WBC connection problems

[Rik]

With many people switching to WBC in the next few days, we feel it would be helpful to concentrate all posts on WBC-specific issues into a single thread initially, so that we can concentrate the learning curve and, at the same time, give IDNet a single target to focus on.

If you do have any problems, please post them here, and we'll do our best to help.

We'd like to stay on topic as much as possible, so may move posts if necessary.

Thanks.

[rireed3]

Hi Rik,

Info only - the IDnet-sourced Netgear is still fine.

Original problem was 585v6, connecting at ADSL2+, but failing complete authentication to IDnet, similar to several other router brands.

Today I turned this up on the Kitz forum (Re: ADSL24 now offering LLU on: May 13, 2009)

Evening,

We have been advised, via 3 different sources, that there is a known BT 21CN WBC platform issue that is locking lines by mistake to a 2Mbps profile. This appears to only happen where the exchange MSAN equipment being used is Huawei based.

BT have a national trouble ticket open at the moment to resolve this problem, which is causing problems for thousands of lines, not just those at Entanet.

Martin Pitt
Company Founder

Aquiss Internet

I realised that while this didn't happen last Friday with the authentication problem then, I got both problems while I was trying a couple of firmwares on Tuesday.  Just lucky my profile bounced back in the evening.

So, on ST585v6, two Huawei MSAN (only some exchanges) compatibility problems

• Incomplete authentication prevents Internet access - always but once, when exchange cut me to 10M ADSL2, all known firmwares
• connection speed and profile stuck at 2M, even though training was the long ADSL2+ style - only happened the second time I powered on the ST585v6, after running the Netgear for two half-days at 19M, and stayed for firmwares 6.2.29.2 and 6.1.9.6

Good Luck,
Richard

[rireed3]

Another problem with WBC, not router-related, but maybe HuaWei MSAN-related ......

After staying connected at 19M with the Netgear v5 for nearly 2 days, I noticed I was being throttled.  Here are some speed tests from DSLZoneUK:


29 May 2009, 17:46    IDNet    19787    6335    32    212.69.xxx.xxx    1022669
29 May 2009, 17:45    IDNet    19787    6364    32    212.69.xxx.xxx    1022668
29 May 2009, 17:29    IDNet    19787    6339    32    212.69.xxx.xxx    1022665
29 May 2009, 14:55    IDNet    19787    6388    32    212.69.xxx.xxx    1022620
29 May 2009, 01:25    IDNet    19787    12797    65    212.69.xxx.xxx    1022492
28 May 2009, 16:36    IDNet    19787    13495    68    212.69.xxx.xxx    1022297
28 May 2009, 14:52    IDNet    19787    15230    77    212.69.xxx.xxx    1022270
28 May 2009, 12:11    IDNet    19767    14312    72    212.69.xxx.xxx    1022239
28 May 2009, 11:24    IDNet    19767    11617    59    212.69.xxx.xxx    1022231
27 May 2009, 16:26    IDNet    19363    15202    79    212.69.xxx.xxx    1021951
27 May 2009, 09:24    IDNet    19231    14033    73    212.69.xxx.xxx    1021820
27 May 2009, 08:36    IDNet    19231    12027    63    212.69.xxx.xxx    1021800
26 May 2009, 18:54    IDNet    19231    14840    77    212.69.xxx.xxx    1021618

These are three connections.  The 19767's were typos when I did the DSLZoneUK custom test and are part of the 19787 connection.

Richard



Edit: IP address removed

[rireed3]

I'm tentatively moving my case (Speedtouch 585v6 on Huawei MSAN) to success.

First, the DLM profile cut above (not related to Speedtouch) is back to 17000.

For 585v6, though Thinkbroadband, I found someone at Andrews and Arnold who pm'd me that he had successfully connected and authenticated ST585v6 through a Huawei MSAN.

Since I had already tried this, I went through 4 cycles of the dodgy Thomson upgrade wizard, which never gave a clean result.  I just stopped when I got all the way to the end before the error popup.  The firmware, which I had tried before is 8.2.2.5.  Maybe something also changed at the exchange.  Good result one time (see the successes topic), so I'm reserving judgement, but I think it works.

