UDP issues on SuperHub3 - collective thread
Hi. I decided to open a collective thread for UDP issues on SuperHub3, as it seems that many users are pestered by them, the impact is high and Virgin Media is not aware or fails to acknowledge the i...
Forum Discussion
Short story, three possible fixes:
- Downgrade your SuperHub 3 or SuperHub 4 to a SuperHub 2.
- Wait for a firmware fix from VM / Modem Vendor.
- Alleviate the issues by running in router mode. (But I am really against this!).
Longer story for those interested: (Grab a cuppa!)
Yesterday morning VM visited and tried to replace my Superhub 4 with a new... Superhub 3 - argh! super frustrating as I had tried 2 different SuperHub 3's already through previous engineer visits and we had agreed the week before that they had a Superhub 2 to send me. Eventually the misunderstanding was untangled and a different engineer turned up with a SuperHub 2. He really didn't believe the Superhub 2 would improve this issue as its technically inferior, and tried to understand the fault in more detail (Clever chap - I agree with him, it does sounds crazy to downgrade to older tech, with less network capability!).
The instinct from most folks at VM seems to be to look at speed problems, wifi, or VM network issues, but this isn't any of those and I can hit headline speeds no problems. My problem was demonstrably within my house! - connectivity issue between the PC and the Modem(Hub) over Physical cable, not onward to the internet.
Back to the saga.. hey presto! Within minutes while the engineer was watching i was able to demonstrate that I could no longer replicate the issue and he left us with a decent 200Mb broadband service that seems way more reliable- hurray! The modem management user interface stays 100% available via Ping, and HTTP no matter how much UDP traffic I throw out :).
Skype & Teams calls today have also been stable with no dropouts, so not failed over to the backup ISP line.
Few replies:
Topbloke wrote:
...
But you are perhaps the first on the entire planet to even get Virgin to admit the problem exist and there is confirmation the hub 3 is faulty.
Maybe a router firmware may solve it or help it, but till it is torrents or anything with high UDP packets or high connections like skype and similar may get these drop-outs problems.
...
Do you have any direct email or way to contact this staff member at the VM technical dept, if you can pm I would be grateful?
I'm hopeful a firmware upgrade will fix it otherwise its an awful waste of hardware out there! I do wonder how many people have this problem / fault condition and don't realise. Any households where multiple people do Skype or teams calls simultaneously are sure to I would imagine as it affects Superhub 3 and 4.
As for who to talk to - to be honest I've spoken to so many individuals at VM about this issue now, there isn't one particular one. The best way is keep on escalating and don't let the complaint slide or close as you know more can be done. I don't think the technical people alone can help you without first escalating and a complaint being logged. Even after I had a complaint logged I found it impossibly hard to talk to a human who didn't want to reboot my router or upgrade my service to a faster speed because "my bandwidth is too low for what i need to do". I received a letter acknowledging but contained no human contact number on, which pointed me back to the same super-frustrating text-support service which just sent me in loops burning my time.
Key I guess is keep on, follow the process, and just escalate if you don't get an appropriate response.
In the end we looked up the exec team to email the CEO & Deputy and explained our complaint in human words on the impact rather than my geek speak (ok the wife did, she's cleverer with words than I am!) (https://www.virginmedia.com/corporate/about-us/management-team), Severina responded in minutes and we had a call back from someone the next day who was able to progress things. They are not technical though and details do get lost in translation between the engineers that visit, so be prepared to re-explain your problem a few times (I found it calming to have an A4 printed crib-sheet defining my problem!).
