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Had an odd Wifi problem, fixed now, sharing the issue

Don_Ca
I'm a senior contributor

I used to be around a lot more, but this one I thought I would share.  Over the summer I would get reports that the wifi would stop working (I am on ethernet and had no problem).  My wife and daughters on wifi reported that the data would stop flowing, but the wifi connection on their devices would show up and strong.  Laptops, desktops, phones, etc, the same thing.  We had the same setup, an XB7 and 2gen POD for well over a year with no problems.  Thinking something external was interfering with the wifi, I was sent a second POD.  I worked to place the two of them in various places.  Wifi showed strong, but the problem still existed.  

 

Earlier this week I called in to work on it and the tech support person was absolutely adamant that the problem was because I had my modem plugged into a UPS.  The UPS in question is an APC SmartUPS 1500, something I have worked with for many years at work (in fact this came from a place I worked when it went out of business - new batteries and it is still great).  He was so certain, he said so because he has been an electrical apprentice and has is HAM radio license, blah, blah, blah, he knows all about this.   Insert eye-roll from this person here who has been in IT since before anyone used wifi.  I humoured him and plugged it directly into an outlet. 

 

So, of course, I was on the phone the next day because it did not fix the problem.  That tech agreed with my assessment that it would seem to be the modem as the issue, he thought something was wrong with the wifi module, intermittently.  

 

A tech came the next day with a new modem.  However, we could provision it.  The provisioning system at Rogers was down.  He told me that this happens almost "weekly" that it will be down for hours and they cannot add new modems to accounts.  So, he left me with the modem to add once I old once stopped working.  That was a few hours later that it was removed from the phone app (but was still working) and I activated the new modem.  

 

Activating the new modem with the app did not work, the app gave an error and said to call.  I had to call in and get someone to do it. 

 

Since the switch the wifi has been good.  

2 REPLIES 2

Re: Had an odd Wifi problem, fixed now, sharing the issue

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

@Don_Ca wrote:

I used to be around a lot more, but this one I thought I would share.  Over the summer I would get reports that the wifi would stop working (I am on ethernet and had no problem).  My wife and daughters on wifi reported that the data would stop flowing, but the wifi connection on their devices would show up and strong.  Laptops, desktops, phones, etc, the same thing.  We had the same setup, an XB7 and 2gen POD for well over a year with no problems.  Thinking something external was interfering with the wifi, I was sent a second POD.  I worked to place the two of them in various places.  Wifi showed strong, but the problem still existed.  


That's weird.  Could be a hardware or software problem.

 

Earlier this week I called in to work on it and the tech support person was absolutely adamant that the problem was because I had my modem plugged into a UPS.  The UPS in question is an APC SmartUPS 1500, something I have worked with for many years at work (in fact this came from a place I worked when it went out of business - new batteries and it is still great).  He was so certain, he said so because he has been an electrical apprentice and has is HAM radio license, blah, blah, blah, he knows all about this.   Insert eye-roll from this person here who has been in IT since before anyone used wifi.  I humoured him and plugged it directly into an outlet. 


I also have my Ignite Gateway connected connected to an APC UPS and have never experienced any problems of any kind.

 

That said, whenever you have a weird, intermittent stability issue with no explicable cause, it could be power-related.  With every power surge, power bars degrade and over time -- the surge suppression circuitry can become ineffective and in some cases can cause the power bar to emit noise.  Some electronics want very clean AC power and most UPS (either continuously or on while battery power) do not emit clean sine wave.  Some power supplies also do not play nicely with some UPS technologies.  (e.g. they may not be compatible with ferroresonant circuitry.)

 

It may be a long shot but whenever a weird problem comes up with no obvious cause, its easy, quick and prudent to plug the problematic device directly into a wall outlet just to see if the problem goes away,

 

However. given that your Ignite gateway was not freezing or resetting, and working fine with Ethernet-connected devices but not Wi-Fi, it's a bit surprising that they did not opt to ship you a replacement gateway sooner.

 

So, of course, I was on the phone the next day because it did not fix the problem.  That tech agreed with my assessment that it would seem to be the modem as the issue, he thought something was wrong with the wifi module, intermittently.  

 

A tech came the next day with a new modem.  However, we could provision it.  The provisioning system at Rogers was down.  He told me that this happens almost "weekly" that it will be down for hours and they cannot add new modems to accounts.  So, he left me with the modem to add once I old once stopped working.  That was a few hours later that it was removed from the phone app (but was still working) and I activated the new modem.  

 

Activating the new modem with the app did not work, the app gave an error and said to call.  I had to call in and get someone to do it. 


It's good to hear that they swapped your Ignite Gateway.  Not good that Rogers is having problems with their back-end systems.  Was your replacement XB7 manufactured by the same company (Rogers has both Arris and Technicolor variants in the field) or did you get a different model?

 

Since the switch the wifi has been good.  


Good to hear.  Hope the problem stays fixed.

Re: Had an odd Wifi problem, fixed now, sharing the issue

Don_Ca
I'm a senior contributor

I am aware that a UPS may not do clean power, long time in IT here, but since nothing else was affected, it did not seem that was the issue to me. 

 

I now have an Arris modem, I had a Technicolor before.  

 

The real reason for the post was twofold: 1. In case someone has the same.  2. To point out the comedy of errors that I had to go through to get this done.  Someone with less technical knowledge could have taken weeks to get this resolved.  Support needs to do better.  

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