Using the BT Smarthub 6 on a Plusnet Account

[#1]

@Baldrick1 Thanks

I managed to set up up the hub (BT Business Smart Hub) yesterday without a problem (phew). However, This morning it was offline. I found that during the night it had reset itself to factory settings and I had to re-enter my PN info. Would happen to have an idea what might have caused this?

[#2]

@cordoba 

This appears to happen very occasionally. I have a theory that it can be triggered by a watchdog error in the firmware, triggering a full reset and the results that you report. The event log might throw some light on this but never having experienced it I have never had the opportunity to look deeper. 

Possible triggers for a watchdog error ranges from supply surges, spikes, brownouts etc. through severe interference on your telephone line to an intermittent hardware fault in the hub.

I’m afraid that all that you can do is reset it and see if it happens again. My only experience of this is with a relative who lives down a country lane over a mile from the exchange. Both electricity and their ADSL services are fed from overhead lines. This has happened only once since I set them up with a Smarthub several years ago.

[#3]

@Baldrick1 

Thanks for the reply.

The event log shows a load of activity shortly before midnight, then later a disconnect with the cabinet, though what would cause that I don't know. This is followed by many entries of:

PPPoE connection could not be established. Login failed but there was no detailed information delivered by the radius server.

I don't believe this a result of a firmware update (as reported elsewhere) as the FW is dated as November 2019( which I know is out of date).

I'll see if this happens again tonight (hope not). I never had this problem before (PN, TT, Sky, Virgin routers).

Thanks anyway.

[#4]

Hello there,
2 weeks ago I bought a brand new BT Business Hub on Ebay to replace the rubbish Plusnet router.
Everything has been great, no dropping connection, which was the issue with the Plusnet router.
However, tonight, the BT routers light turned orange, which I didn't think anything of.. it then changed back to blue, but I can no longer access the Internet on any device, its just disappeared.
I tried logging in to the router settings at 192.168.1.254 but cannot access that at all, the page will not load.
I've tried restarting the router, but now it appears to be stuck on the steady green light. I've also tried to do a factory reset but again, the green light is just stuck there.

Does anyone have any ideas how I could fix this? Or even what could be wrong?

[#5]

Hello @Crystal01  welcome to this forum.

Try a factory reset again, keeping the switch closed for about 30 seconds. How are you trying to log in it to it, wireless or Ethernet? Ethernet is preferred as it removes wireless issues from the equation. You will have to set it up again from scratch.

Rarely these hubs suffer a firmware crash. If this happens they reset and return to the default BT username, requiring you to disconnect the DSL and re-entering your Plusnet credentials.

If a factory reset won’t allow you to log in it sounds like your hub has suffered from an early life failure. Electronic equipment reliability follows what is called a bath tub curve. That means that there tends to be a much higher level of random failures in the first few hundred hours of operation, followed by years with relatively few failures then rising again at the end of its lifetime.

[#6]

Thanks so much @Baldrick1
I shall try again with the factory reset & see how it goes.
I did find some posts on the BT Forum about some of their older routers having a 'green light' problem where by the router would get stuck on the green start up light after a power cut.
BT would then have to replace the router with a new one.
This was going back a few years, so I would assume that issue is long gone now, but as you say, sometimes electrical equipment just gives up sooner than it should.

Hopefully I'll get it sorted, the Business Hub has been fantastic for the last couple of weeks.
Thank you also for the instructions to set it up, we followed them word for word, it was very helpful 👍

[#7]

@Crystal01 

I once had one stuck in a funny mode andf ound that the solution was to leave the power on but switch the hub off, leave it a minute then back on using the power switch on the back of the hub.

Warning, don't switch on an off frequently or the DLM will kick in and slow your connection.

[#8]

@Baldrick1

I did give that a try yesterday but it was having none of it.

Just out of interest, if the BT router has given up, are there any other routers you would recommend? I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to routers because I've just had the company supplied ones for years.

[#9]

@Crystal01 

There are literally hundreds of thousands, if not in the millions now, of Smarthub 6s in daily use around the country. Just because you are unlucky and yours fails does not mean that the product is unreliable and should be avoided. All electronic devices will suffer from a few early life failures.

[#10]

@Crystal01 I totally agree with @Baldrick1  and sometimes, even the very best technology can need replacing. 

The BT hub is by far superior and very widely used.

[#11]

Great news, I started the BT router up again today, lights changed from green & I've managed to set it all up again, however, the wireless doesn't appear to be working, none of my devices are finding the BT Hub?

Some of the settings seemed to have disappeared on the Smart Hub Manager page too.. the smart set up tab isn't there anymore so I could not change that.

Everything else I have again, followed word for word via your instructions in this thread

[#12]

@Crystal01 

I’m guessing that the firmware has updated and Smart Setuup moved to a tab on the Status page. Have you checked that wireless is switched on? The control is on the Advanced/Wireless page.

See also here. https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/Using-A-BT-Smarthub-An-Update/m-p/1795292#M24601

[#13]

@Baldrick1

I've found Smart Setup & switched it off 👍. Wireless is all switched on, separated the bands too. I've just done a factory reset & gone through the whole process again but still can't pick up the wireless.

[#14]

@Crystal01 

When you say that you can’t pick up the wireless do you mean that when you go into your device available wireless networks the SSID is not showing?

[#15]

@Baldrick1

Yes, it isn't showing on any device.
It only shows on the laptop when I have the ethernet cable plugged in.

I could try another factory reset & go through your instructions again, just to be certain I didn't miss anything.
3rd time lucky 🤞