dinth wrote:Also fordy would you be able to share the ticket/reference number of your issue with VM. I'm trying to explain VM customer service that my issue has nothing to do with weak wifi signal and being able to reference your ticket would be super helpful
Unfortunately they wouldn't give me a ticket reference number, I have my complaint reference number but I'm told that is unique to me and tied to my complaint only. I tried to ask for another ticket number for other customers to reference who have the same issue but were told they would have to log their own complaint reference number. 😞
I feel your pain as I had to explain so many times that it drove me somewhat crazy, that it really isn't a wifi issue, wifi is totally unrelated as I run it in modem only mode, with a wire. I was asked to reboot my hub so many times that i eventually said I refuse to reboot it, as it won't change anything and just causes me an unbelievable additional 10 minutes downtime per reboot! I'm sure the person asking me to reboot it was keen and eager to help, but their previous 5 colleagues had all done exactly the same! 🙂
Topbloke wrote:Interesting since I am in a high utilisation area, maybe the hub 4 may help improve my issue, I would be happy to try this if a Virgin media staff can assist in this free hub4 router upgrade, if it is I can test if the UDP packet loss issue is still there, at least then others have a potential solution to this issue.
Sadly I don't think a SuperHub 4 will fix the issue, as high utilisation area is unrelated. This particular issue seems to affect superhub 3 and superhub 4 modems running in modem only mode in exactly the same way :(. Your only option right now is a downgrade, or wait for a firmware fix.
jgtimperley wrote:Any update @fordy? Superhub 3 here on 200Mb. Long time modem-mode user but had to switch to router mode to reduce MS Teams/Zoom etc glitching during calls. I'd like to go back to modem mode really, but am unable until this issue is fixed. From my point of view, things were mostly fine at the start of the year (albeit with the occasional glitch), but started to get noticeably worse when my hub got the 9.1.1912.302 update, which was around the start of October. Not sure the issue is fully fixed in router mode, but it definitely seems better, and Teams/Zoom etc are actually usable.
Just for info, recreated with different routers, all tested using wired Ethernet, speedtests show the full 220/21, power levels well within spec on both upstream (4 channels at QAM64) and downstream (24 channels), BQM good and showing no packet loss etc. Switching to my 20Mb down, 3Mb up 'backup' line fixes the issue immediately for both me and my wife, so that also rules out computer issues.
A possibly related issue is documented here.
Good spot - looks almost certainly related and exactly what i experienced. I don't think I was a customer during that previously firmware version though. 🙂
thanks fordy for the detailed reply, its fine any update or info is something right now.
This issue has been going on for 3+ years sadly, there is the other gigantic thread which acknowledges the UDP fault within faulty hub 3 from a few years back.
It is sad that Virgin Media sent a letter to you but used their 'get out of jail free card' and left no name or department, I don't think Virgin Media can admit the hub3 is faulty.
Asking VM to downgrade to hub 2.0 is the only fix I agree and this is 100% not just a one off incident or unique customer issue, 100s of customers have described and mentioned the same udp fault for the past 3 years across multiple threads on this forum and ispreview, reddit etc.
Just to illustrate the issue a bit more....
Posted 3 days ago;
Having spent a lot of time with a SH3 and trying to debug this and other behaviour it’s not just IP41, and there won’t be a fix. As above it’s the ‘normal’ puma 6 hardware bug unfortunately.
Anything non-TCP will cause this and worse effects, the latency spikes are a far worse aspect.
I went from a SH2 to a year of frustration with a SH3 before being ‘lucky’ enough to be able to change for a SH4 where all the previous issues evaporated. Smokeping graphs from before vs after are night and day.
They’re going to give it lip service and nothing more I’d imagine as it’s not really possible to fix per say and most of their customer base won’t know they’ve got a problem, outside of it pros/enthusiasts it’s the gamers it hits the hardest.
July 2019:
I wish they’d roll this hub out to everybody. The Intel Puma 6 bug hasn’t been fixed, because its a hardware based defect. All they did was simply mask it, via offloading the DNS requests to the wifi chip. You can still observe this issue (large latency jitter) on TCP/UDP connections.
---------------------------------
back from me :
Its possible you are correct and hub4 may not improve the udp fault but as you read a few comments from ispreview site reviews in the comments section, a few have said the hub4 is more powerful (spec and cpu wise) so its able to handle the udp packets better, possibly a long shot but it helps or fixes the udp issue.
Could explain why Virgin Media are suddenly giving out free Hub 4 routers like its Candy......
