Hub 3 dropping when connected to Unify / Ubiquiti

[leonphoebe]

Hi there

We have a Hub 3. To spread the internet round the house we have a Unify POE switch plugged into one of the Hub 3 ethernet ports. That POE switch is hard wired to two access points and TV. 

However when the Unify POE switch is plugged in, when switching on our computers (various, Windows and Macs) it will connect to VM network but it says "No internet, secured". Other times the VM network will work but the Unify network will not, saying "No internet, secured". 

However note:

- When VM says "No internet, secured", once I take the POE switch out and reconnect on my laptop, it connects with internet.

- When VM says "No internet, secured" on one device, other devices are connected with internet.

Potentially connected to this, the Unify will drop around the house too, and is not stable enough to hold a Skype call.  

An IT engineer came and thought there was an issue with the Hub 3, but on the phone Virgin blame the third party hardware. 

Any ideas??

Thank you!!!!!

[Katie_WT]

Afternoon @leonphoebe

Welcome to our Community and thanks so much for your first post - I was sorry to understand that you're having some drop outs when using a 3rd party device. We can certainly assist with any connections issues you may have but are unable to offer any advise or assistance with your 3rd party equipment, I am sorry. 

Our users and Community may be able to assist with that though. 

I have located your account from here to run through some diagnostics and can see it's been around 3 days since the Hub3 was rebooted. Your signal levels are within the parameters that we would expect for your package and equipment. There are no errors showing and no known area issues. All is looking as it should

However, when we check your connected devices, you have an excessive amount of devices for the package that you are on and this is causing bandwidth and connection issues with some of those devices. A few of the devices are also too close to the Hub which is causing some interference.

For the amount of devices you have connected, we would recommend that a faster/higher package would be more suitable for your needs. Or you would need to remove a lot of the devices to get the best from your package and broadband connection. 

Cheers 

[Tudor]

I use a large amount of Unifi equipment including 3 PoE switches, but not direct to my Hub3 as I have a Unifi Dream Machine Pro router. Here are a few things you could try, SSH into the switch on port 22, I think the logon/password is ubnt/ubnt if you have not changed it (see their website if this does not work). Then give the switch and IP address of say 192.168.0.250 outside of the DHCP range of the Hub3. Also you could install the free Unifi Network Controller software on either a PC or Mac, this will let you see what is happening in the switch and look at all its ports.

[sophist]

sounds like you potentially have another device on the network acting as a dhcp server..? when a device doesn't work (and you get the connected, no internet message) check what the IP configuration is for that device ("ipconfig /all" at a command prompt on a windows machine)  

[leonphoebe]

Thank you for all your help. I got a couple of engineers in (not Virgin) who thought there may be an issue with the Hub3. 

Anyway, what I then did was to buy a new router (a Netgear Nighthawk) and then put the Hub3 into modem mode. At present (1 day in), everything seems to be working. It may be have been some conflict as the above comments say, which have now been sorted. 

I spoke to the engineer who came a couple of hours ago who said he had another client who called with exactly this issue - issues with Unify alongisde a Hub 3, so there may be some issue somewhere. Hopefully this post helps those trying to sort it out!

Thanks again to those who responded. 

[Ashleigh_C]

 Hi @leonphoebe

Thank you so much for updating us and informing our community and thank you so much to all who helped! 

Please do let us know how things are going with this and should you have any further issues please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Thank you.  

[Viv_Ly]

@leonphobe  - How have you since got on and is everything now stable with the netgear nighthawk? Thanks in advance!

[DJayH]

Hi  I'd like an update on this too please as I'm suffering similar issues. Virgin and Unifi just stopped working together all of a sudden. 

Do you plug your POE switch into the NIghthawk? 

Could two standalone APs plug into the night hawk instead? As that is the setup that I currently have.

Thanks

[Viv_Ly]

Hi there!

Since my original post, I can tell you that my Virgin internet at home has been rock solid. The only way to go in my experience is to buy a secondary router like an asus router.

Contrary to popular belief, you can use any router with Virgin so long as you put the Virgin router into modem mode as the Virgin router is still needed to decode incoming Fibre signals into your house from the street. Practically all Virgin OEM router boxes that I've read about, are unstable and poor performing. This is a very common problem with domestic customers. Virgin routers try to be clever with channel switching and sharing WiFi  between devices but they aren't robust in that regard. Using Ubiquiti unifi or Orbi access points masks the issue but doesn't solve it. Virgin's newer hubs are also poor performing so upgrading a Virgin hub doesn't solve it either!

I've installed an ASUS router, not cheap but so far, performance has been solid and no drop outs!! Our WIFI mode is now 802.11AX (Wifi 6). We still use the Unifi access points installed but we connect these to the ASUS router instead. Getting ASUS to recognise Virgin took a number of attempts. ASUS would not recognise a WAN connection to the Virgin box. I now understand that Virgin disables certain ports when it is put into modem mode so it was trial and error testing out each port on your newly purchased router and doing reboots (powering off and on) each of the boxes. Once I could get Asus to handshake with Virgin, the rest of the ASUS config was easy!

Now if you are not sure about any of the above, it is worth hiring a network engineer for an hour to configure your new router. But the key takeaway, is to buy a new router, put your original virgin router into modem mode, and if you need to, add additional access points like I did to widen the wifi coverage if you have a big house.

Hope this helps!!