SH4 new firmware (July 2022) - Green Ring in Modem/Bridge Mode - round robin load balancing broken?

[noggin72]

Had a firmware update recently to the 'solid green light when in modem/bridge mode' version mentioned here :

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-WiFi/Hub-4-Solid-green-light-whilst-in-Bridge-mo...

In my case : AR01.04.055.06.07_040722_7245.PC20.10.LG.X1

Since that update when my round robin load balancing set-up with a Mikrotik RB4011 has dropped from 1150Mbs to <50Mbs.  It only returns to 940Mbs if I disconnect all but one of the Ethernet cables from the SH4 to the RB4011 - disabling round-robin mode?  

The RB4011 is configured to use up to 4 Gigabit connections to the SH4 to allow >940Mbs - the limit of a single GigE connection - in round robin mode - that the SH4 supports (or supported) along with a 10Gbe fibre connection to allow me to use the >940Mbs connection on devices around my home. (I have 2.5GbE and 10GbE adaptors in various devices, and 10GbE SFP+ fibre distribution around the house)

Anyone else noticed this who was running round-robin to get their full connection speed of 1.2Gbs?

[Adduxi]

Have you tried a full 60 ssecond pin hole reset?

In fairness, modem mode was always planned only to work on one port, and the rr mode was an incidental discovery.

I'm guessing if this is broken for rr, it will not be regressed.  The Hub 4 can still supply over 1GB by wifi concurrently with multiple devices.  

Hopefully the Hub 5 will soon be the Hub for 1GB contracts.?

[noggin72]

I've not done a full pin-hole reset yet.  Because there are also issues in our area I've got a second VM engineer arriving today to have a look - as we may have two issues concurrently. (At one point I was limited in router mode on the SH4 as well)

And yes - totally get that round robin balancing isn't a documented or publicly supported feature so it's unlikely to be regressed.  As I'm never going to use the SH4 in router mode the WiFi stuff is a non-solution for me. All my main machines are on 10GbE or 2.5GbE connections.

The SH5 will be interesting - but I'm going to have to look at how I get that to work with the Mikrotik with a single SFP+ port (suspect my CRS305 1G-4S+IN switch and some VLANs might work? with a 2.5GbE SFP+ RJ45 for connection to the SH5 and a VLAN trunk 10GbE DAC connection to the RB4011 for WAN in and LAN out), or possibly use standard Gigabit Link Aggregation from the RB4011 to the CRS305 with RJ45 1GbE SFPs in the CRS305 and a 2.5GbE RJ45 SFP+ in the single SFP+ slot for the RB4011...  Or I replace my router (though the RB5009 wasn't playing nice with the 2.5GbE SH5 connection last time I checked?)

[Adri_G]

Hi Noggin72.
Thanks for posting and welcome to our community forum where we all help each other 🙂

Sorry to hear you have double trouble with your broadband speeds and your area network at the minute, 
since you stated that we have an engineer visit scheduled for later today, please keep us here posted as per the progress and if your speed performance turns back to normal after this.
Please, note our engineer will assess the status of your hub and will replace it on the date if needed.

Would you also let us know when the area issues are estimated to get fixed so we have the whole picture?
You may get the updates on this page using your post code.

[noggin72]

Hi Adri

I no longer have a connection speed issue - but since the latest firmware was rolled out, those of us who used 'round robin' to bond/link aggregate across multiple Gigabit Ethernet connections from our SH4 to a third party router (to allow us to access the full 1.2Gbs that Virgin provisions us with, rather than the 940Mbs that a single Gigabit Ethernet connection is limited to) are no longer able to do so.

This feature of the SH4 firmware appears to have been undocumented, and is no doubt not officially supported, but it allowed us to use our full connection speeds rather than be limited to the speed of a single gigabit ethernet connection from the SH4 (in modem mode) to our routers.  

Until we get SH5s with 2.5GbE connectivity this was a neat way of getting the full connection speed on our home network. (I have a 10GbE fibre backbone - rather than Cat5e/6 ethernet around my home with devices connecting to this at 10GbE, 2.5GbE, 1GbE and 100Mbs via Cat 5e/6)

[TonyHoyle]

This seems to have just happened to me.. SH4 was working fine until a couple of days ago with a bonded link now it no longer does - massive (20%+) packet loss until I switched off 3 of the links.  I can only assume due to a software upgrade as it's been working perfectly for months, then suddenly at 1am.. busted.  Took me a day to work out what was wrong too as it's the last thing I'd expect to suddenly break.

Probably the real answer these days is a hub5 and use a 2.5gb port but VM don't do upgrades..

[legacy1]

VM should lower the cost of 1Gb make it 900Mb then no one would care