Quick update on my situation. After running the Hub 3 in router mode for over a week, everything has been back to "normal". Teams/Zoom calls run much more smoothly. In fact, I'd say that web browsing on phones, tablets etc seems generally snappier, with less initial delay while the page loads. It's almost as though things have been slowly deteriorating with modem mode over the past few months/firmwares and we've just not noticed. I've done away with my own router and am just using the Hub 3 as my LAN gateway, as I don't want to risk any issues with double NAT (even with the DMZ set, double NAT still sucks). Wifi is, and always has been provided by a Ubiquiti wireless LAN setup with multiple wired APs, but work laptops use wired connections.
Background in case anyone stumbles across this. I'm on the 200Mb package, Hub 3, using modem mode for the last 3.5 years into a Mikrotik router. Everything running seemingly fine with two people working from home running VPNs, MS Teams/Zoom calls etc, plus normal streaming/browsing etc in the evenings, up until around the start of October, when Zoom/Teams calls starting experiencing freezing, lagging etc on both work laptops, which both use wired gigabit connections back to the Mikrotik. Speedtests always show 220/20 (even single-threaded most of the time, which is pretty impressive). Issues go away immediately by switching to the backup 20/3 Openreach FTTC connection.
Wanting to persevere with modem mode (after a few issues with router mode including VoIP phone not liking the HTTP intercept when the cable interface goes down and failing to re-register when it comes back up, Hub 3 not liking my Netgear switch), I tried a number of other routers (Fritzbox 7530 and Netgear D7000) to see if there was any improvement. Issue persisted with all three setups.
>In fact, I'd say that web browsing on phones, tablets etc seems generally snappier, with less initial delay while the page loads.
That sounds very plausible, DNS queries are also UDP.
>After running the Hub 3 in router mode for over a week, everything has been back to "normal"
Unfortunately not in my case. Sure, router mode works 100x better, but it's only 100x better than "doesn't work at all" 🙂 What I'm saying is that I bet that someone at VM will at least think about dropping support for "modem mode" as to fix the issue, but that's not a viable fix or even workaround. Even in router mode SH3s are struggling with UDP, not as bad as in modem mode but still. Now I'm in router mode and still every single time i run heavy UDP traffic, I'm seeing some dropped packets. This cannot be related to the line quality if it only happens with UDP and to be honest, in times of door locks, burglar alarms or even smoke alarms all connected to the internet, a couple of dropped packets at the wrong time may cost the owner a lot
Agree. If support for modem mode was dropped; I’d seek to break contract and change ISP. I’d hate to be forced to use a specific router.
- >Unfortunately not in my case. Sure, router mode works 100x better, but it's only 100x better than "doesn't work at all" 🙂 What I'm saying is that I bet that someone at VM will at least think about dropping support for "modem mode" as to fix the issue, but that's not a viable fix or even workaround. Even in router mode SH3s are struggling with UDP, not as bad as in modem mode but still.
All agreed. I've only ever had the Hub 3 (only got Virgin 4 years ago and this is my first experience with them). The backup Openreach FTTC is noticeably better in *every* aspect other than speed, and unfortunately 20Mbps down doesn't really cut it these days. If I could get 80Mbps, then I'd probably not even have the Virgin line, but at around 1km from the FTTC cab it's never going to be great.
Also agreed that router mode isn't a fix, and it would be great to have modem mode back again, but for the time being I'll just wait this one out and stay in router mode. For reference, I'm on firmware 9.1.1912.302, and connect back to a Cisco CMTS (cmts 16 in Baguley). >I've only ever had the Hub 3 (only got Virgin 4 years ago and this is my first experience with them).
I used SH2 before i was also doing a lot of torrenting at that time and oh it was so responsive and just felt fast, even if technically I only had 100Mbps connection. Even with max bandwidth being 3 times slower, web browsing felt faster than on SH3 even in router mode.
- >I used SH2 before i was also doing a lot of torrenting at that time and oh it was so responsive and just felt fast.
