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A number of issues less than a week into my service

CMCRAWFORD
I plan to stick around

A spontaneous decision to switch from Bell after a sales person made a great offer at my door over a week ago has left me with some regret.  The good news is I have not canceled Bell and may not because I am a little surprised at the volume of issues in only a week.

 

I understand this is a forum for TV but some of my items spill into the Internet category:

 

1)  Ignite boxes have a tendency to freeze, requiring a reboot.

2) Netflix via Ignite closes during a stream 50+% of the time.

3) Netflix or the apps will no longer launch until the Ignite box is restarted.  Service was just installed last Tuesday and we have restarted the boxes 5 times at least for this very issue.

4) On occasion the Ignite boxes have restarted themselves.

5) My Wife's iPad was connected to the Wifi and then it started prompting for the wireless password.  When provided it stated it was the incorrect password.  Resetting the iPad network settings and joining the network again resolved the issue.

6) Streaming video content on our iPad or other devices will buffer on occasion.

7) My laptop disconnects from the network 15 - 20 times a day.   I connect to various customers via VPN(s) and I will lose my connection or have to wait while it reconnects (usually 30 - 45 second intervals).

😎 Teams conference calls cuts drops audio for 5 seconds at a time. 

 

Not sure if these are items discussed and/or resolved already? 

 

*Added Labels*

 

31 REPLIES 31

Re: A number of issues less than a week into my service

CMCRAWFORD
I plan to stick around
I think I just need to be a bit patient and let the router work it’s automation. The channels I posted yesterday have changed since. The 5ghz is now 157 and the 2.4 is now channel 1. Only a few small pauses and audio drop outs while watching TV last night. I also had to reboot the box again to access the apps.

I did notice on the wifi scanning app that someone near me was also using channel 44 so perhaps that is why the channel changed.

I will open a ticket with Rogers if these things continue into next week.

Re: A number of issues less than a week into my service

Personal opinion, download the wifi hub app, log into the modem and take both wifi channels out of Auto mode. I suspect that there might not be any good 2.4 Ghz channel to select if you're in a typical neighbourhood with multiple 2.4 Ghz modems and routers in operation. Have a look at the Winfi data to see if there is any obvious choice. If not, select one of channels 1, 6 or 11 and park the modem on that channel. I'd also change the 2.4 Ghz Mode:802.11 g/n to 802.11 n only. If you don't have any old devices that need g mode, change the mode to "n" only. For the 5 Ghz channel, select a channel in the upper 149 to 161 channel range and park the modem there to take advantage of the higher power output in that channel range. Check the Winfi data just to see who else might be running in that channel range.

Re: A number of issues less than a week into my service

CMCRAWFORD
I plan to stick around
"Personal opinion, download the wifi hub app, log into the modem and take both wifi channels out of Auto mode."

I will look through the app to see where this functionality is and if it allows me to change the other settings you mentioned. The HTML admin page for the modem/router does not allow me to change these settings.

Some new info since my last post. Monday was bad for disconnects, Tuesday was great and today it is bad again. I switched to a wired connection and I have still had a number of VPN drops. I called Rogers and there is a Tech coming this afternoon. They can see hundreds of errors on the modem and low signal strength from the wireless TV boxes.

I guess we will see after this visit if they make any progress.

Re: A number of issues less than a week into my service

Ok, if you're seeing VPN drops over a wired connection that to me indicates a cable signal level issue. Does your external cable run underground to a nearby pedestal or overhead to the nearest utility pole?

