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fainbrog's avatar
fainbrog
On our wavelength
3 days ago

16 consecutive T3 timeouts outages and Code 16/24

Hi all,

So, we’ve been having intermittent 16 T3 timeouts for about 8 months now. Have had a number of engineer visits, replacement H5 twice, but still happening periodically.

This morning there was a T3 outage - having had this going on for so long and having experienced a couple of longer local outages, I have a failover setup that switches to 4G and to alert me when it drops and can see from a BQM trace that there is a brief drop this morning.

16 consecutive T3 timeouts while trying to range on upstream channel 1;CM-MAC=;CMTS-MAC=;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1;

Unicast Maintenance Ranging attempted - No response - Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=;CMTS-MAC=;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1;

Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=;CMTS-MAC=;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1;

Then looking at the logs this evening, I can see numerous notices of Code 16 and 24 throughout the day.

CM-STATUS message sent. Event Type Code: 24; Chan ID: 33; DSID: N/A; MAC Addr: N/A; OFDM/OFDMA Profile ID: 1 2 3.;CM-MAC=;CMTS-MAC=;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1;

CM-STATUS message sent. Event Type Code: 16; Chan ID: 33; DSID: N/A; MAC Addr: N/A; OFDM/OFDMA Profile ID: 2.;CM-MAC=;CMTS-MAC=;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.1;

Any ideas if these are these likely related?

I know from talking to neighbours that others are seeing outages (got told off by one of the mods on DM for mentioning this 🤷‍♂️) one time I was able to get a neighbour to check their router log and it also showed 16 T3s a short while before ours did. The neighbourhood WhatsApp is often alight with querying if anyone’s VM dropped.

It occurs whether the H5 is in router or modem mode (the latter is my preference as the Wi-Fi doesn’t cover the whole house) and occurred long before I setup the 4G failover, so, I’m certain it’s not my equipment. Engineers say they have checked the cables etc and all is fine - though we have a very old box on the front of the house dating back to NTL.

The 16 T3s were happening fairly frequently, but have reduced, but still occur. Without my 4G failover, internet just stops for couple of mins and then is fine again, showing the 16 T3s error in the logs.

Happy to share logs etc. if it helps.

2 Replies

  • Tudor's avatar
    Tudor
    Very Insightful Person

    T3s and those error messages are normal, I get them all the time without any lockouts. What is bad is the 16 T3s together. There is possibly noise ingress unless there is an outstanding area fault. 

    Check with Area faults on 0800 561 0061 If you have a VM landline 150 this goes down to post code level. You could also try the web service status page, but this is not recommended as it only covers issues that affect a very large number of customers.

    VM will not dispatch any technicians while an area fault exists.

    If no area faults found:

    The primary place to report faults or for service requests is Customer Services on 0345 454 1111/150 if you have a VM landline or wait two or three days for a VM staff member to get to your post. This board is not a fault reporting system.

  • Hey fainbrog, thank you for reaching out and we are sorry to hear you are having some connection issues.

    We've checked on our side and everything is looking fine, how has it been over the last few days?