Multiple Router Restarts

[Haravikk]

I've always had some trouble with Virgin routers restarting, had multiple replacements but it's never fixed it, but normally it's infrequent (once a month at most) so I've just ignored it.

However today I've had the router inexplicably restart at least FIVE times today, as you can hopefully see in the Broadband Quality Monitor graph here.

It even happened again while trying to post this message (and make that twice while editing the post)!

What is it that causes the router to restart like this? There's nothing in the logs that points to any particular issue at the same times, so I don't know if it's power loss or what. I've already tried plugging it into a different mains socket connected using a different extension block to see if it was that that was the problem, though no other devices on the previous block/socket are restarting or losing power or such. Unfortunately I don't have a UPS I can move to the router's location to completely eliminate power as a cause, but if it was suffering power loss would it say so in the log? It's really not very helpful.

Is there anything I can do to stop this? Because like I say; I've tried multiple times to get support in the past and it's never been resolved, now it's worse than ever and not long after I've been told my bills are going up yet again, so I really am at the point where either it needs to get fixed or I'll be forced to switch providers.

Here are the Downstream/Upstream stats in case they are useful:

Downstream bonded channels

Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID

1	331000000	1.2	40	256 qam	25
2	339000000	1.5	40	256 qam	26
3	347000000	0.2	40	256 qam	27
4	355000000	0.5	38	256 qam	28
5	363000000	0.5	40	256 qam	29
6	371000000	0	38	256 qam	30
7	379000000	-1	38	256 qam	31
8	387000000	-0.4	38	256 qam	32
9	395000000	0	40	256 qam	33
10	403000000	-0.5	40	256 qam	34
11	411000000	-0.7	40	256 qam	35
12	419000000	-0.2	40	256 qam	36
13	427000000	-0.7	40	256 qam	37
14	435000000	-2	38	256 qam	38
15	443000000	-2	38	256 qam	39
16	451000000	-1.5	38	256 qam	40
17	459000000	-2.4	38	256 qam	41
18	467000000	-3	38	256 qam	42
19	475000000	-2	40	256 qam	43
20	483000000	-1.7	40	256 qam	44
21	491000000	-2.7	38	256 qam	45
22	499000000	-2.9	38	256 qam	46
23	507000000	-1.9	38	256 qam	47
24	515000000	-2.5	38	256 qam	48

Downstream bonded channels

Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors

1	Locked	40.9	3	0
2	Locked	40.3	0	0
3	Locked	40.3	0	0
4	Locked	38.9	4	0
5	Locked	40.3	3	0
6	Locked	38.9	6	0
7	Locked	38.9	6	0
8	Locked	38.6	6	0
9	Locked	40.3	5	0
10	Locked	40.9	0	0
11	Locked	40.3	0	0
12	Locked	40.3	6	0
13	Locked	40.3	5	0
14	Locked	38.9	0	0
15	Locked	38.9	5	0
16	Locked	38.6	13	0
17	Locked	38.6	4	0
18	Locked	38.9	0	0
19	Locked	40.3	5	0
20	Locked	40.3	5	0
21	Locked	38.9	0	0
22	Locked	38.6	0	0
23	Locked	38.9	17	0
24	Locked	38.9	6	0

Upstream bonded channels

Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID

1	39399988	41.5	5120	64 qam	4
2	32600019	41.5	5120	64 qam	5
3	46199974	41.5	5120	64 qam	3
4	53699996	43	5120	64 qam	2

Upstream bonded channels

Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts

1	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
2	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
3	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
4	ATDMA	0	0	0	0

[Haravikk]

Sure, here's a link to the live graph.

[Kath_F]

Hi Haravikk, 

Thanks for your patience on this one. I've already heard back from the Area Manager tonight saying: 

'This does look like something we’d like to have an experience tech have a look at. We’ll check availability in the morning once we’ve seen what work is out there and we’ll let you / the customer know. It might be another day before we can get out but we’ll do our best for tomorrow.'