Re: A number of issues less than a week into my service

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert
Hi. Sorry for getting disengaged from this discussion. I don't think that this is a "signal-related" issue but rather an issue with the XB6 itself when it comes to passing VPN traffic. If you search the Internet for "XB6 VPN connection drop" , you'll see MANY results... with users reporting similar issues on both Arris and Technicolor models. Some people have tried connecting their computers directly to the XB6 via wired Ethernet and then enabled Bridge Mode... (make sure you have a software firewall enabled on your PC before you do this) ... and their VPN sessions stayed up just fine. There are many VPN solutions out there, so your results may vary depending on the underlying encapsulation/transport method that your VPN client uses. The XB6 has no explicit settings for VPN pass-through. That also means that things might work with one VPN session active but problems ensue when multiple concurrent sessions are active. If the Bridge Mode test works then the only viable workaround at the moment is to use your own router that DOES support VPN pass-through... but then this puts you into "not officially supported by Rogers" territory with respect to Ignite TV.

Re: A number of issues less than a week into my service

CMCRAWFORD
I plan to stick around
Sorry for the delay in updating. Rogers came this afternoon and replaced the Arris modem. The tech said my serial number was within a range of problem modems and replaced it with a higher serial number. I just had this service installed a week ago so I am a little puzzled by this. The issues experienced prior did not reoccur after the swap. I will update again after a few days to see if things are consistent.

Thanks everyone for the advise, suggestions and assistance.

Re: A number of issues less than a week into my service

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert
@CMCRAWFORD Thanks for the update. I hope that things will start working better for you now with the new modem. Just out of curiosity, what modem do you currently have now, Arris or Technicolor? Also, if you go to Gateway > Hardware > LAN , what are the first three pairs of hex digits (the OUI portion) of your MAC address? (That might provide some insight into the manufacturing production run.) Thanks!

Re: A number of issues less than a week into my service

CMCRAWFORD
I plan to stick around
The new modem is a Technicolor CGM4140COM revision 2.2. The first part of the serial number is 213306940. The first part of the MAC is 1033BF. The previous one was an Arris and I guess I misunderstood the Tech when he said he was replacing the modem with a higher serial number. I thought this would also be a Arris.

Re: A number of issues less than a week into my service

CMCRAWFORD
I plan to stick around
So after two days with the new modem we haven’t had a single issue. Not a single VPN drop and none of the Ignite boxes have buffered or required rebooting.

Re: A number of issues less than a week into my service

Its interesting that now that you're running the Technicolor modem, your VPNs appear to work as they should.  Don't know if that was a matter of some issue with the Arris modem, as in it was unserviceable, or, if that was an indication of continued VPN problems with Intel's Puma modems. 

 

Keep checking your wifi environment with Winfi Lite so that you know what the modem is doing, channel wise, and what the neighbours modems / routers are doing as well.  

Re: A number of issues less than a week into my service

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

@Datalink wrote:

Its interesting that now that you're running the Technicolor modem, your VPNs appear to work as they should.  Don't know if that was a matter of some issue with the Arris modem, as in it was unserviceable, or, if that was an indication of continued VPN problems with Intel's Puma modems. 


There are two aspects to the Puma-based modem implementations.  Underlying performance issues with the chipset itself that manifest under certain circumstances, which Intel has not been able to fix to many gamer's satisfaction but which are non-issues for most people.  On top of that hardware (and low-level hardware-specific microcode and device driver code) is the operating system, network stack and other software components that are used to implement the Gateway functionality and the software components to manage and configure it.  Arris and Hitron gateways will sometimes experience similar performance issues because they both use Puma chipsets.  VPN-related issues can vary from one vendor's device to another depending on the specifics of that vendor's implementation.

 

The Arris and Technicolor XB6 gateways have an almost identical UI but their hardware and the software stacks are completely different, and they may (and do) behave somewhat differently in various ways.

 

I've had both Arris and Technicolor modems and they each have their advantages and disadvantages, and their own unique quirks.  If the Arris is working well, there's no need to get it replaced.

 

I also did some informal testing with wireless.  With the XB6 in my basement, I took some measurements throughout by house and connected all of my Xi6 set-top boxes wirelessly, with the XB6's 5GHz channel set to the lower range, DFS and higher channels.  The Technicolor performed slightly better on channels that operate at higher power levels but not nearly as much as I would have expected based on the testing/certification documents.

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