I guess for me, ignorance is bliss, as I'll never know what I've never had... Its gotta be the SH 3.0 still to blame, SH 2.0 no such issues with online gaming, website look up, torrent or skype/zoom issues.
BT or others wont bother upgrading bb in my area due to virgin already being here, so have to hope since I am in a high utilization fault area that some Virgin media staff will send me out a SH 4.0 router to see if it helps fix my 1 year + long high utilization fault, bonus will be if it also fixes the UDP packet issue which actually is far worse of a problem.
Keeping fingers crossed here!
Have VM recognised this as a problem with the 9.1.1912.302 firmware in modem mode?
I normally use my SH3 in modem mode and it was on 9.1.1811.401 without significant issues.
I briefly put it into router mode and it upgraded to 9.1.1912.302.
When I placed it back into modem mode it down graded to 9.1.1811.401 which it is still on.
06/11/2020 04:16:02 notice SW Download INIT - Via NMS
06/11/2020 04:17:35 notice SW download Successful - Via NMS
9.1.1912.30207/11/2020 23:57:39 notice SW Download INIT - Via Config file
07/11/2020 23:59:50 notice SW download Successful - Via Config file
9.1.1811.401Anyone know what the meaning of 'Via NMS' vs 'Via Config file'
- >Have VM recognised this as a problem with the 9.1.1912.302 firmware in modem mode?
>I normally use my SH3 in modem mode and it was on 9.1.1811.401 without significant issues.
>I briefly put it into router mode and it upgraded to 9.1.1912.302.
>When I placed it back into modem mode it down graded to 9.1.1811.401 which it is still on.
This is *very* interesting. I'll give modem mode a try later on this evening and see if the firmware downgrades. On router mode I'm definitely still on 9.1.1912.302. OK, just put the Hub 3 into Modem mode and it's stayed on 9.1.1912.302. How long did yours take to revert - did it do it immediately, or overnight maybe?
jgtimperley wrote:OK, just put the Hub 3 into Modem mode and it's stayed on 9.1.1912.302. How long did yours take to revert - did it do it immediately, or overnight maybe?
It'd didn't revert immediately but after a soft boot.
Eeeps wrote:Anyone know what the meaning of 'Via NMS' vs 'Via Config file'
"Via Config File" I think means it is configured in the DOCSIS configuration file for your particular modem / provisioned state.
"Via NMS" likely means via SNMP - so was set externally by something else, which overrides the DOCSIS config file.
Both are done Virgin's end.
Eeeps wrote:
jgtimperley wrote:OK, just put the Hub 3 into Modem mode and it's stayed on 9.1.1912.302. How long did yours take to revert - did it do it immediately, or overnight maybe?
It'd didn't revert immediately but after a soft boot.
Yesterday I tried modem mode and it stuck to 9.1.1912.302, even after a few reboots. I went back into router mode and left it overnight. Even in router mode, overnight, the hub had downgraded to 9.1.1811.401. Once I'm off this video call I'm going to try modem mode again, and see how it is. I'll report back.
jgtimperley wrote:Once I'm off this video call I'm going to try modem mode again, and see how it is. I'll report back.
Now back in modem mode (on 9.1.1811.401), and typically, I start seeing errors on the RF side of the link. The Virgin guys look to be doing maintenance on the cabs (mostly seems to be the smaller cabs rather than the actual 'node' which is at the top of my street). When I'm not getting RF errors, things seem to be much much better on 9.1.1811.401.
I'll keep it in modem mode for now and wait for the RF side to settle down. Things seem better though so far. I'll raise a seperate thread specifically about the firmware issues with modem mode, if things do appear to be down to 9.1.X firmware.
Thank you for the input all.
- Nathan_B
Forum Team
Hi all,
I'm sorry that a few of you are having some problems with certain services using the UDP ports. I appreciate there are a variety of services that uses UDP in addition to TCP ports but please check the service you use in their respective help pages e.g. Skype and ensure that the ports are open on your software firewall and on your Hub - https://www.virginmedia.com/help/virgin-media-set-up-port-forwarding-port-triggering
We cannot comment on certain activities, but we can assure that our Hub 3 is capable for a variety of services for all our customers. We also cannot comment on third party VPN's, torrenting and appreciate that each person's set up is unique.