Once I have any further information, I shall let you know. 

Thanks
 

[Kath_F]

Hi Haravikk, 

Thanks once again for your patience on this one. 

I have spoken with the Area Manager today who has advised there were loose connections at the address which was causing your issues and things look to be resolved currently. 

If you have any further issues then please pop back and let us know. 

Thanks, 

[Haravikk]

Unfortunately this issue still hasn't been fully resolved, the router is still restarting from time to time (somewhere between once a week and once a fortnight usually, though it's happened a couple of times in the last two days). It's hard to say if reducing the noise on the line has made it any better; I'd say not, it feels about as (in)frequent as it was before.

The engineer who visited last time suggested it could be an ethernet connected device, but I only currently have a single ethernet device connected to the SuperHub 3, which is a Powerline adapter (a TP-Link AV2000 adapter, I think a PA9020 with the twin gigabit ethernet ports). I haven't found a good way to eliminate this as a possible cause though, as the computer connecting via Powerline does not get a good enough WiFi signal to switch to that temporarily. However I've tried using different cables and putting a spare gigabit switch in between the adapter and the router and neither of these made a difference. I've tested my cables using a basic cable tester (really only tests for crossover). It feels like a weird cause of problems though as I don't see why a misbehaving ethernet device should cause the entire router to restart; ethernet has been around for a while so I feel like a device with ethernet ports should be able to cope better with something like that?

I've also tried to do what I can to eliminate power as an issue; I've tried connecting the SuperHub 3 into its own mains socket, including using a long extension to connect it to a socket in a different room. Only thing I haven't done is try an Uninterruptible Power Supply but the only one I have can't really be moved to where I could try the router on it, so I can't completely eliminate wiring as an issue yet, however the SuperHub 3 is the only device that's exhibiting this kind of behaviour, all my other devices seem perfectly happy.

Are either of these (ethernet or power) likely to be the cause? What's so frustrating is the inability to find a cause, the router itself provides zero information (if it would just say in the log "lost power", "ethernet error" or "signal degradation" or something then this would be so much easier to fix), whereas currently it's a case of pure trial and error, and since it usually happens infrequently it's taking forever to eliminate the possibilities as I see them.

Is the newer hardware likely to be more reliable? I know it's only intended for gigabit customers at the moment, but would it be worth trying? The SuperHub 3 I currently have is somewhat old now.

I've had suggestions of putting the router into modem mode and connecting a different WiFi router a few times in the past when I've had problems, but I'm wary about doing that as it feels like throwing money at the problem, and isn't guaranteed to solve it.

Has anyone else had this issue (infrequent restarts)? What solved it for you?

[Akua_A]

Thank you for the update @Haravikk and sorry to hear that your issue is still ongoing.

I have run a few tests and everything seems fine on our systems. In this case are you able to run another broadband quality monitor https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/5f7e9bdfbd7cf6fee0782011b0c19fb797... so we can understand how service has been since the last appointment? 

Thanks,

[Haravikk]

Sure, I've got the live graph in my signature, but here's one from Monday where there were two unexplained restarts. The graph shows three red bars, but the first of these (just before 9am) was me moving the router over to a different mains socket, however the red bar just after 9am and just after 10pm are both unexplained restarts:

The increased maximum latency between 10am and bout 8pm is normal for me as my NAS runs offsite backups that seem to affect the latency on BQM graphs, though it has no noticeable impact on usability. I used to have it run these overnight but that was the only thing it would be doing so I decided to start shutting it down overnight instead). The huge spike in latency between 8pm and 10pm was strange though, as I never noticed any problems with the connection, until the router restarted just after 10pm that is.

I had the same very high latency (with some packet loss) last night around the same times again, but again it had no noticeable impact on anything I was doing online.

This next graph shows another unexplained restart from the day before:

Only a single unexplained restart this time, but it was during a video conference that started at 7pm. You can see I disabled my NAS' backups around 5:30pm so it can't have contributed to that restart.

