Virgin Media Community

[Begga]

Hi there, I live in Iceland and have been trying for weeks to get some help for my mother in England. Unfortunately I can not fly over to help her. What can you do if the router is not working, the owner is living alone and completely depending on the computer and not capable of fixing the problem by herself. Is there any possibility to get help from Virgin? Have any of you had a repair person to your home? 

[tehwolf · Accepted solution]

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@Begga wrote:

Hi there, I live in Iceland and have been trying for weeks to get some help for my mother in England. Unfortunately I can not fly over to help her. What can you do if the router is not working, the owner is living alone and completely depending on the computer and not capable of fixing the problem by herself. Is there any possibility to get help from Virgin? Have any of you had a repair person to your home? 

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Could be a challenge.

VM customer services will only speak with your mother about the account as presumably, it's all in her name.. plus, you clearly don't want to be calling internationally and being kept on hold for an hour..it's bad enough when the call is free!

if you want help from the community, we can try, but I'm guessing it'll take a while to get information passed back and forth with you as an intermediary..

Is this forum something that your mother could sign up to and post some more detail about the issues?  VM staff do respond to posts around here, but it's helpful to have done some troubleshooting upfront so that when they get to the thread they have the backstory + technical info needed to assess whether or not an engineer visit is required (or replacement hardware, or whatever else). 

[Begga]

Do you think it is possible that the router/hub needs an update or something?

I am also trying to log into the Customers Service but my mother does not remember the email or the password and I have been trying to log in by giving them the last bill information, but all I get is "Please enter valid bill details" even if I have the latest bill! 

[tehwolf]

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@Begga wrote:

Do you think it is possible that the router/hub needs an update or something?

I am also trying to log into the Customers Service but my mother does not remember the email or the password and I have been trying to log in by giving them the last bill information, but all I get is "Please enter valid bill details" even if I have the latest bill! 

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difficult to say without knowing what the issue(s) is/are. If the hub is faulty, then the staff here can arrange to send a new one out - but you'll need to evidence that through a bit of troubleshooting first..

Your choices for support are either calling VM customer services or using this forum to try to narrow down where the problem is.. it usually takes a bit of to-and-fro and information gathering from the hub to see what the issue is - eventually someone from VM will pick the thread up and comment, but it's helpful to have the detail in the thread before that happens, else they'll ask you to do the same sorts of things 🙂

are you able to provide any more detail about what the issues are, specifically, or better still, is your mother in a position that she could come to this thread and gather some information (instructions can be provided) so that people around here can help diagnose?

[Begga]

I will try to get more information. She can not come to this tread since she has no connection and does not have a smart phone. It is very difficult to deal with this, not being with her. Thank you for your answers, I really appreciate it.

[tehwolf · Accepted solution]

couple of questions to ask:

what model is the hub - see this link for identification 

what lights are present on the front of the hub (more info at above link)

it might be worth doing a 60-second pinhole reset, just to get it done - there is a small hole near the power connector on the back of the hub that needs to be depressed with a paperclip/sim tool or similar for a timed 60 seconds. following this, leave the hub alone for 10 minutes and do not power it off in that time. 

are you able to connect devices to the wireless network - if not, why not - is the network visible? do you get authentication errors?

Are you able to test the connection using a device that can be cabled into the hub with an ethernet cable - does it work when connected over a cable?

there will be more, but that's a reasonable start.. 

any details of symptoms she can provide will help.. 

[Begga]

She tried the pinhole "trick", and omg it seems that it is working!! At least she has connection now. I am sooo greatful for your help! Thank you very much!