Sky router cannot recover when fibre optic is unplugged

[SkyRouterPoo]

Following on from this reply ( https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadband/FTTP-Voice-light-goes-to-orange-and-the-internet-stops-workin... ) , I do not believe the 7.04.0004.R completely fixes the issue that I have been experiencing.

Ever since July when I got Sky Broadband in my house, the internet (NOT just wifi, the WHOLE internet connection) would drop out every 2-4 weeks. This would result in the lights either being "green green green orange" or "green orange green orange".

My Sky router is connected to a small white Openreach box with 4 possible LEDs, 3 of which are green and one labelled alarm that is never on. I believe this is Fibre To The Premises (FTTP).

The issue is easy to reproduce:

* Be connected to the internet

* Unplug the fibre optic from the small white box

* Eventually, the Sky router will realise it is not connected to the internet and its LEDs will change to "green orange green orange"

* The internet will then not work at all, not via wifi, not via any devices connected via ethernet.

* Plug the fibre optic back in. The LEDs on the small white box are then happily flashing away

* The Sky router is unable to recover. The LEDs will stay as "green orange green orange" forever.

* The quickest way to fix this is to replug the LAN cable between the white box and Sky router. i.e no rebooting needed, just replug the LAN cable

So, the Sky router looks like it cannot recover from a situation where the fibre optic connection dropped - i.e was disconnected in the house, or someone at the exchange moved some fibre optics around, or a particularly fat pigeon sat on the fibre optic from the pole. Who knows.

This feels like a scenario that the Sky router should be able to recover from without any intervention.

The fact that it requires a human action to fix the internet is not good for situations when I am away from home trying to check my security equipment that needs the internet. Sadly, the bodge-fix for this is to put the Sky router on a timer plug so that it is forced to switch off and on every few hours.

Please fix this Sky. It is infuriating.

[Giggsy1977]

It's a problem that has been going on for some time. I have since left Sky (not actually due to this problem, but I would have done had I still been a customer). 

It's a bit embarrassing really as other isp's, while having their own issues, don't seem to be as badly affected by such an issue. 

Sky's position in the PC Pro yearly awards of 7th out of 8 isp's featured was another reason for me to move elsewhere. 

It clearly isn't an easy fix and I'm sure Sky are trying to resolve the issue, but I didn't go back and have signed up with someone else. 

[Tomsc02]

This issue has been going on for years, apparently a new firmware fixes it( heard this before over the years), which is turning out to be not so true. Sky will let any community thread run for so long then say they have fixed the issue and lock the thread.

The only real fix for me was to ditch the Sky router and buy and setup my own. After about 6-7 months of using my own router I have had zero problems with connections.

I wonder if Sky are locked into some contract with a router supplier and can't change to a more stable one....

[SkyRouterPoo]

The Sky support on the other end of the phone refuses to accept that their router is terrible. Obviously.

What alternative router have you been using @Tomsc02? Is it easy to set up?

[Chrisee]

@SkyRouterPoo you do have a full fibre connection and you are manually disconnecting the incoming fibre feed from the Openreach ONT which is not designed to be touched. The fibre cable is fragile and even a tiny spec of dust in the connection can disrupt the optical signal. Openreach are likely to charge if you damage the connection.

The fault which you and others experienced is an issue with the Sky server which is housed somewhere in your region and is not related to the passive fibre feed which in practice is highly reliable unless damaged. Therfore your "test" is in no way disproving the fix which is designed to improve the ability for the older black Hub4.2 to recover connection in the case of loss of connection to the server. The loss of optical signal is signified by the lights on the ONT. 

You can use a third party router if you want but not every model is suitable as a rule those made by Asus work well. You will lose the voice line if you use a third party router as thst requires the use of a Sky hub.

[SkyRouterPoo]

I am simply stating a very simple way to cause the same symptom to happen, so that anyone that was previously celebrating the release of 7.04.0004.R is aware that it may not fix the problem for them.

My "test" was simply to highlight something that clearly is an issue, and it is one of the repeatable causes of the symptoms of having "green orange green orange" lights appear.

My "test" feels like something that the Sky router should be able to recover from without any human intervention.

I do not use the voice, so that is not a problem for me.

You state that "The loss of optical signal is signified by the lights on the ONT". However, those lights are happily flashing away whilst my Sky router's lights would be stuck on "green orange green orange" after the issue occurs. It would be impossible for me to find out the state of the ONT's lights when the Sky router gets stuck on "green orange green orange", as I won't be around at the exact moment that it happened.

I would expect Sky or OpenReach to have some logging at the exact moment that the problem occurred, but it seems they have no such logging. Sky seem clueless as to the cause of the problem.

[Tomsc02]

I replaced the Sky router with a TP-Link AX53, I had no use for the VoIP phone so no loss.

Setup was fairly straightforward and actually followed instructions in one of the discussions on this forum.

As I said has been perfect since the change

[Chrisee]

@Tomsc02 the TP-Link AX53 does not support DHCPv4 Option61, unless things have changed very recently, so connection to a Sky full fibre service is not guaranteed. It is down to whether the exchange supports the alternate IPv6 PD which around 25% dont.

[Tomsc02]

It's been working perfectly since setup using PD.

For DHCPv6, nothing special is required, if you setup your router for DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation (PD).  Sky can authenticate DHCPv6 natively, and then DHCPv4 can piggy back on that.

 

[1NickAJ]

I was following the original thread having had the death by orange light issue nearly 12 months ago. 

I changed my router to an Asus unit and have never had a problem since then. 

It's simply arrogant of Sky to say the problem is solved and then lock the thread. It's a we know best attitude that will make me cancel the subscription as soon as possible.