Router keeps dropping connection to the Internet

[JayDoubleU]

Moving suppliers was something I am considering when my contract period expires if I don't get it resolved.

Pity, because Sky have actually been pretty good until this.

It's interesting to find a couple more people are having this experience.

Thanks for the feedback.

[LargeKnoll]

Thank you.

I will try a different cable, I doubt it will be any different but is possible that SKY supplies cheaply made cables.

More likely there is something happening causing the router to crash and there's nothing telling it to recover, but reconnecting the cable re-enables the connection.

Like you say the problem is it doesn't recover, but it looks like is should be able to.

[mae-3]

I remember some years ago Sky would fail to issue a public IP address via DHCP and wouldn't recover until the Sky Hub was rebooted manually, these issues continue to this day for lack of a watchdog on Sky routers to reconnect automatically after a failure...

[Giggsy1977]

It's ridiculous. My FTTC connection stayed up for longer than my FTTP one does. If it drops (likely due to Sky's addressing issues) and comes back on of its on accord so security cameras and heating systems etc. continue to operate then that would be something. Having to manually reboot the router once a day/week/month is a PITA. Others I know with FTTP at other providers don't have the same issue. The issue needs highlighting to more people and maybe something will be done to rectify the situation. Until then I'll be voting with my feet and changing provider when my contract is up. 

[LargeKnoll]

Re: Sky would fail to issue a public IP address via DHCP

My external IP address is the same now as it was 1 week ago, i.e. before and after the disconnect and non-reconnect.

So not sure if this is the issue.

I've swapped out the cat5e cable for another cat5e cable, so I'll see if it disconnects again.

[Stephen1812]

@LargeKnoll, have tried different patch cables and also changed my router to a draytek all to no avail.  Also had my line checked out, internal/external.

[JayDoubleU]

That's really useful info. Thanks for sharing that. I was suspicious that the fault was with the router - that now looks like that is unlikely.

It is looking like it's something happening at the Sky end that the router can't recover from 

[LargeKnoll]

@Stephen1812 When your connection disconnects what lights are on your Openreach box and what lights are on the router?

Also, how do you get it to reconnect? - reboot the router or the ONT box or unplug and replug in the network cable.

[Stephen1812]

@LargeKnoll, DSL light off, I don't have openreach box.

Power off both router and Sky Q box, wait 30 seconds and reboot router wait until I have a connection and then plug A box back in, some times it works, sometimes I have to repeat process.  Sky box can take up to 5 minutes to repopulate.

[MadBoldo]

So glad I found this thread!

Experiencing the same issues, regular disconnects. Following each disconnect, I have 3 green lights power, Internet and WiFi but voice is amber, so I have to manually reset the router to get it to work.

I've raised this with Sky Customer Service on 4 occasions now, including providing a video call if my set-up, and still no resolution!

Has anyone made any progress they can share?

I've only been with them 2 months, so not sure where I stand contractually.

[JayDoubleU]

@MadBoldo

Still no resolution unfortunately. Its interesting that talking to Customer Support has not resolved the issue for you. I had  my suspicions that would be the case.

For what its worth, a couple of us have found that disconnecting, then reconnecting the Ethernet cable between the Openreach ONT box and your router is the quickest way to get yourself back up and running. If that isn't convenient, then issuing a reboot on the 'Sky Hub' 'Web page' (in my case http://192.168.1.1 but your IP address may be slightly different) also works.

I now believe that there is an issue with a small number of some unknown piece of kit at Sky's end of our connections. A small enough number that Sky aren't interested in finding the solution. As someone who has been unfortunate enough to work on intermittent faults I can understand this. Its a shame that the router is unable to automatically perform a reboot when it detects this fault condition - I believe that would make the problem much less inconvient. But I guess the designer of the router's firmware had limited resource to work with.

@Stephen1812 It sounds like you don't have Full Fiber To the House (you don't have an Openreach ONT box). And yet you are still having these issues. This makes it seem like its not an issue affecting only FFTH. This is what makes me think its a legacy issue with some piece of kit at the Sky end. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

[LargeKnoll]

@MadBoldo I haven't had an issue since replacing the cable (10 days ago, before that it had happened 3 times in the first 8 days).

