for compensation?  

[#7]

Ah cheers for the run down and I'm glad to see your connection's working again.

The setting that was corrected is known as the BBVR, which is at BT Wholesale's side of things. I would suspect that something went inadvertently wrong somewhere, which caused this to happen. 

Also I believe that engineers can ring BT's complex faults/quality assurance team, so I'm sure they'd have been able to fix this although like you say it might have taken considerable investigation first. 

@RobPN wrote:

PS @Gandalf - is it worth me holding my hand bucket out for compensation?  ‌‌

You might be holding your hand or bucket out for a while.

Joking aside, I'm afraid we'd only offer compensation for downtime if it's been more than 2 working days since reporting the fault to us. In this case, we'd provide this automatically: https://www.plus.net/autocomp

[#8]

Hi @Gandalf , was this routing / authentication issue fixed already?  I have a similar problem going on since last week where my connection can't authenticate.

I've been under the FTTP trial for many years but just over a week ago after calling the call centre I also decided to go onto the Full Fibre product.  Nothing should have changed but since last Thurs night my connection has been down.  There was the outage on the Friday but there was no change at my end when it all got resolved.

I've been talking to the PN helpdesk technical team but they don't know what the issue is. BT Openreach engineers were sent, they were here today for a few hours trying things out, but they have not found any issues.

I was still using the old Technicolor modem when the line went down, a new Plusnet Hub 2 was sent to me but that hasn't worked either.  Both modems fail to get past the PPP CHAP challenge phase.  The PN tech team are sending me another Hub 2 modem in case the one I have has an issue but they are also talking about maybe they will need to get BT OR to do some reset/reprovisioning (not sure what it was called) essentially removing/disconnecting my connection/service and re-setting it all up again from scratch...in the hope it can work again.

As the PN tech team support can't see my modem active, I know that when in the past I had an incorrect password set they could see the modem active and the auth failing, and that I can see from the modem logs that it is connecting to something and attempting to auth ...I'm wondering if I am also having this routing/auth problem you have mentioned ...Would anyone be able to check if this is affecting my line?

[#9]

Hi @rechardrojee

Thanks for the post! I'm really sorry for the issues you've had getting your FTTP working again.

From what I can see the same thing has likely happened to your connection like it had done to @RobPN and someone else Here. Unfortunately our suppliers Quality Assurance team closed at 4:30pm so I can't fix this for you tonight.

I'd flagged this to our Duty Ops team earlier who have raised an incident as we have other people on the trial affected. 

I'll let you know as soon as I know more, if it's not tonight update again tomorrow at the latest. 

[#10]

@rechardrojee,

Happy to confirm our suppliers late night team have fixed the problem for you just this moment.

Could you check if you can get back online?

[#11]

Yes, connection seems to be up and I'm using it to post this msg ... only issue is that my static IP address of 80.229.167.2 has disappeared and I'm now getting allocated 213.31.64.83.  Can you get the IP addr sorted?

[#12]

@rechardrojee 

Ah glad that your FTTP is back now. I'll take a look at the static IP when I'm in tomorrow. From what I saw someone trying to be helpful refreshed the static IP component on your account earlier, thinking it'd fix the connection problem. 

This seemed to have inadvertently broken the static IP component. I'll try to get the original IP back but we might need to provide a new one. Really sorry for this. Let me see what I can do when I'm back in the office.

[#13]

Many thanks for your help. I would be really grateful if you can get my original ip addr, it's going to cause me alot of issues if that also goes...
I really appreciate your efforts. 👍

[#14]

No problem Rechard, I've raised a NetOps task (INFOPS-83194) to try to get the IP back for you. 

As soon as I know more within 3 to 5 working days (but normally sooner) I'll let you know. 

[#15]

Gandalf, @Gandalf, I’ve had the same problem since Monday, can you apply the same fix please? Openreach came out yesterday and said there’s nothing wrong with the service to the ONT.

I’ve also got a static IP address.

I’ve had half a dozen calls with tech support, and they aren’t aware of this fault; it would be a good idea to let them know?!