Sky Hub Randomly Restarting

[Robbo0410]

@mae-3 I could ring Sky and request they send another router out but if what you said is true about them having a power supply flaw I'll not bother, my contracts up in November I'll probably just run my contract down then cancel and look elsewhere, I've had it in since May last year and only in the last few weeks have I started having problems with the router's resetting themselves, nothing has changed with regards to where it is plugged in etc..so it really is an odd situation and I've had 3 routers in the last couple of weeks since the problem appeared, it's just one of them intermittent problems unfortunately by the looks of it, shame cause when it is up and running the speeds are fantastic 

[mae-3]

@Robbo0410 

I've seen quite a few of the Sky routers experience the issue on the forum of power issues instability, they aren't the best in the world in this respect.

[Robbo0410]

@mae-3 it's utterly ridiculous to be fair especially how much I'm paying a month for the gigafast package but I'm sure you'll get alot of people complaining on here I'm not going to do that ha! Could possibly look into cancelling my contract early but I don't think they would allow that as the broadband is working fine and there is no connection issue 

[mae-3]

@Robbo0410 

Constructive complaints are good they drive technological advancement in improving reliability and availability...

[Robbo0410]

 

@mae-3 another update on this odd situation, the router had been on for almost 48 hours without resetting, dropped randomnly this morning, I checked statistics and I see collision packets sitting at 7 on the LAN, could that have anything to do with the problems I'm having, I have the Q main box wired into an unmanaged switch then into router and my Xbox series X is wired directly into the router, the switch also has loop prevention whatever that means, I also have disabled all wireless on the main box as I still had the 5ghz channel enabled, the mini box upstairs is wireless however with just the 5ghz channel enabled 

[mae-3]

@Robbo0410 

7 collisions aren't a large number and would slow the network now if excessive, eg: over about 5%+ of the total number of packets.

The power supply instability is usually that and the fact the power supply isn't well designed.

[Robbo0410]

@mae-3 do you think it would be worth calling Sky and trying to get an early termination of my contract without paying, the socket is fine it's been tested and the fact the router worked fine for months with no issues and only started around a month ago, it's on the carpet in the corner of the living room, we got it put there so it was out of reach of the kids, it being on the floor shouldn't have anything to do with it losing power as the Openreach engineer said it would be fine when he installed it, I'm paying alot of money and the random cutouts are starting to become annoying, I've attached a picture of the router setup

 

[Robbo0410]

@mae-3 also just got back in this evening checked router statistics after it had reset this morning, wlan (5ghz) had only been on for 16 minutes at the time of taking this screenshot, is there anything odd about that

 

[mae-3]

@Robbo0410 

Just another sign that the router is likely faulty.

[135791113]

Having the same issue for a few weeks now.  Some days it reboots 3 or 4 times, yesterday it was 13 times! Symptom is a full (random) reset of the sky SR203 hub.  By the time you get to it, it has one red light and is restarting.

Setup is SR203 hub with Ultrafast 160Mbs and BY ONT.  Netgear switch off each of the three spare ports.  Wi-Fi on both frequencies with the same SSID. Have 25 to 30 wireless connections (phones, tablets, Sonos, smart plugs, Amazon devices, printer, etc.) and about 15 wired connections (cameras, NAS, Sky Q, 3 Sky mini boxes, TV’s, play station, PC’s, etc.)

Been on to sky a few times, done the hub (SR203) hard reset, ONT power off, Hub PSU on UPS so moved to normal power, etc., etc. ...  and now even had a new hub from sky.  Still have the same issues.

