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David192's avatar
David192
On our wavelength
2 years ago
Solved

Intermittent dropouts and very busy omnibox?

Good morning!

Not really sure where to start with this, but just after some advice.

I'm on a Gig1 package from VM. Currently having constant intermittent dropouts every so often (these are so severe that they're affecting online gaming, getting kicked back to the lobby etc.). See attached photo of one of the many dropouts.

Working in IT, I have my own setup. It's a basic network that pretty much goes like this: Hub 4 (modem mode) > Unifi Security Gateway > Switch > PC. I prefer to wire all of my equipment when possible. Wi-fi is managed by 2x Ubiquiti AP's. VM will often try to tell me that my network is configured incorrectly etc. I'm 99% sure I've configured my network correctly. It's a basic network without any VLAN's and the most 'advanced' thing on it is a L2TP VPN that I set up.

Taking a peek at the omnibox outside the house, I have noticed another connection has been added. We're now on 1 in and 3 out on this line, is this normal?

I've reset the hub 4 back to default factory settings as advised, but this hasn't helped. All Ubiquiti updates applied. I have a replacement hub 5 coming on Saturday but just wondered if it's normal to have such a busy omnibox?

I'm not able to view the signal strength of the line as my Hub 4 doesn't allow me to log into the web management page. To get into this, I'll need to reboot the hub and quickly try to log into the hub when it comes back on. Even after rebooting the hub, the web management page will only work for 5 minutes before dying and refusing to load anything else... something on the backend isn't playing nicely.

  • Sephiroth's avatar
    Sephiroth
    2 years ago

    Oh - I forgot to say - the splitter might be duff and not passing upstream properly, in which case the associated neighbour will be suffering the same as you.

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  • David192's avatar
    David192
    On our wavelength
    2 years ago

    Thanks for your replies, all. I do remember putting a 75 ohm terminator cap on upstairs when we cancelled our tv subscriptions.

    I'll go around and tighten all the coax connections (if needed) and look at getting an engineer booked if I don't see any improvement 👍

     

  • Sephiroth's avatar
    Sephiroth
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    It looks like you've taken all the necessary steps.  Now to the neighbours.  You do need to know the fullest picture possible - which isn't exactly what you get from VM.  If your neighbours don't have the same high upstream power, then, at least in terms of my knowledge, the problem lies in your Hub.   If there was noise generated in your home, it would propagate to other homes on the same cabinet .

  • Sephiroth's avatar
    Sephiroth
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    Oh - I forgot to say - the splitter might be duff and not passing upstream properly, in which case the associated neighbour will be suffering the same as you.

  • David192's avatar
    David192
    On our wavelength
    2 years ago

    All coax's checked and tightened but no improvement, still getting intermittent dropouts unfortunately (albeit not as often, compared to the hub 4). Neighbor is away and no idea when he'll return as he does a lot of travelling.

    Engineer booked for Wednesday.

  • Sephiroth's avatar
    Sephiroth
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    So, you know what to keep your eyes pen for when the tech arrives.  It's an explanation for the possible noise that is plaguing your upstream.  As it might also be a faulty Hub, he should put a Hub 5 on as a cross-check against noise; if the upstream levels are fine, then it was the Hub 4 that was faulty.

    If there is still poor upstream power after trying a different Hub, then the tech should change out the splitter.

    If it's still poor upstream, then he can change the tap point in the street cabinet.

    One final thing that I haven't mentioned, the drop point outside your house:  tech should check that it's not waterlogged which is a reasonably well known source of issues.

    • David192's avatar
      David192
      On our wavelength
      2 years ago

      Thanks for all your help, you've helped me gather a plethora of information to give to the engineer. Will keep the thread updated with what the engineer has done.

      Interestingly enough, the corrected error count on the new Hub 5 is already sitting at 2,294,325,139 (this was only set up on Saturday)… I wonder if this affected my Hub 4 and integer overflow caused it to die 🤔

       

      • Sephiroth's avatar
        Sephiroth
        Alessandro Volta
        2 years ago

        Corrected errors are nothing to worry about if there are no uncorrected errors.  There will usually be a small number of uncorrected errors that can be put down to the initialisation stage when nothing is in sync and everything is gibberish.  My corrected error count n D3.1 is 2286557907 and I have no issues of any sort.

  • David192's avatar
    David192
    On our wavelength
    2 years ago

    Update: Engineer attended. Replaced splitter for 3 way to 2 way. Replaced copper cable from omnibox to router/modem, as he wasn't too happy with how the old cable looked. He spent a good amount of time fine tuning the power on the line. Checked for water ingress in the "T"/drop point but he was happy it was clear. All good so far.

     

    • Ayisha_B's avatar
      Ayisha_B
      Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team
      2 years ago

      Hi David192 

      Thanks for the update - glad to hear this.

      If you need help with anything else, let us know.