Intermittent outages for 3wks

[emmadii]

I’ve been having intermittent outages for 3 weeks now. I was told on Friday 18th August that it would be fixed on 22nd August. It hasn’t been fixed. I’ve called and tried all online guidance but Virgin won’t tell when it will actually be fixed. And I can’t find any information nor can speak to a person about whether I will be compensated. I can’t work without this being fixed or at least knowing when it will be fixed

[WorstISP]

Hi emmadii, sorry to hear you're having these issues. I'm having the same problems in the Swiss Cottage area, every since the 8th of August, following a total outage of 2 days.

Can you open your CPE (the "hub" as Virgin call it, the black box that gives you wifi and such) and copy the logs here?

To do this:
- Open your browser and enter 192.168.0.1 into your address bar (same as you would google.com or bbc.com)
- Don't bother logging in (you won't need to)
- Click on "Check router status", beneath the login section (see attached image)
- Copy & paste the Upstream, the Downstream, and the Network Log *DO NOT TAKE A SCREENSHOT, the logs show your CPE's Mac address, which is personal information, copy and paste them into the reply and the mac address will automatically be removed*

I would wager that you'll see the following errors:
- "SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync"
- "Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out"
- "16 consecutive T3 timeouts while trying to range on upstream channel"
- "Unicast Maintenance Ranging attempted - No response - Retries exhausted"

These messages are informing you that your ONU (the white box on your wall) cannot establish a connection to the OLT (this is the device that you and your neighbours lines connect to, it's basically the point where you access Virgin's network).

If you are seeing these issues I describe, it's nothing to do with your CPE (the "hub" as Virgin call it). Any "support" you get asking you to restart/reset your CPE, reconfigure your wifi, or "resolutions" to replace the CPE, are pointless. If Virgin give you these bogus replies about replacing/resetting your hub, you should consider it as a statement that they are not investigating the true issue.

[WorstISP]

Since it sounds like you're experiencing the same problems that many other customers are facing right now, could I ask you to make a report to Ofcom so they know there's an issue with Virgin right now? You can fill in Ofcom's monitoring form here: https://ofcomforms.secure.force.com/formentry/SitesFormCCTMonitoring
This is not the same as making a complaint to Ofcom, but it provides them with information.

Additionally, the ONU serial number is unique to your home, as is the MAC address and the serial number of your CPE. Since these values could be used to identify you, this could be considered "personal data", and I would argue that Virgin must provide any event logs relating to these values when asked for them through a "Subject Access Request". This could help in proving that there is a fault in the service if you wanted to cancel or escalate your complaint.

Some of the logs on the OLT will reference these values, and it's likely that Virgin are collecting these OLT logs in a log management system for long term storage, but the OLT will have them for a shorter duration.

Therefore, you could make a subject access request for:
"All logs and records of events relating to the CPE and ONU in my home, that my internet service is provided to. These logs are available through syslog on the OLT my line connects to, and whatever long-term log storage systems syslog transfers them to".

You can make a Subject Access Request (SAR) here: https://www.virginmedia.com/help/dsar
You can make a formal complaint to Virgin here: https://www.virginmedia.com/help/complaints (Scroll down to "How to make a complaint via web form", don't waste your time with the chat).

In both cases, make sure you keep a record of your complaint before you submit. Virgin media have deliberately chosen to provide a web-form rather than an email address, which unfortunately deprives you of proof of submission. They do not provide a copy of your complaint, so you should ask for a copy of your complaint in your SAR.

[John_GS]

Hi @emmadii 

Thanks for posting and welcome back to the community. I am sorry to hear of any internet issues and the impact it's having as you work from home.

I've ran a check on this for you and it appears you were impacted by an intermittent fault which now is resolved.

I do hope this is fixed for you, however if you need further assistance, let us know.

Best wishes.

[emmadii]

Definitely not resolved as my internet is down again right now, that’s the fifth time today. 

[WorstISP]

Did you get to the network-status page and see those T3 errors I told you that you'd see?

Please report the issue to Ofcom: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/problems/broadband-landli...

It's not isolated to you, this issue is widely affecting Virgin Media customers right now.