FTTC - line drops

jrw · Apr 08, 2021, 16:30:32

I have being going round in circles with this one. I have suffered several times every day for months. 56 drops in the past month. After much investigation this is very much a DSL link problem. IDNET seem exceptionally reluctant to treat this as a valid fault with threats that Openreach will not find a fault and charge stupid money. I recently moved to SoGEA so there is no phone equipment on the line and the issues remain - so that's not it.

Stats from the DSL modem (a Vigor 130) show some CRC errors but generally only low counts even when the line drops, but the line State does drop from SHOWTIME.
I have recabled, watched interface counters and all sorts and found no issues. The trite 'use the master socket' and 'try another router' are plain unhelpful!

With more online and steaming activity these days, these drops are most troublesome. Anyone had any success diagnosing and resolving faults like this?

Richard

Simon · Apr 08, 2021, 18:19:11

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I'm not one to be able to help with this but hopefully somebody more technical will be along soon.

robinc · Apr 09, 2021, 05:56:18

This kind of problem is so frustrating to deal with. Sadly having removed the phone line you've lost the one tool I have always found handy and that is being able to hear noise on the voice line.

Noise can of course be on the line or in your mains supply. Running on an extension lead off a spur with an old freezer on the same circuit.... you get the drift.

Trouble is we don't know if it is your modem dropping or the line dropping. You don't say what router you are using inboard of the modem.

Quick and easy changes - you say you've done the cabling bit, so mains supply is worth looking at as well as proximity to cabling in the wall, other electrical activity in the house and so on.

I use DSL Stats to monitor and log line activity if things go wrong. It helps when looking for patterns and clues.

Next, phone socket - has it been replaced recently? Remove the faceplate and direct off the socket.

How does the line come in to the building? Cable trapped, kinked, under water? Mine is connected via a box on the electricity pole in our garden - it's a 50 year old supply! Gets wet, corroded and generally nasty.

I had loads of issues and it took a number of engineer visits all of whom found various connection boxes under the roads/pavements that were full of water.

How far are you from the cab? Any recent building work, new houses or other disturbance.

Yes I did get the 'No fault' £150 threat, but armed with logs, list of things I had done to try to fix and the right approach to the engineer we got there.

The final item was one from a couple of years back when a house was having a new line and the crossed it over with mine in the cab. Didn't re-seat my connection properly and so it kept dropping.....

Tech Dude · Apr 09, 2021, 16:48:06

Apologies but a little off topic .. related to SOGEA through

I migrated to SOGEA this week after years on FTTC, many drops after the migration, sync rate has dropped, down / upload speed has reduced and IDNET appear unable to do anything - they fear the hefty Openreach charge for a service which appears to be running within the parameters of 'specification' ?

I wonder whether Openreach has drafted the SOGEA 'specification' in such as way that us poor muggles, at the end of the wire, have to be satisfied with what we get !

Maybe SOGEA not ready for 'prime time' ?

robinc · Apr 10, 2021, 05:38:46

I'm puzzled how that could happen. Surely in case of a conversion all they're doing is disconnecting the voice line?

Sounds like a plan to force everyone to FTTP - maybe I should get ahead of the curve!

jrw · Apr 10, 2021, 18:02:37

My setup uses a Ubiquiti USG as the router to run the PPPoE session. I see the ppp session dropping there (logged via syslog) and everytime this happens I also see the DSL model report a change in status from SHOWTIME to TRAINING and back (logged through a polling script). Yesterday it dropped all the way to READY. The CRC counts go up, but not always when the line drops and vv. DSL Stats looks to be just the job but sadly doesn't support Draytek - I've written something that does a similar job. I have viewed the ethernet stats between modem and router and there are no - as in zero - errors at either end so fairly happy that this is ok

I've looked for mains devices that might be related but nothing obvious so far, everything pretty modern and tidy. Tracing the cable is tricky but the house is only 12 yrs old so hidden in walls up to the master socket - could be anything once it leaves the house but is all underground. Master hasn't been changed & reluctant to fiddle with it - it's the type with an integrated filter.
The cab is around 500m away. Since my post the line has dropped another 6 times in 48 hours. Feels like a fault to me!

It sounds as though records, logs and evidence is the way to go!

As for the SoGEA move, I found that the line sync speed dropped by about 20% when then moved me. I complained to IDNET and again got nowhere (bit of a theme here :-( ). After 10 days it has gradually reverted to the orginal performance. You'd think that an ISP would advise to wait it out a bit - but that does seem to be what's needed.

jrw · May 13, 2021, 09:39:48

To close this out here is what I found, in case this is helpful to anyone else.

