WPS light on router begins flashing by itself

[#1]

For a few weeks now my Plusnet Sagemcom 2704N router starts flashing the WPS light all by itself. It’s a sequence - five flashes and a pause - five flashes and a pause - five flashes and a pause - and it carries on indefinitely until I turn off the wi-fi with the lower button on the side of the router, or activate a WPS search by pressing the upper button, whereupon the WPS light flashes continuously. Anyone got any idea why this light spontaneously starts flashing in this sequence by itself?

[#2]

Thanks for your post @mickthefitter

I believe it's normal for the WPS light to flash, if it's trying to sync with wireless devices.

If you can private message me your account username, I'll be happy to look at the options for sending you an upgraded router which doesn't have this light on though it would still have WPS functionality. 

[#3]

I’ve opted to disable the WPS function from within the router settings. It might be nothing but I was concerned whether or not every time the WPS light started to flash a sequence of five flashes without a prompt, somebody was trying to hack into it. The WPS light SHOULD flash if I’m trying to link it with one of my devices and I’ve prompted the pairing process by pressing the WPS button on the side of the router. As far as I am concerned it should NOT start flashing all by itself. Because the initial sequence of flashing, when noticed, was five flashes and a pause, repeated over and over, to me that is a code of some sort (fault code?) but no internet search reveals an answer - all posts relating to ‘Why is my WPS light flashing?’ on the internet seem to be answered by the same stock answer “The router is trying to pair with a device”, which neither answers why the router starts flashing spontaneously by itself or why in my case, it seemed to be flashing in a kind of morse code. So seeing as I cannot find an answer and because I don’t use WPS, I’ve switched it off.

[#4]

@mickthefitter 

You've missed the opportunity to get an upgrade to a better hub. I suspect that you have a faulty switch on you current one.

@Gandalf 

If you're referring to a Hub 2 it does have a blue flashing light (but only for a few minutes after you press the button), it's on the back in the form of an illuminated ring around the push button.

[#5]

Thanks a lot for getting back to us @mickthefitter

I can only really speak from my experience with the Hub One (I have the Hub Two but have not tested the WPS as of yet), and I was always under the illusion that the WPS light only flashes when pairing to a device. @Gandalf probably knows more about this than I do though so I'll also suggest sending us a PM with your account username in order to see if we can send out an upgraded router.

@Baldrick1 - by default we're not sending out Hub Two's for now, unless customers are upgrading to fibre, or they're signing up as a new customer, on fibre. So I presume @Gandalf was referring to a Hub One.

I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm mistaken though haha!

[#6]

I was indeed referring to a Hub One.

Apart from what I’ve read about it online I don’t actually know a great deal about the Hub Two as I’ve not had a chance to play around with it yet. 

Regardless though the Hub One should be a lot better than the Hub Zero if they’re on ADSL or Fibre. If they’re on the latter, I suspect they’ve got one of those really old Openreach modems (nothing wrong with them though, I still use mine with a Linksys mesh router )

[#7]

I’ve just had an exchange of private messages with @Gandalf and decided to stick with the current router that was sent to me in 2020. It serves my purposes. I’m convinced the flashing light sequence must be a function of something (it isn’t the normal ‘pairing’ continuous flash, its more like morse code) but when my internet searches for the reason led me to search results recommending WPS is disabled, because it is a vulnerability that can be exploited by hackers, that’s when I decided to go into the router settings and turn WPS off, hence, no more random flashing lights. Of course it is possible the Sagemcom I got last year was new old stock, because my original router which I was supplied with when I joined Plusnet years ago, just died, and after phoning Plusnet up to report the fault, and having gone through the necessary testing to rule out my line or my filters as the cause, I was told ‘Yes you can have a new router, £45 please’ which made me spit my cornflakes out! So after I protested a little I was told I could have one if I paid the postage, which I agreed to, and I got the Sagemcom 2704N. I didn’t know any different but it might have been a case of ‘We’ve got some of those left over nobody wants, give him one of those!’ LOL!

[#8]

Thanks for getting back to us @mickthefitter

The standard process for replacing a router if it's out of the 12 month warranty and if you're still in the same contract that the router was issued in, is to send a new one free of charge, waiving all costs including postage. 

It sounds like your first router may have been older or you may have been out of contract at the time if we asked you to pay the full amount for it or the initial agent may have made a mistake.

If you can PM me your username still I'll be happy to take a closer look and arrange for feedback if appropriate.

[#9]

I think it is safe to assume I was on a renewed contract period when the original router expired, as I have been with Plusnet for some time. If that’s the reason they wanted to charge me for a new router, that would explain it, but I didn’t know that. From my perspective the supply of a router enables the use of the service I’m paying for, so without a router, no service.

[#10 · Accepted solution]

Ah if you were within the first three months of a renewed contract, we'd just charge the postage fee for a new router.

Either way I'm happy to see you had got a good outcome.