Virgin Media Community

[ChristianCooper]

Please will someone from Virgin Media Technical Support call me!

My Super Hub 3 has been broken since Friday.

It was initially not working at all - no WiFi nor direct ethernet.  After the last time I got though to support it is now supplying WiFi.  However the ethernet ports are lighting up as you would expect - but the hub refuses to negotiate a logical connection with the physically connected devices.

I've tried to contact support (literally) 100+ times, often getting the line dropped at the 50+ minute mark.  I only have a mobile to call from and the signal is poor so I cannot move once I connect (relevant later).

This has burned through £50 of phone credit to date as Virgin Media insist on using an 0845 number which is charged at 55p/min while I am on hold.  (Thanks 3Mobile for stitching me up on the unlimited minutes contract I pay each month for, Virgin charge up to 7p/min for the call and the rest goes to you!  Guess which mobile provider will be losing my patronage in the near future).  Bear in mind that as soon as I speak to someone at VM, I give them my mobile number - explain the dropped calls issues and ask them to call me back.

Here's a quick history of things tried and failed so far:

• Turning it off and on again. (Several times, 10 second wait, 20 second wait, 30 second wait before back on)
• Factory reset - 10 seconds on the reset button. (Twice)
• Factory reset - 30 seconds on the reset button. (Twice)
• Magic commands sent from the VM support centre.

To mitigate the problem, I have also:

1. Signed up with another broadband provide as backup (Install 5th Feb).
2. Bought a replacement Super Hub 3 from eBay (may arrive tomorrow, will probably need Virgin Media to do something at their end to enable the box for use in my account, I can imagine the joy as I try to get though to VM tech support again...).
3. Visited all the nearby mobile phone places that may have a 4G dongle or 4G wifi hotspot - they're either not open (what with Covid and all) or don't carry them any more.

For those that care to read on - here's the outline of poor customer service experience I have had so far:

Friday Overall - Made 50+ calls, around 40 of them resulted in an engaged tone.  10 of them were disconnected, either during queueing or when in conversation.

Friday - The first time I spoke to someone we got as far as doing a 30 second reset on the box.  He asked me to confirm the colour of the lights (steady orange/yellow at the bottom, no others steady or flashing), we were then cut off.  He didn't call back.  Either way - not fixed.

Note: At this point I was losing the will to live.

Saturday overall - Another 30+ calls, again mostly the engaged tone, 5 or so calls actually got through, however I never got to speak to anyone.  Highlight: did get a phone ringing at 46 minutes, then back to hold music, then call dropped at 54 minutes.

Sunday overall - another 25 calls - most engaged, still got to confirm my password a few times though.

Sunday - I got through to a well spoken Indian chap, the call was dropped (my wife's phone ran out of credit), he called back on my mobile (Oh happy days!) he managed to send a command that initiated the WiFi, he then asked me to go and check the direct connection (can't move the phone remember) - he could name the PC connected to the port but not see any traffic.  I went downstairs (better mobile signal upstairs, router downstairs), check the PC - confirmed that it was not connected and still trying to negotiate a connection, and by the time I got back, the call had dropped.  The engineer had immediately called back (while I was still checking the computer, I'm not sure how he expected me to go downstairs check the PC and return in the time he gave me...) and left a message saying he could only call back once so I'd have to call back and join the queue again - he had the decency to sound apologetic in the message.

Sunday continued - Called the sales line (that way I don't get charged 55p/min!), spoke to someone in the UK - was disconnected, she called back, was disconnected, no call back.

Sunday continued - Called the sales line again, spoke to someone in the UK - she said she was going to try and get a hold of the engineer I had last spoken to - was disconnected, no call back.

So here I am 4 days in - clearly the Hub is duff and I need a new one - but can I get anyone to speak to that can just send a new one...  Sadly no.

Please Virgin Media - please call me!  I'm going bankrupt while I try to fix a problem that should take 5 minutes to diagnose.

[carl_pearce]

You won't get a call back from here, however you should get a reply (post) from the VM staff in 5 - 10 working days depending on the number of active threads in this forum, Twitter, Facebook, etc. (It's the same team that deal with them all).

[ChristianCooper]

Yeah I'm honestly not expecting much - I was directed here by their Twitter account...

[jbrennand]

Hubs are the property of VM its probable that the eBay one doesnt belong to the seller (as its VM property and should have been returned) and in any case they will never activate onto your account. Its a doorstop.

its hard to get the pertinent info from you detailed post 🙂 so....

Forgetting anything you have been told by the offshore agents.... what makes you think your Hub is broken and not that there is a problem on your connection to your VM street cabinet that needs a Tech visit to fix?

What are its lights showing/doing? Do you get "any" connectivity at all? Is it the same on ethernet connections as wifi?

[ChristianCooper]

Yes, I suspect the ebay hub will be of zero use, at this point I'm desperate for a solution, and a long shot was worth a shot.

My reasoning for why I think the hub is broken is:

1. Up until Friday the Hub had been working in its current configuration (with occasional hiccups) for months.
2. The LEDs on the hub ethernet ports light up and flicker when physically connected (to both my other router, and to my laptop).
3. Neither the router nor the laptop is able to negotiate a connection.  Both are stuck waiting for an IP address, subnet mask and DNS servers to be assigned to them.
4. The last VM tech support engineer I spoke to was able to read out the names of the two physically connected devices using his tools to interrogate the router.
5. The WIFI works fine after numerous factory resets, which indicates that the negotiation is fine.

This leads me to the conclusion that the fault lies at a hardware/microcode level in the hub subcomponents responsible for the ethernet ports - it seems the physical layer traffic coming in on the ethernet ports is not being passed on through the data link layer up to the session layer of the model. 

I.e. Somewhere between OSI layer 2 & 5 there is a broken something - so no session is being negotiated, but only for physical connections while WiFi works just fine.

If my reasoning is wrong - cool. 🙂

[jbrennand]

Sounds logical now you explain it that way 🙂

There have been quite a few threads recently where the Hub3 ethernet ports have failed - so its not uncommon. I will ask VM to come here and see if they can sort it for you - keep checking back

[ChristianCooper]

Thanks!

[legacy1]

try the following:
https://techviral.net/reset-network-settings-on-windows-10/

[ChristianCooper]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I can't see it fixing the problem. 

Even if the problem were with the laptop - it doesn't explain why my Draytek router can no longer connect.

[Zoie_P]

Hi ChrsitianCooper, 

Thanks for your post 🙂
I am sorry to hear this, we do not support 3rd party equipment such as another router but as it is a fault with the ports I can get this replaced for you,  I will pop you over a private message keep an eye out for the purple envelope

thanks,

Zoie