Richard

[Rik]

 

Thanks for letting us know, Richard.

[Sebby]

It does sound like perhaps the exchange firmware has changed. Thanks for the info.

[D-Dan]

After the problems with BT pretty much screwing everyone over, us and IDnet, I understand that problems are solved, and certainly a speedtest suggests that last night's problems are history.

However, in trying to cure yesterday's problems (I didn't know about the global problem since my net was too slow to even enter the forums initially) I've managed to get my target SNR raised to 9 (didn't take much either - 4 restarts in 12 hours). Since, technically, we are still in a training period, will this recover? I had a rock solid connection at 6 (and lower) before the WBC fiasco. Now I'd quite like to get my 512 Kbs improvement in downstream that WBC initially gave me (and which has now vanished, leaving me slightly worse off than where I started, since upstream has actually reduced slightly).

Or do I need to contact support further?

Steve

[D-Dan]

Oh - or should I try a router reboot now - is it possible that targets will have reset as part of the switch?

Steve

[Rik]

Support are unlikely to be able to do anything during the training period, Steve. BT will argue that the 9db is needed for stability. Having watched a Max training process recently, this time knowing what was happening, I could see why I needed the 9db, it cut my error count from 1M/day to 15k/day. Have a look at the error count in your router if you can, it will give a good clue.

[Rik]

Oh - or should I try a router reboot now - is it possible that targets will have reset as part of the switch?

Almost certainly not. Leave it till the morning if you want to reboot.

[D-Dan]

Thanks - I'll leave it as it is now. Maybe in the morning I'll try - and maybe I'll try the Speedtouch 585v6 instead of the DG834Gv3 at the same time, since tentative reports are that it works - see which gives me the best sync and take it from there.

For now, I'm just happy to have internet back. Isn't it funny how all your hopes and expectations desert you when you finally get back to just where you were?

Steve

[Sebby]

It's like a lot of things, Steve. I often think the build up is more exciting!

[Rik]

There speaks someone who's not yet married. 

[Sebby]

[rireed3]

and maybe I'll try the Speedtouch 585v6

D-Dan --

Sorry I missed your post, since it was I who got 585v6 to work.

Be careful of a few things, and unplug the router from the phone line until you are ready to connect.  As I told support:

- Firmware version 8.2.2.5 should be used. Get it from modem-help.co.uk, as Thomson has stopped giving out their firmwares to punters!.  This is also the version number currently shipping with TG585v7.  Version 6.x.x.x firmwares won't work on Huawei MSAN's on WBC.  8.2.2.5 has the tone map back and this has been programmed into a tool called OrbMT, but nothing really useful like target margin tweaking has appeared.
- As always, change the PC _not_ to use DHCP, but fix it to an unused local IP, preferably 192.168.1.64.  I don't know if you have to edit the DCHP pool in the router if it includes this, but I did and it was a slight connectivity nuisance to do so.  I'd try just changing the PC.
- The Thomson upgrade wizard saves and restores the current configuration, but in this upgrade the configuration restore part fails at the very last.  I haven't found any problems this might cause.  There is another upgrader called DeviceFinder that doesn't restore the configuration and announces a successful upgrade, but this causes some extra work.
- 8.2.2.5 has a bug in its browser interface.  Should the PPP connection to IDNet be lost or closed, the connect button will not work.  The logging seems to show that it is disconnecting again after connection.  To avoid restarting the DSL connection and involving DLM, use the telnet interface.  Go to the 'ppp' command group and type 'ifattach intf = Internet'.  In case 'Internet' is not the name of your PPP interface, type 'iflist' and find out what it is.  When retarting the router, my authentication to IDNet has so far worked automatically.
- The Command-Line Interface has changed in 8.2.2.5, so get the .pdf manual for the TG585v7 CLI.  Also, error seconds reported seem to be the 'severe' variety (>= 18 CRCs in a second), as mine are always 0, even though I get about 50 'CV's' (code violations) per hour.  To see these, type 'xdsl info expand = enabled'.  You can google up the G.997.1 pdf for all the definitions.