After lots of logging the evidence points firmly that the problem being related to the DSL physical link. The Vigor130 would drop to TRAINING and then restart the DSL session (SHOWTIME) causing the router PPPoE session to drop. DSL link errors didn't point to a clear cause other than what you might expect from copper cable. Modem was connected to the test socket with a DSL filter, no phone or internal cabling. Diagnostics and online checker show that my DSL cab is Huawei Broadcom based.

My previous fault call with Draytek didn't highlight any known issues.
Support tickets with IDNET revealed no obvious faults being recorded.

I took a punt and bought an old Openreach Huawei EchoLife HG612 modem, flashed it with the recommended custom firmware. Been running DSLstats on it, and the link has remained up for several weeks. Frequency response has some odd notches in it but it seems that the HG612 copes better with this line than the Vigor130.

Link speeds are slightly different now - higher DL, lower UL (by about 10%), response times remain excellent, and stability is far better now.

What I conclude from this is that if your modem has a different chipset to the DSL cab and you are having trouble then it is worth trying different equipment. I had hoped that IDNET would have knowlege like this, and ideally to be able to lend kit for testing and verification. In fairness they did suggest trying different equipment, but since this is a stock answer from many sources it doesn't carry the weight that perhaps it should, and for most people this will be an unreasonable request to just try something out.

Ultimately fault is a problem with the Draytek Vigor130 not working reliably with my line - back where I started! New fault call to be logged, as a certified product it should work.

Nevertheless, I now have a working service so £20 well spent, even if it did take 4 months to work out.

Simon · May 13, 2021, 10:36:18

In fairness to IDNet, if they can't see a problem on the network then I guess the first port of call is always to look at the user's equipment, but I get what you're saying about it being a stock reply. They have sent out test routers in the past, so not sure why they wouldn't be doing so now.

Gary · May 14, 2021, 09:39:26

Quote from: jrw on May 13, 2021, 09:39:48
To close this out here is what I found, in case this is helpful to anyone else.

After lots of logging the evidence points firmly that the problem being related to the DSL physical link. The Vigor130 would drop to TRAINING and then restart the DSL session (SHOWTIME) causing the router PPPoE session to drop. DSL link errors didn't point to a clear cause other than what you might expect from copper cable. Modem was connected to the test socket with a DSL filter, no phone or internal cabling. Diagnostics and online checker show that my DSL cab is Huawei Broadcom based.

My previous fault call with Draytek didn't highlight any known issues.
Support tickets with IDNET revealed no obvious faults being recorded.

I took a punt and bought an old Openreach Huawei EchoLife HG612 modem, flashed it with the recommended custom firmware. Been running DSLstats on it, and the link has remained up for several weeks. Frequency response has some odd notches in it but it seems that the HG612 copes better with this line than the Vigor130.

Link speeds are slightly different now - higher DL, lower UL (by about 10%), response times remain excellent, and stability is far better now.

What I conclude from this is that if your modem has a different chipset to the DSL cab and you are having trouble then it is worth trying different equipment. I had hoped that IDNET would have knowlege like this, and ideally to be able to lend kit for testing and verification. In fairness they did suggest trying different equipment, but since this is a stock answer from many sources it doesn't carry the weight that perhaps it should, and for most people this will be an unreasonable request to just try something out.

Ultimately fault is a problem with the Draytek Vigor130 not working reliably with my line - back where I started! New fault call to be logged, as a certified product it should work.

Nevertheless, I now have a working service so £20 well spent, even if it did take 4 months to work out.

The Vigor 130 if on a ECI cab should use the second modem code and vectoring should be turned off via telnet. That stops the dropout and improves throughput.

https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Broadband/Draytek-vigor-130-Can-t-hold-a-connection-for-long/td-p/1541232/page/2

BoutTime · Jan 16, 2022, 18:23:49

I know this is an old thread but here is what worked for me.....

History:
Was with BT using a Draytek Vigor 130 and Orbi. Experienced occasional drop-outs requiring the Draytek modem to be power cycled. Download speeds were around 57 to 60 mbps. SNR was 3db.

Moved to IDnet. Speed went up to 64 mbps. SNR was 3db but drop-outs occurred more frequently. Replaced Orbi mesh with ASUs XT8 mesh. Speeds increased to 70 mbps but drop-outs continued. Played with all the settings, still no joy.

