Virgin Media Community

[Branwen80]

On my personal laptop, I can never find the Live Chat option when I go to Virgin Media's homepage. I have tried with my work laptop, and the green 'Need Help?' pop-up on the side of the screen immediately appears when I go to their homepage. On my personal laptop however the only pop-up is the white 'Feedback' one, again on the side but further down. Could I have I disabled something on my personal laptop for this to happen? Thanks. 

[Corey_C]

Thanks for your post and welcome to the Community Forums, Branwen80,

IS there anything we can help with from here? If you are just querying about webchat options, they can be found here. If you have any sort of pop-up or ad-blocker then they might be preventing the webchat window from appearing.

Cheers,

Corey C

[Branwen80]

Hi, so I went to that link you gave me. I went to the 'Message Us' link at bottom of page, then a live chat started. I typed in an issue I'm currently experiencing, so an issue with loss of audio during video-calls due I think to a weak broadband signal, and the live chat just gives me a pre-typed message, telling me to phone them or go to website. I don't want to go to the website, because this is a complex issue that needs a Virgin technician, and when I try to phone your number: 0345 454 1111 (I don't have a Virgin phone line to dial 150), it tells me there is up to an hour's wait, to try switching the router off and on again (trust me - I've tried that about 250 times since lockdown), and then the line goes dead! How is that good customer service - please tell me!!!  It's making me frustrated. 

[Corey_C]

Thanks for replying, Branwen80,

Fault queries is something we can handle here in the forums. If you have any issues like that feel free to post and we can help as best we can from here. The issues that you are having with your video calls, is this from a wired device or whilst on WIFI?

Cheers,

Corey C

[Branwen80]

So I have been working from home since March last year. I have a work laptop in use and a personal laptop. My work laptop is 18 months old, my personal one is about 8 years old, and really needs to be renewed now. The problem is with my work laptop and using Microsoft Teams. During Teams video-calls I will experience an intermittent sound issue, in that the sound will disappear for seconds at a time. The picture quality is unaffected.  This issue will happen in phases of the call, so there will be a gap of about 10 seconds before the audio disappears again. I'm not a techie person, but I was advised by my work's IT dept to carry out a ping test, whereby it pings back and forth to Google.co.uk. I've noticed, when the sound disappears there with be 'Request timed out' messages on the ping test. Also, sometimes there will be a 'Insufficient bandwidth' message appearing on the screen. We can't use Zoom on our work laptops, but we do use Skype, but I don't experience loss of sound on Skype video calls. 

To answer your question - I have only ever connected my laptop to the VM router via wifi, however I have today ordered an RJ45 (ethernet) to HDMI adaptor, as I do not have an ethernet port on my work laptop, so that I can see if connecting my work laptop to the router via an ethernet cable will resolve this issue. Someone here said that connecting via a cable is more efficient than connecting via wifi. The adaptor arrives by post next month so I cannot test this until then. 

The problem lies either with my internet connection (VM), or with the Microsoft Teams app on my laptop. I did try going to another location for internet - so not in my house - I connected my work laptop to the wifi from there, and had a Teams call. I started a ping test, and there were no connection issues at all when I did that (although I have only done this once and wouldn't mind trying that one more time to be sure).  But going by this one time, this tells me that the problem lies with my home's internet - would you now agree?

I'd welcome your thoughts, or even a phone-call from Virgin Media.  Thanks. 

[Corey_C]

Thanks for clarifying the issue, Branwen80,

You would be right that this may be specific to the app or your connection. I ran a remote diagnostic on your connection and it is indicating higher upstream power levels. This could be the cause of your connection issues. A few home remedies I can advise is checking your connections to the hub and making sure they are secure. If you have any splitters then try removing those as it may have gone defective.

I've also booked a tech visit for you, which you can view online here,

Cheers,

Corey C

[Branwen80]

Thanks for the reply - it means a lot that I can actually talk to someone from Virgin like this.  It seems like the live chat and the phone-call has proven unsuccessful for me to get through to you, but this medium at least has got some results...

The hub I take is the wall box on the inside wall of my living room, so I have already checked the wiring from my router to that hub and it all seems fine. There is also a box on the outside wall of my house and the wiring for that also seems fine.  

'Higher upstream power levels' - I will Google that tonight to see what it means exactly, also splitters.  

Thanks for booking the tech visit for me - at the moment I do not have any open orders so I do not know when the person will come, however I will come back in 24 hours to see if that has changed.  

[Corey_C]

Thanks for replying, Branwen80,

We do try to help where we can here at the forums. I'll send you a private message regarding your appointment.

Cheers,

Corey C