Setup a log server on my NAS so I can keep a proper record.  Although there is a reasonable chance that if there is a crash, the reason will not be written as the hub has crashed.  I have seen Kernal errors every few days, but this does not seem to result in a reboot.  Kernel error I get starts:

• Alert      - [000000b8] *pgd= (eight zeros ... replaced with this comment as eight zeros is a blocked string)
• Alert      - pgd = c0004000
• Alert      - Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 000000b8
• Critical - Internal error: Oops: 17 [#1] PREEMPT SMP ARM
• Critical - Process bcmsw_rx (pid: 656, stack limit = 0xe3314190)
• Critical - …

HOWEVER, I seem to have determined a pattern … If I turn off all my Sky boxes, then the router is fine!  I know any issues with the Sky Q should not cause a problem with the hub, so that leads me to think it is still a hub load/hardware/memory/software issue … but it could be a faulty Sky Q box as that has been playing up a few times (but they always do!). 

• Not too keen on resetting/replacing the Sky Q box as I will lose all the recordings for the whole family!
• Still points to a hub issue but this is my second one.

Any ideas?  Anything in common with your setup?

Thanks.

[135791113]

Update … seems to have been fixed.

Changed the hub again and factory reset the network settings on my Sky Q and 3 mini hubs.

Sky came out and had never seen the issue before.  They agreed it seemed to be the Sky TV boxes doing something wrong that the hub could then not handle, and hence rebooted (crashed).

They changed the hub again for another SR203.  This is the third hub and should be identical .. it looks like it and the software is the current version, however, it seems to be logging more events to my log server, mainly DHCP related.  The last two hubs did not do this, and none of them (including the latest one), list these events in the log if you view it on the hub via the web interface.  The new hub is on software 7.02.0501.R

The engineer then factory reset the network connection on all my sky TV boxes (note no recordings were lost).

Before this was done my hub had increased to a average of two reboots an hour if my Sky Q boxes were on (even if they were on standby).  Now it has been stable with no reboot for four days and counting.

If you ask me, my money would be on a Wi-Fi mesh network issue and I was going to turn off wi-fi on all the sky TV boxes as my next test, however, I am just glad it seems to have gone.

Hope this update helps others … try the network reset of the sky TV boxes first.

John

[135791113]

... continuing my post in case it helps someone else ...

Rebooting issue came back a few days after doing a network reset on the Sky boxes and replacing the Hub. So, Sky have now changed my Sky Q box (so all recordings gone) and it has made no difference, the hub is still rebooting. I currently think it is something to do with the Mesh Wi-Fi but I need to start thinking about removing all the devices I have connected to see where the issue is coming from.

However, even if a device, or the Sky Q boxes are causing an issue ... the hub should be able to cope with it without rebooting!

When the engineer last came, he mentioned moving up to the new Sky Max (Wi-Fi 6) Hub, but the mesh wi-fi does not yet work with the Sky Q boxes. Maybe this is the way to go, no mesh and a better hub?

Thanks, John

[Robbo0410]

@135791113 have you tried powerline adapters with your sky boxes and disabling the wireless, I had the exact same issue, tried the above and it seems to have sorted the router randomly rebooting itself for the time being, it's 100% the mesh network that the mini boxes use causing a conflict with the main network that's my theory anyways but Sky never seem to think that they just blame it on the router being faulty 

[135791113]

@Robbo0410 , thanks ... I have all my Sky TV boxes (Q + 3 mini's) connected via wired connections (via Netgear GS108E’s).  I think I tried turning off wi-fi on all the Sky TV boxes but I am going to try that again.

[135791113]

I am still having problems with my hub continually restarting, but only when my Sky Q boxes are turned on.

As I have setup a log server, I occasionally capture kernel errors before the hub restarts, e.g. 

• Alert      - [000000b8] *pgd= (eight zeros ... replaced with this comment as eight zeros is a blocked string)
• Alert      - pgd = c0004000
• Alert      - Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 000000b8
• Critical - Internal error: Oops: 17 [#1] PREEMPT SMP ARM
• Critical - Process bcmsw_rx (pid: 656, stack limit = 0xe3314190)
• Critical - …

How can I get to the right person in Sky who could look up the error and tell me exactly what the issue is?