Draytek had always been set up in MPOAA Bridge Mode. After reading numerous posts about how the Draytek was pre-configured to work with UK VDSL (PPPOE mode) I reset the Draytek using the button and left it to reboot. Since then no further drop-outs. It did slow down one day but no disconnects. SNR is still 3db but download speed has dropped to 67 mbps. But the line appears stable so I can live with that.

So for me if you have a Draytek Vigor 130 on PPPOE VDSL DON'T put it in Bridge mode. Leave it as configured from factory.

Simon · Jan 16, 2022, 19:14:35

Thanks, and welcome!

Gary · Jan 17, 2022, 11:07:21

Just to save people money, the Vigor 130 uses the same VRX268 chipset as in an Openreach ECI modem, and they are much cheaper and run cooler than the Vigors, but should really only be used on ECI cabinets (Openreach modem) or use a Openreach HG612 on Huawei or ECI which work great as long as they are updated to the latest firmware Kitz has links to do that yourself or get one off ebay thats unlocked. Also the Vigor has vectoring turned on which seems to cause drop outs, you need to go the the CLI interface once logged in and type in as follows.

vdsl optn g.vector off

vdsl reboot

BoutTime · Jan 22, 2022, 08:18:25

My speeds have returned back up to 70.6mbps down an 18.3mbps up. Line now completely stable with no drops in over a week. Resetting the Vigor to factory settings was the fix for me. Putting it into MPOAA Bridge Mode was a mistake. And we are on a Huawei cabinet too.

Reset it to and leave everything at factory defaults.

Gary · Jan 24, 2022, 11:45:55

Quote from: BoutTime on Jan 22, 2022, 08:18:25
My speeds have returned back up to 70.6mbps down an 18.3mbps up. Line now completely stable with no drops in over a week. Resetting the Vigor to factory settings was the fix for me. Putting it into MPOAA Bridge Mode was a mistake. And we are on a Huawei cabinet too.

Reset it to and leave everything at factory defaults.

MPoA is the default mode for the 130 and it performs PPPoE passthough. https://www.draytek.co.uk/support/guides/kb-vigor-130-bridge. Also on a Huawei cabinet you really are better off with a Broadcom based modem like a comtrend not a Lantiq based one like the Vigor but if it works good luck. I wouldn't touch a Vigor, my 130 died in just over a year as they use a halfboard and run hot. Also its as I mentioned its a VRX268 so for my needs the ECI modem is just fine. Glad you got it working though but not sure how you put it into PPPoE mode when MPoA is its default status after a factory reset.

BoutTime · Jan 24, 2022, 19:48:34

Quote from: Gary on Jan 24, 2022, 11:45:55
MPoA is the default mode for the 130 and it performs PPPoE passthough. https://www.draytek.co.uk/support/guides/kb-vigor-130-bridge. Also on a Huawei cabinet you really are better off with a Broadcom based modem like a comtrend not a Lantiq based one like the Vigor but if it works good luck. I wouldn't touch a Vigor, my 130 died in just over a year as they use a halfboard and run hot. Also its as I mentioned its a VRX268 so for my needs the ECI modem is just fine. Glad you got it working though but not sure how you put it into PPPoE mode when MPoA is its default status after a factory reset.

Hi. Thanks for the feedback. If I could work out how to upload images I'd show you how after resetting the modem MPoA is disabled And PPPoE/PPPoA is enabled. It has been stable ever since. Better than it's ever been.

BoutTime · Jan 24, 2022, 20:19:34

Quote from: Gary on Jan 24, 2022, 11:45:55
MPoA is the default mode for the 130 and it performs PPPoE passthough. https://www.draytek.co.uk/support/guides/kb-vigor-130-bridge. Also on a Huawei cabinet you really are better off with a Broadcom based modem like a comtrend not a Lantiq based one like the Vigor but if it works good luck. I wouldn't touch a Vigor, my 130 died in just over a year as they use a halfboard and run hot. Also its as I mentioned its a VRX268 so for my needs the ECI modem is just fine. Glad you got it working though but not sure how you put it into PPPoE mode when MPoA is its default status after a factory reset.

From your link... "IF required, the Vigor 130 CAN be easily reconfigured into Bridge Mode so that it behaves in a similar way to the Openreach FTTC (Fiber To The Cabinet) modem". You have to put it in MPoA Bridge Mode manually.