Richard

[D-Dan]

Guess I'm not on a Huawei MSAN. Working better than a NG Dg 834 V3 here with 6.2.29.2 firmware. I'm loathe to upgrade the firmware during the training period. I may tryu in a couple of weeks.

Steve

[sebt]

Currently Vigor 2820 and Vigor 2800 models are *not* connecting to IDnet through Infineon (IFTN/Huawei) MSAN hardware, using any of the UK firmwares. I did not try any of the non-UK firmware's listed on the international site. I am currently supporting SEG (Draytek UK) in an effort to get a new firmware released and the problem resolved, by using PPPoE passthrough and making packet traces with wireshark.

Interestingly though, the Draytek *will* connect to bt_test_user@idnet.net, which suggests the authentication issue may be at IDnet's end. IDnet still feel that's not the case, but there are some inconsistencies with the evidence I've been gathering. Eg, in Plus-net's WBC trial, people seem to be connecting successfully with the Vigor 2820. Indeed, I have a friend connecting through the same exchange as me on the Plus-net trial, connecting successfully with a 2820 using the same firmware as I have.

Although I don't want to say anyone's wrong - and I'd be the first to point out that there's a lot of educated guessing going on here - I think it might be useful for IDnet to re-examine what's going on on their own authentication servers. From my end, I can see from packet logs that during PPP authentication a certain LCP response packet is sent back to the Vigor, when connecting to bt_test_user. This tells the Vigor all is well, which then keeps the connection up. In the case of a genuine logon to IDnet however, this packet is not apparent, so the Vigor drops the call, assuming all is not well. It's possible that Netgear models are just ignoring this packet (ie. being less fussy) and keeping the connection up anyway.

If I'm in any way right in the above guesswork, a Draytek firmware update could fix the issue, but only by being less strict - so in that event it would be a case of Draytek working around someone else's issue.

Anyway, time will tell, and the sooner the better... one reason for this is that I'm seeing significantly better sync speeds from the Vigor than the DG834, up to 2M higher on occasion.

Seb

[rireed3]

Hi Seb,

One thing you should check is whether the Vigor will sync 'as it comes up' rather than from the user interface.

It's a long shot, but on my Speedtouch, the latest firmware has a bug in its browser-based user interface where the 'router logon to provider' button does not work, but seems to cause a logoff as soon as a logon.  The router has reliably logged on as part of the re-sync sequence on its own, and I can also use the command-line interface to get it to log on without re-syncing.

I know it's unlikely that the Vigor has the same problem, but it's worth checking.

This fooled me for a while, because I was configuring the router and being cautious about not allowing connection until everything was ready, so as not to have the unwanted attention of DLM!

Richard

[Sebby]

Interesting stuff, Seb. It might be worth letting IDNet know if it's possible that the issue is authentication at their end.

[Simon_idnet]

Hi All

We only have the one authentication system that handles logon requests for 20CN as well as 21CN. That all makes of router authenticate reliably on 20CN and most makes do so on 21CN makes us skeptical that there is an authentication problem at our end.

What we see from our end is the auth request coming in from a Draytek router and our ack going back but .... either the ack is not received by the Draytek or it has already prematurely timed-out.

As Plusnet is now owned by BT we suspect that they're not using the same connection circuits that we have to use. We have forwarded sebt's findings to BT and await their response.

Cheers
Simon

[Simon]

Thanks, Simon.

[Sebby]

Thanks for that, Simon.

[Lance]

Thanks for that, Simon. It certainly helps the knowledge building!

[joll200x]

Not sure if this will fit here but i've noticed some problems trying to authenticate to IDNet using a netgear DG834GT in bridge mode and it's been failing. I suspected the netgear at first but got exactly the same thing when trying with a Zyxel in bridge mode too. Packet captures my side show going through LCP negotiation, receiving the CHAP challenege and then sending the response 10 times, each at 2 second intervals until it terminates the sessions after receiving no response from the [IDNet?] server.

I'll pass the pcaps on to support if its any use to someone?

Stu

[Lance]

I think passing that on to support would be the best thing to do, thanks.