Internet connection dropping out several times a day

[#1]

I've had a fast, stable connection for years, but in the last month or so, I'm experiencing a brief but total loss of Internet connection several times per day.

The physical connection from my router (Draytek 2860) stays up but I have no connectivity.

This is very apparent because I send all day connected to work by VPN. What I see is the VPN drops, and then after many attempts manages to auto-reconnect. During the VPN-down time, I also cannot access any web pages or ping anything.

Nothing has changed at my end, and when it's working, it's still working well.

What gives?

[#2]

Hi @markv, I'm sorry for the issues you are experiencing.

It looks like the connection is dropping quite frequently from the network as seen on the RADIUS below:

Testing the line isn't detecting what may be causing this however so can you have a run through the troubleshooting guides and raise a fault here. Let us know once done so we can pick it up for you.

In the meantime I'd also advise leaving your router in the test socket.

[#3]

Hi @LaurenB

TVVM for your prompt response and that incredibly useful graph (I presume that's not something customers can access).

The disconnects on your graph correspond exactly with the "WAN 1 is down" syslog entries from my Vigor 2860n.

In passing, I found this thread:

https://community.plus.net/t5/Business/PPP-Closed-Remote-Terminating-PPPoE-Draytek-Router/td-p/13043...

...which described almost exactly my problem, but nothing conclusive in it.

I can see the disconnects jumped from occasional to a whole bunch on Christmas day (I was away), then back to normal until a bunch on January 11, then back to normal, then dozens every day from January 16th onwards.

Strangely, very few on Saturdays and none on Sundays.

I have the Vigor connected directly to a OR MK 3 faceplate (hence no splitter). Also a Gigaset cordless phone connected to the faceplate; nothing else.

Don't see how I can utilise the master socket to comply with your test suggestions unless I buy a splitter and plug that in, which would seem to be doing no more that the MK3 with it's built-in splitter.

I have disconnected the phone to see if that has any effect, which I think is effectively the same thing (i.e. I now have the Vigor and nothing else connected to the MK3 faceplate).

I had wondered if a Draytek firmware update could be responsible, but think not because I haven't done one in a couple of months (updated today in case that helps, but the release notes don't mention anything along those lines).

[#4]

Thanks for the detail.

We're happy to send you a free micro-filter if you want?

This would rule out the faceplate to be the cause of the issue as it's not uncommon for them to develop a fault.

[#5]

Thanks but I have a box of unused micro-filters. I will dig one out.

As I have nothing else connected to the faceplate, I suspect this is somewhat moot, particularly considering the fault comes and goes with time. IME, micro-filters (presumably including the one buuilt-in to the MK3), either work or fail.

But thanks anyway 🙂

[#6]

Ah fair. No worries.

Let us know how things go and if you're still having issues I'd report a fault at http://faults.plus.net

[#7]

Strange. I dug out a pile of micro-filters. Tried 4 different ones, fairly sure including the one you sent me ages ago.

I did note that all are marked ADSL filter, rather than VDSL filter, but web-searches say there is no difference.

Anyway, with all 4 of them, I failed to connect at all.

The Vigor showed a state of TRAINING (VDSL) for a minute or so, then switched to TRAINING ADSL (obviously that's not going to work). Left it for 5-10 minutes on each micro-filter but never got past TRAINING.

So refitted the faceplate back to the MK3 (which is explicitly a VDSL device) and plugged into it's filtered socked and so back online.

What does that prove, if anything?

[#8]

Does your phone work?  Is it quiet? Can you dial 17070 option 2 - is it quiet?

It looks to me like you have some dodgy wiring somewhere - maybe going back to basics, and reporting what your results are?

[#9]

It's pretty quiet on quiet line test. A little occasional crackle, but afterwards I ran speedtest.net and was seeing 66 Mbps download, so I don't think it's a noisy line. That also wouldn't account for no disconnections on Sundays?

FWIW, the Vigor *currently* shows line status of

  Profile    State           UP Speed       Down Speed    SNR Upstream    SNR Downstream
  17A    SHOWTIME    19,000 (Kbps)    76,585 (Kbps)    6 (dB)    5 (dB)

Here is a syslog extract from the moment a disconnection happened:

<174>Jan 23 14:33:13 DrayTek: ADSL_Status:[Mode=17A States=SHOWTIME UpSpeed=19000000 DownSpeed=76229000 SNR=-6 Atten=17 ]
<158>Jan 23 14:33:15 DrayTek: PPP Closed : Remote Terminating (PPPoA)
<166>Jan 23 14:33:15 DrayTek: WAN1 PPPoE ==> Protocol:LCP(c021) TermReq Identifier:0x02  ##
<166>Jan 23 14:33:15 DrayTek: WAN 1 is down.
<150>Jan 23 14:33:15 DrayTek: [WEB]Dynamic DNS Setup> Force Update
<166>Jan 23 14:33:15 DrayTek: DSL:  Modem Shut Down from ADSL Phy Layer (0)