We will keep an eye on this thread to see if there are more members who have problems.
Kind regards,
Beth
Nathan_B wrote:Hi all,
I'm sorry that a few of you are having some problems with certain services using the UDP ports. I appreciate there are a variety of services that uses UDP in addition to TCP ports but please check the service you use in their respective help pages e.g. Skype and ensure that the ports are open on your software firewall and on your Hub - https://www.virginmedia.com/help/virgin-media-set-up-port-forwarding-port-triggering
We cannot comment on certain activities, but we can assure that our Hub 3 is capable for a variety of services for all our customers. We also cannot comment on third party VPN's, torrenting and appreciate that each person's set up is unique.
We will keep an eye on this thread to see if there are more members who have problems.
Hi @Nathan_B. It's great to see that this issue is finally getting some traction.
Although I really need to comment on your reply:
> ensure that the ports are open on your software firewall
This has nothing to do with the ports being blocked by software firewall. Common sense says that if a connection would get blocked by a software firewall on the end client, it would never reach the modem and therefore couldn't cause it to reboot itself and/or cut off internet access on all other devices in someones home.
> We also cannot comment on third party VPN's
This is not about issues connecting to a particular third party VPNs, but about inability to use *any* VPNs whatsoever - public, workplace owned, etc. Only some very exotic configurations with TCP only traffic are working fine, but those are not standard - almost always require manual configuration of service and are not something a normal user can encounter.
> third party VPN's, torrenting
Im not sure if you have wrote this on purpose, but this sounds like the issue is only occurring while doing something dodgy online. That's not the case ordinary apps like BBC IPlayer, VoIP telephony, videoconference software, online games and countless other legit activities are causing the modem to restart itself (in best case scenario) or simply freeze until manually restarted (worst case scenario), effectively cutting off all the devices connected to it from the internet.
> but we can assure that our Hub 3 is capable for a variety of services for all our customers
Several people on this thread have posted easily replicable tests, which all prove that this is not the case. We all appreciate hard work your consultants and on-street engineers are doing, but since those people are not expected to have a lot of knowledge of low level network protocols, it would be great to have this thread escalated to someone from SH3/4 product team who will be able to confirm and troubleshoot such issues.
Also, i need to add that saw many threads with users experiencing similar issues, but as those users are non-technical, they cannot pinpoint those issues to UDP traffic. Knowing this at this and looking at my own experience with your technicians, I'm sure that Virgin Media engineers are spending thousands of hours doing unnecessary and pointless repairs of cables, cabinets, etc which don't fix the issue, waste a lot of VM resources and money, but only leave users more frustrated.
Nathan_B wrote:We cannot comment on certain activities, but we can assure that our Hub 3 is capable for a variety of services for all our customers.
There's one more thing i wanted to add Beth, but cannot edit my post anymore.
Mind you, the thread was already viewed by 1500 users, but not a single person replied: "I have done some testing of UDP traffic on my SH3/4 and can confirm that I am not experiencing this issue". On the contrary, some people replying here clearly know their stuff very well and are networks/IT professionals and every single one of them can replicate this issue on their systems. This does indicate that the issue is widespread.
Dinth
Good accurate and detailed post
I was on the original thread complaining about the UDP problems on SH3
This is the first time VM have been involved
And nobody has done anything yet.
I've recently been pointed at this thread and it's been an eye opener to say the least. A massive thank you to everyone on here for their brilliant detective work.
FYI - I raised a separate thread detailing my issues earlier today which look the same as those detailed here (heavy Teams user, SH3 but still in router mode):
I see there are lots of Superhub 2 ACs on eBay going cheap. If I bought one and swapped the SH3 out for it will it work? i.e. does the router need any registration on the network, etc.
I wish that it would be that simple. Unfortunately, VM blocks use of any modems except of the one which was provided by VM to the user.
I thought as much, thanks
