Virgin Hub 5 won't work in Modem Mode

[chrisgreencouk]

Hi everyone - I need your help before I lose my sanity.

Upgraded from M500 to 1Gig broadband with Virgin when I recontracted a couple of weeks ago. I previous had a Hub 3, running in modem mode with my own Linksys mesh wifi hardware. All worked perfectly.

Received the Hub 5 as part of the 1Gig upgrade. swapped that out OK, put it into modem mode, and that too worked just fine with the Linksys hardware.

Yesterday I tried to replace the Linksys hardware with a new trio of Tenda MX15 Pro mesh units, and hit no end of problems. Disconneded the master node of the Linksys setup from the Hub 5 and connected the master node of the Tenda. It refused to flat out to communicate with the Virgin hub in modem mode (I was connected to port 1 on the Virgin Hub, and Port 1 on the Tenda, so definitely the right Ethernet ports). Switched back to the Linksys, wouldn't connect to that either now. Rebooted, no different, reset and reestablished modem mode, still won't work. Even dusted off my old TP-Link wired business router, refuses to talk to that either (and that was also used with the Hub 3 without issue).

I've reset the Virgin hub again, and am currently running it in router mode, and daisychaining the Tenda Mesh off of it as a secondary network (not ideal, and my wireless Sky Q boxes don't like it like that, they want a more direct connection. It's the only way I can get any of my wireless hardware (or indeed the wired router) to get an IP address and a connection from the Virgin hub.

I remember back in my Blueyonder days, that the Motorola cable modem needed to be manually disconnected from the MAC address of the network device (computer, router etc) it was attached to before you could connect it to something new. Could it be that? If so, how on earth do you do it. Blueyonder used to have a web site for it I believe, but no sign of an equivalent these days and nothing on the Virgin Hub to do it.

Does anyone have any idea what might be the issue and how to resolve it please? Thanks

[chrisgreencouk]

Latest updates: Phoned Virgin - no help as its not their hardware. Was advised to put my hub back into router mode and just use that. So about as much use as an extra hole in the head.

Phoned Tenda UK's support line. Was put through to a very rude Spanish woman who didn't want to talk to me, told me to email and hung up. Tenda kit is going back to Amazon today.

[legacy1]

This is why I hate mash.😑

With your working router to the hub in modem mode copy your router WAN MAC to the Tenda using MAC clone and then it should work.

[chrisgreencouk]

This is the logical approach to get things working, but I tried exactly that before I sent the Tenda kit back and it didn't work. There's something about the latest Tenda kit and/or the Hub 5 that prevents the two handshaking directly with the Hub 5 in modem mode. My old Tenda MW12 mesh (which I still have) was happy directly connecting to the Hub 3, not tried it on the Hub 5 yet. Next challenge is to see if I can get the Linksys mesh working with the Hub 5 again (it worked before I tried the Tenda MX15Pro), It is worth noting that the Hub 5 is still not reliable following this incident, i've had a couple of instances now where the ethernet side of things have stopped working for no apparent reason for about 5 mins. Also my downstream has gone from a solid 900Mb+ to an erratic 500-600Mb (often less). Upstream is OK. I will be pushing Virgin to replace the hub as well as I'm starting to think there's something up with it in addition to the Tenda issue.

[Tudor]

It could be a hub problem, but often it’s all down to a circuit problem.

[Jklaub]

Hi did you resolve this in the end? I am having the same issue

[Adduxi]

As this is an old thread, you would be better starting your own with full details of your problem.  Thanks

[chrisgreencouk]

You are not helping. This is not a particularly old thread and it was perfectly reasonable for the chap to ask how I resolved matters. 

[chrisgreencouk]

Hi Jklaub

in the end I got it resolved after about two weeks of frustrating calls with Virgin’s inept customer service staff. Eventually, I managed to get them to send out a replacement router which did solve all the issues. But it took eight calls to get them to do anything. 

[Mo1917]

So I'm having same problem, can I ask you what replacement router/hub you got

[chrisgreencouk]

Hi

They just sent me a like-for-like replacement of the Hub 5 they gave me at the start of my contract (I had upgraded from 500Mb to 1Gig at the start of the new contract, which required the router upgrade in the first place).