Loss of service midnight - 02.45am (approx)

zappaDPJ · Aug 18, 2009, 03:28:52

I just took a rather active forum down to upload a security patch. While the patch was being deployed I was thinking now would not be a good time to lose connectivity and boom, BT's gremlin read my darkest inner thoughts and shut down my connection. It's truly amazing and it's not the first time it's happened. It's as if someone somewhere is watching me, waiting for just the perfect moment to pull the plug. I'm not paranoid, honest

So, did anyone else lose connectivity for 2-3 hours at midnight or do I have my own personal vindictive BT gremlin?

The rather odd part about it was I could sync with the exchange and my router seemed to think that it had a ppp session but I didn't.

Glenn · Aug 18, 2009, 06:05:53

Mine appears to have been OK last night.

Lance · Aug 18, 2009, 06:29:03

That is the typical BT workframe. I wonder if something caused you to either have a stale session or, if you are on WBC it may have been the software update BT are rolling out and should have finished by 6pm yesterday.

rireed3 · Aug 18, 2009, 07:45:27

QuoteThe rather odd part about it was I could sync with the exchange and my router seemed to think that it had a ppp session but I didn't.

Exactly my experience. When I looked at the router (585v6 - 8.2.2.5), it had re-authenticated and returned a BT IP -- suspiciously similar to when my router wouldn't work at the beginning of WBC because of 'old firmware'.

Rik · Aug 18, 2009, 08:34:12

I'm with Lance, that's typically the time that BT do overnight work. I have no downtime recorded here.

john · Aug 18, 2009, 09:59:53

I've had loss of connection several times since the weekend but it was definitely okay between midnight and 3am this morning.

Rik · Aug 18, 2009, 10:07:24

Thanks, John.

tpk · Aug 18, 2009, 10:43:38

I had the same thing a few days ago. It went off at precisely midnight while I was working ( I know it's late but.. )

As an aside: All weekend my noise margin has doubled, the downstream is sub 1000 Kbps and using a browser just causes hangs it's so messed up.

Rik · Aug 18, 2009, 10:48:05

Have you let support know?

zappaDPJ · Aug 18, 2009, 10:50:55

Quote from: rireed3 on Aug 18, 2009, 07:45:27
Exactly my experience. When I looked at the router (585v6 - 8.2.2.5), it had re-authenticated and returned a BT IP -- suspiciously similar to when my router wouldn't work at the beginning of WBC because of 'old firmware'.

That's interesting because I swapped routers during the outage to one that gives me a lot more information than my current one. During the down time my router connected to a number of unresolvable IP addresses.

Thanks for the replies.

tpk · Aug 18, 2009, 11:00:23

Quote from: Rik on Aug 18, 2009, 10:48:05
Have you let support know?

Yeah. Going around in circles unfortunately. Are you in the test socket? etc.. I'm hopeful they will involve BT this time. Apologies, this is off topic. Interesting to read about others midnight outages though.

Rik · Aug 18, 2009, 11:03:19

They have to get you to use the test socket before they can involve BT, otherwise there's the real chance you'll end up with a £160+ BT bill.

tpk · Aug 18, 2009, 14:17:40

Quote from: Rik on Aug 18, 2009, 11:03:19
They have to get you to use the test socket before they can involve BT, otherwise there's the real chance you'll end up with a £160+ BT bill.

Fair point Rik, apologies for whinging, but given the history of my issues with the overall quality of the service provided (and recent dive towards barely usable at all), I'm a tad frustrated. I already had to accept that my download was not much more than 1000Kbps generally, then it unbelievably gets even worse. BT simply should not be allowed to charge anyone for lines of this quality at this distance from exchanges.

Getting back to the thread, the midnight maintenance without any notification isn't on either.

zappaDPJ · Aug 18, 2009, 14:28:29

Quote from: tpk on Aug 18, 2009, 14:17:40
Getting back to the thread, the midnight maintenance without any notification isn't on either.

I have to agree with that. A few years ago BT would have notified ISPs of any potential disruption in service but not anymore. I'm still picking up the pieces from last night's outage

Rik · Aug 18, 2009, 15:38:36

Quote from: tpk on Aug 18, 2009, 14:17:40
Getting back to the thread, the midnight maintenance without any notification isn't on either.

Quite often IDNet will get warning... the following morning.

rireed3 · Aug 18, 2009, 16:53:03

QuoteI'm still picking up the pieces from last night's outage Angry

With the current setup, you'd have to charge IDNet, if anyone

zappaDPJ · Aug 18, 2009, 17:15:59

That's what really annoys me. I've had enough first hand experience to know just how incompetent BT can be. They sit behind a firewall of a hundred service providers and let them take all the flack for their ineptitude. The telecoms infrastructure needs a complete management overhaul to inject some real accountability into the system.

Rik · Aug 18, 2009, 17:16:36

Amen

zappaDPJ · Aug 18, 2009, 18:27:33

Just to update you, after speaking to Miriam at support, it's clear that my outage (or should that be outrage

) was local to my exchange. The strange IPs I was connecting to belonged to BT. So it's a bunch of flowers to Miriam for her patience and understanding and a bunch of fives for BT, a communications company that fails on communication at every level.

Rik · Aug 18, 2009, 18:31:32

Good to know that at least Miriam could get to the bottom of it, but the incompetence of BT is assuming monumental proportions, each day I wonder if they can get any worse - and they do.

Simon · Aug 18, 2009, 18:32:43

Sadly, this seems to be becoming the norm for BT, Zap. A mate of mine has had a line outage since last Friday. BT promised to come out by Monday, then Tuesday, now tomorrow...

Rik · Aug 18, 2009, 18:34:13

Tomorrow?

But tomorrow never comes!!!