Again it's the lack of explanation that makes it so frustrating as there are no common factors that I can see; NAS backups enabled or disabled seems to make no difference, sometimes it does it when the BQM graph is very spiky, other times it does when its nice and flat. There's just never anything that seems to explain why it happens.

For completeness, and in case it offers any other clues, these are my current stats for signal strength etc.:

 

Spoiler

Downstream bonded channels

Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID

1	451000000	-1.7	38	256 qam	40
2	331000000	0.7	40	256 qam	25
3	339000000	1	40	256 qam	26
4	347000000	0.2	40	256 qam	27
5	355000000	0	38	256 qam	28
6	363000000	0	40	256 qam	29
7	371000000	-0.4	38	256 qam	30
8	379000000	-1.2	38	256 qam	31
9	387000000	-0.7	38	256 qam	32
10	395000000	-0.2	40	256 qam	33
11	403000000	-0.7	40	256 qam	34
12	411000000	-1	40	256 qam	35
13	419000000	-0.5	40	256 qam	36
14	427000000	-0.7	38	256 qam	37
15	435000000	-2	38	256 qam	38
16	443000000	-2	40	256 qam	39
17	459000000	-2.4	38	256 qam	41
18	467000000	-3.2	38	256 qam	42
19	475000000	-2	40	256 qam	43
20	483000000	-1.7	40	256 qam	44
21	491000000	-2.4	38	256 qam	45
22	499000000	-2.7	38	256 qam	46
23	507000000	-1.7	40	256 qam	47
24	515000000	-2.2	38	256 qam	48

Downstream bonded channels

Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors

1	Locked	38.6	229	604
2	Locked	40.9	156	627
3	Locked	40.3	165	823
4	Locked	40.9	211	873
5	Locked	38.9	192	931
6	Locked	40.3	201	935
7	Locked	38.9	204	944
8	Locked	38.9	249	954
9	Locked	38.9	201	704
10	Locked	40.3	182	699
11	Locked	40.3	214	725
12	Locked	40.3	223	754
13	Locked	40.3	231	744
14	Locked	38.9	201	729
15	Locked	38.9	219	875
16	Locked	40.3	241	3062
17	Locked	38.6	257	937
18	Locked	38.9	300	2335
19	Locked	40.3	263	1425
20	Locked	40.3	233	1748
21	Locked	38.6	256	1930
22	Locked	38.9	226	1533
23	Locked	40.3	248	1289
24	Locked	38.9	266	1195

Upstream bonded channels

Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID

1	46200000	43.3	5120	64 qam	3
2	32600000	40.8	5120	64 qam	5
3	39400000	41.3	5120	64 qam	4
4	53700012	43.3	5120	64 qam	2

Upstream bonded channels

Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts

1	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
2	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
3	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
4	ATDMA	0	0	0	0

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @Haravikk

Thank you for your updates and I am so sorry to hear that this issue has returned! 

I have reached back out to the area field manager to ask them to take another look. As soon as I hear back I will reach out to you. 

Thank you. 

[Haravikk]

I never got any followup on this issue; and recently the problem has been getting worse. Here are my BQM graphs for the past week:

That's restarts every day, some prolonged ones late at night, and one several days three or four restarts!

Could this be equipment failure? Is it worth trying a replacement router and new power supply (iirc the last time I got a replacement router it used the existing power supply, so might be worth swapping that too)?

I can't think what else could have changed that would be making this worse; while the weather has been warmer the house hasn't been that much warmer inside, and the router should be in a fairly well ventilated spot (though it's also quite high up, but we don't really have a choice due to where the end of the cable currently is).

[Zoie_P]

Thank you for your reply, Haravikk, 

I am so sorry it has not improved and you have not had an update, I will email the agent looking into this to see if they got a reply 🙂 

Zoie

[Haravikk]

Can you please refer this to someone else?

Because whoever you have been sending messages to clearly has no interest in doing their job, just as I am rapidly losing interest in paying a small fortune for an internet connection that is not reliable.