Then a load of failed connection attempts as my PC unsuccessfully tries to talk to the world, then this seems to be the reconnection:

<166>Jan 23 14:33:44 DrayTek: WAN1 PPPoE ==> V:1 T:1 PADT ID:4048
<166>Jan 23 14:33:44 DrayTek: WAN1 PPPoE --> send PADT to reset the out-of-order session.
<166>Jan 23 14:33:44 DrayTek: WAN1 PPPoE <== V:1 T:1 PADT ID:4048
<166>Jan 23 14:33:45 DrayTek: [DSL] G.Vectoring Status: OFF
<150>Jan 23 14:33:45 DrayTek: Local User (MAC=60-45-CB-6B-32-CF): 192.168.3.35 DNS -> 212.159.6.9 inquire detectportal.firefox.com
<166>Jan 23 14:33:45 DrayTek: WAN1 PPPoE ==> V:1 T:1 PADT ID:4048
<166>Jan 23 14:33:45 DrayTek: WAN1 PPPoE ==> V:1 T:1 PADI ID:0
<158>Jan 23 14:33:45 DrayTek: >>> Dial-up triggered by user : 192.168.3.35 ; proto=UDP, to 212.159.6.9 port=domain

Hum... just before that drop it's reporting SNR of *minus* 6. But on many, many other occasions it reports SNR of 5 before a disconnect and occasionally an SNR of -4 when things are working OK. So the -ve SNR could mean nothing.

[#10]

Hi @markv,

It's unusual that your connection stabilised on Sunday, is there anything electrical within your property which is powered off / on?

If not, please raise a fault and let us know when you have completed it so we can look towards progressing this with our suppliers.

Your test socket may not be wired correctly or the socket you are connecting to is an extension of the master socket.

Thank you.
 

[#11]

Nothing different from one day to the next.

This gets stranger and stranger...

Thinking it would be hard to report a fault when I was using a non-standard modem/router (Draytek Vigor 2860n, the old 2-antanae model), I decided to reinstate the BT OR modem and Plusnet Technicolor TG 582n router. That would prove, or disprove, that the line was the problem and not the router.

That setup was unable to establish an internet connection. The modem gets a solid DSL light. The Technicolor gets a solid power LED and constantly flashing Ethernet, Broadband and Internet LEDs.

Trying to access any URL is diverted to a Plusnet Broadband Setup page which gets stuck at 1 Getting Ready indefinitely (more than 30 minutes).

Switched back to the Draytek and that connected within 30 seconds, so back online. But already dropped connection twice in the last 30 minutes.

Can I report this as a fault when I'm using the Draytek and the Technicolor doesn't even work?

This gets worse and worse 😞

[#12]

Thank you for trying to test with the equipment that we provided @markv.

Checking the connection logs and from what you have explained, it appears the Technicolor router needed authenticating manually or factory resetting. You can factory reset the router holding a pin / paper clip in the reset hole until all the lights go off except broadband then allow up to 15 minutes for the router to connect.

To be certain it is not your equipment causing the issue, please follow the steps below to manually authenticate if the factory reset does not connect the service.

1) Open up a webpage and in the address bar type http://192.168.1.254

2) When you connect to this page click advanced options and you will be prompted for a Username and Password. The username is 'admin' and the password is found on the back of the router and is starts 'CPXXXXXXXXX'

3) On the left, click the option that reads 'Broadband Connections' followed by 'Internet Services'

4) On the far right click the button that says 'Disconnect' so that it changes to 'Connect'

If it is already reads 'Connect' then you can leave this as is.

5) Click View More and this will prompt you for your username and password. Your username which is username@plusdsl.net and your account password and then press 'Connect'

If the issue persists, please raise a fault. You can raise a fault with your own equipment however, trying it with alternative equipment will reduce the chance of a potential engineer charge.

[#13]

Thanks Jubby.

The Technicolor had a default username of tr069@plusdsl.net. Changing it manually as you described didn't work. It failed to connect, and after a power-cycle (not a reset), had reverted to tr069.

The solution was to use the setup wizard. That resulted in a successful connection and 5 hours of no drops. 5 hours isn't that long a time, but it does make me think the Draytek Vigor is the problem.

The other thread I referenced in an earlier message, with the same problem, suggester a factory reset of the Vigor and labouriously redoing the configuration (perhaps to recover from a configuration corruption). I'm trying that now.

Thanks for your help.

The problem isn't yet solved... will report back.

[#14]

Thanks @markv, let us know how you get on with that.

[#15]

Draytek support suggested I try their 'Vector 4' firmware variant (they offer V1, V2, V3, V4 and a no-vectoring version).

AIUI, no cabinets in my area support any form of Vectoring, and as my connection ALWAYS reports:

<166>Jan  1 00:00:26 DrayTek: [DSL] G.Vectoring Status: OFF

...is seems that vectoring is definitely OFF.

So... why would it make any difference which flavour of vectoring I'm NOT using?

But the proof of the pudding is that I flashed the 2860n with the V4 variant and it has so far stayed connected for 79 hours.

Beats me.