Virgin Media Community

[Mambo854]

Hi, 

I'm hoping you can help with a solution to this. I have recently had solar panels installed and when the fitters were trying to connect up the dongle to my virgin hub, they were unable to see it from their app.

The FoxCloud app is able to see all other WiFi around but cannot pick up either my hub or the booster. Having spoken to the installation company, apparently this is a known problem with Virgin Media but I'm unclear what needs to be done to fix it other than speaking to someone in Virgin Media to make some changes ( again no one can really tell me what these are ).

I therefore have solar panels installed that I'm unable to connect to, to monitor which is far from ideal!

Has anyone come across this issue before?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Client62]

Which VM Hub do you have ?

Is the solar energy system connecting to the  2.4GHz  WiFi band ?   

If it is a 2.4Ghz connection, put a WiFi analyser app on a mobile and see if the 2.4Ghz WiFi signal is present from the Hub or from the booster.

[Mambo854]

I've got the VM hub 3.0 and yes it's connecting to the 2.4GHz band. 

I also downloaded the analyser and both are visible on that signal, the hub is also on the 5GHZ band.

[Client62]

If the mobile can see the Hub's 2.4Ghz signal but the dongle cannot is it a signal range issue at the location of the dongle ?

[Adduxi]

As a temp measure, switch off the 5Ghz band and check if the Fox app can see the 2.4Ghz?

If this works, connect everything up and switch the 5Ghz band back on, hopefully it will remain connected.

If not, you may need a wifi extender nearer to the dongle?

[Mambo854]

Thanks both,  have just checked the signal strength at the dongle and it's very strong for the 2.4 for both the Hub and the extender and it's also strong at 5 for the extender.

So it seems that there's something stopping the app from picking it up. The company who installed it said that settings needed changed by Virgin but didn't specify what so I've asked them to explain that in detail.

Could it be a channel change that would be needed? As I've noticed that channel change is locked down in the VM Hub settings now which I don't think it was in previous routers I've had with Virgin?

[Mambo854]

The WiFi diagnostics on the WiFi analyser are also showing this message which would seem to suggest that a channel might need changed?

'Interference(CH44):90%

Recommended channels: 38,42, 46, 50.'

[Client62]

Provided the Hub 2.4Ghz channel is 1 to 11 that should be fine.

I wonder if the 'settings' could be the Security mode and it wants just WPA2-PSK to be enabled ( just like an iPhone prefers )

[Client62]

Channels 36 and above are on the 5Ghz band.

[Client62]

another 2.4Ghz thought ... set the channel width to 20Mhz ( some devices don't connect at 40Mhz )

Disable Channel Optimisation to enable the the the change above.