Gary · Jan 31, 2022, 08:35:42

There are two kinds of Vigor 130 one is a router and or modem one is just a modem, the one sold in the UK is just a modem not a router and can only operate in MPoA mode when passing traffic as bridge mode is MPoA with a Vlan of 101, like its cousin the Vigor 166. If you had it in PPPoE mode you would have to input your idnet settings into the 130 directly

https://community.ui.com/questions/Draytek-Vigor-130-PPPoE-Passthrough-or-MPoA-Bridge-Mode/3791f81c-b980-4b29-afed-65c2bdf7a081 I

ts a straight pass though device, if you do a search for them they are known to be buggy and have fits of loosing connection with the line. The chipset in the 130 is at least nine years old as its the same as the later ECI Openreach modems which have the later 2.2 VRX268 chipset. If you were to log in you would see that it will be in MPoA mode which is the same as the FTTC modems provided by Openreach. Draytecs Vectoring mode (can) cause the drops, you should be fine on the Huawei cab even though they dont do vectoring unless part of BDUK where your community helped get the cab put in.

I hope that makes things a bit clearer. The 166 has two ports so you can see the stats without having to disconnect or use a Draytec router, but its not great on FTTC but works well on G.Fast. Idnet do a comtrend modem which uses the broadcom chipset which works very well on Huawei cabs and will probably get you a faster sync compared the the Lantiq chipset Then again if its all working best not try to fix it, hope it carries on working well.

Also is yours using the latest firmware?

Draytec release new versions now and then but I think the 130 has not been updated since 2019. Yours should be up to date but always worth a check. I think the 130 is being replaced by the 166 which is much more powerful as the 130 is now not mentioned on the main page under modems now. Current firmware is 3.8.4.1.BT

BoutTime · Jan 31, 2022, 20:11:23

I appreciate the time you've taken to respond on this. To clarify, previously I had the modem set up in MPoA Bridge Mode. I had to do this myself as per the instructions on Draytek site for the UK modem only version of the Vitor 130. I am running the latest BT version of the firmware. I had always suffered from drops which got worse after switching to IDnet.
As Draytek state the Vigor 130 is already preconfigured from factory to work with UK VDSL connections I decided recent to reset the modem to factory settings. This disabled MPoA and enabled PPPoE / PPPoA client mode. I have left everything as is and changed nothing. The screenshots above are from my own modem and confirm what I've said above. All PPPoE settings are entered in my ASUs XT8 mesh system. Since resetting to factory defaults over two weeks ago we've not experienced a single drop. The connection has been rock solid and completely stable. And it's faster than it's ever been. I am also connected to a Huawei cabinet.
It's quite clear you know far more about VDSL than I do. I only posted as there are many reports on line of people suffering disconnects with their Vigor 130s and after over 4 years I've finally managed to fix the issue. So hopefully this may benefit someone else. Why this works I cannot say but the proof is in the pudding. Thanks again I do appreciate your time.

Also in the link you provided which I'd read recently there are a number of owners stating they just leave the 130 at factory defaults rather than setting it to MPoA mode. This is what I have done.

Gary · Feb 23, 2022, 09:28:42

The UK version is just a modem only, other wise if you were to unplug your modem and log into the Vigor 130 (you should change default password for safety you would see its in MPoA mode like the 166k after a reset which passes traffic and your router is the layer 2 device which handles PPPoE. Openreach modems operate in the same way. If your Vigor was the router variant then PPPoE would mean double nat and two firewalls and two DHCP servers in your set up. Bridge mode leaves the router just passing PPPoE to your router in bridge mode only (MPoA) to your router which has the PPPoE settings like your login and password for IDNet.

BoutTime · Feb 23, 2022, 17:58:16

Quote from: Gary on Feb 23, 2022, 09:28:42
The UK version is just a modem only, other wise if you were to unplug your modem and log into the Vigor 130 (you should change default password for safety you would see its in MPoA mode like the 166k after a reset which passes traffic and your router is the layer 2 device which handles PPPoE. Openreach modems operate in the same way. If your Vigor was the router variant then PPPoE would mean double nat and two firewalls and two DHCP servers in your set up. Bridge mode leaves the router just passing PPPoE to your router in bridge mode only (MPoA) to your router which has the PPPoE settings like your login and password for IDNet.

Ok you've lost me with your last post. The screenshots I've posted above are after a factory reset. MPoA is disabled and PPPoE is enabled. And it works.