Every time it happened it was in the middle of the night, so I woke to no internet.

I unplugged the cable from the ONT to the router and immediatly plugged it back in (on the router side).  Everytime the router found the connection in less than a minute.

I changed the cable 10 days ago and haven't had a disconnect

But I'm not convinced, if there is some other issue (like @mae-3 said) the router will not recover the connection.  

When this occurs, the network port link goes down, it comes back up a few seconds later, but without WAN link, from my log:

eth3 (Ext switch port: 4) (Logical Port: 12) Link DOWN.
eth3.1 - WAN link DOWN.
DHCP lease expired from server. Connection DOWN.
eth3 (Ext switch port: 4) (Logical Port: 12) Link UP 1000 mbps full duplex
Voice IP Connection Down
Voice Disconnected
No lease renewal received

When I physically unplug the network cable it also makes the dhcp client start

eth3 (Ext switch port: 4) (Logical Port: 12) Link DOWN.
sky dhcpc client (v0.0.1) started
eth3 (Ext switch port: 4) (Logical Port: 12) Link UP 1000 mbps full duplex
sky dhcpc client (v0.0.1) started
sky dhcpc client (v0.0.1) started
eth3.1 - WAN link UP.
Received valid DHCP lease from server. Connection UP.

Sky need to change the router so it recovers like it does when the cable is unplugged/plugged in.

I had a thought to have a network switch between the ONT and the router, which could be turned on and off with a remote control RF power socket. 

Which if you are so inclinded you could use a raspberry pi with an 433mhz RF transmitter send the off then on codes when the network has disappeared.

[MadBoldo]

Thanks, I will give a new cable a try I will try anything at this point, it keeps happening 3 times now in the last 3 weeks and always at night.

So I wake up and nothing has a connection 🤦. As mentioned above this is a real problem as I have so much stuff reliant on it.

The really frustrating thing is changed from virgin, where I never had an issue with the broadband (TiVo was just horrendous) and have had nothinging but problems since.

I'm about to call sky again as it switched off again just last night, I will post an update if I get any joy.

[JayDoubleU]

@LargeKnoll 

I like your idea of using RaspPi. I was planning on putting an Ethernet switch between my ONT box and router anyway (just to eliminate one other possibility) but using the Pi to control the power to the switch is genius.

Just a pity we have to resort to such methods to resolve an inherent problem with Sky's system.

I'm intrigued why changing the Ethernet cable has had such a big improvement in your system's reliability. I cant remember if I used Sky's cable or just one of my cables I had handy. But is clearly something else I should try.

[JayDoubleU]

Having not had any failure for a long period I have now had three failures since 22 January. It's time to put a bit more effort into resolving this issue.

I've been through my failure logs and I can see that the failure occurs mid way between DHCP lease renewals. The failure does not appear to be related to the lease expiring. The lease renewals occur roughly every 30 minutes, but the failures can occur many minutes before the next renewal is due.

I do see that once the Ethernet link goes down the lease expires immediately. The Ethernet link comes back up in less than a second, but the system is then unable to renew the lease despite trying to every 5 seconds. Interestingly, the first attempt at a lease renewal occurs back at the same time it would have been expected had the system not failed.

I am going to replace the Ethernet cable between the ONT box and the router to see if that improves the situation. I know some of you have not seen any improvement after doing this while others appear to have at least made the failures less frequent. I am also going to try connecting the router to the ONT box via an Ethernet switch. I will report back if I see any change in behaviour after these changes. From experience of high speed design I have seen issues with cables and tracking with PCIe and DVI/HDMI when the impedance matching has been poor through connectors. Although I have less design experience with Ethernet I am wondering if the same issue could apply. In particular, short cables can result in signal reflections that are not attenuated and then interfere more severely with the signal. I will try using a longer cable to connect my ONT box and router.

One thing I did try months ago, which I may not have noted here, is that I tried using a different Ethernet port on the router to connect to the ONT box - but that did not improve the situation.