Cooked our connection? Or Sky have kicked us off?

[fogster]

Ok, have been running on Sky Max for about two months. Generally have been really pleased, only problem has been the poor wireless signal from the Netgear router (I live in a Victorian basement flat- walls about a foot thick = low signal!). Girlfriend was hassling me last night over it as her Mac couldn't get online so decided to hack Netgear (Sky) router, find username / password and try using 3com router.

Did this with no problem. Didn't actually flash Sky router, just probed it to supply username and password in a .cfg file. Entered this into the 3com router - no joy. Manually set the IP and DNS according to the Sky router - et voila! Worked perfectly!!

.... for about 1 or 2 hours.

Suddenly - nothing, the connection just went dead. Tried switching back to the Sky router - still nothing. Tried restoring old settings that I'd backed up from the Sky Router - nothing, "error" on attempting to backup. Tried to flash the router with the Sky firmware flash provided on the Sky Broadband CD - the firware upgrade can't see the router (either over wifi or CAT5 Lan).

Tried tech support - "Error 300" on connect / disconnect - escalated to T3, 5 day wait..

Any idea what's happened here? Why would BOTH routers suddenly stop working? This suggests it's the line, not the router. Any ideas?

Has been on the master socket overnight, no connection this morning (although show up/down speed info). Often report 16MB downstream and no usual problems with drop-out. Will post snr, attenuation etc tonight from a friend's house.

Just felt like Sky had blocked the connection (perhaps because I was attempting to use a 3rd party product) rather than this being a technical issue, but no-one else reports this type of thing, so no idea what's going on. Could it have something to do with the fact that I used a fixed IP on the 3com router, SKY cycled this at some point during the two hours when it was working and now I've locked myself out?

Thoughts, anyone?

By the way - superb forum / site - especially thanks to all Sky people who bother to help on here - it's appreciated!

Steve

[Isitme]

It looks like your line connection may be down. You could try resetting the Netgear router to the defaults. To do this push a biro into the small hole below the power plug and hold it there for 10 seconds. The router must be fully powered on before you attempt this. It is usually easier if you remove all the plugs except the power.

[fogster]

Thanks, but have reset the router multiple times. Have also tried resetting to factory defaults and rebooting from within the router control panel.

I just find it very, very strange that this happened to go down whilst we were doing 'non-standard' stuff.

Is there any type of line test that I can get BT to run? Anything I can do to expediate the process? (Doubt it as exchange is LLU...)

[gavinp]

I suspect that the router was trying to logon with invalid username/password details and your Radius account is now locked.

I went through this and after lots of messing around, they finally sent out a new router (with a new username and password inside) - the concept of unlocking the radius account seems to be an unrecognised step...although they obviously don't expect the problem to occur as it is hard coded in the Sky router.

I would recommend you phone Sky again and insist they send you a new router ASAP to minimise your downtime.

Thanks

Gavin

[Isitme]

If your voice phone is OK there is not much BT will/can do. You will have to wait for T3 I'm afraid.

[fogster]

Originally Posted by gavinp

I suspect that the router was trying to logon with invalid username/password details and your Radius account is now locked.

I'd agree, this is the kind of thing that it feels like to me... but - it was working fine for about two hours!

By the way - what's my Radius account? I take it this is the internal Sky system that authenticates users? This whole issue is simply down to Sky trying to force people to use Sky's own routers - which is absurd. Why? Surely it can't be that they were simply afraid that people would sign up then use the router somewhere else? If so, this is incredibly short sighted as (i) they must have realised it could be flashed by anyone who was so inclined and (ii) this would massively increase tech support issues. As it is, they have some account system that, once locked, can't be unlocked, and could simply issue me with a new accuont number and password, but instead insist I wait 5 days to be told this is the problem and then have a new router sent out, all at their cost.

(Do I get to keep the old router? If so, one flashed router going on to ebay to pay for some repeaters...)

[MrStabby]

The firmware on the DSLAMS Sky/Easynet use to provide the service is written with the Netgear modems in mind. What we see often with the UKOnline customer who use the 'wires only' service is that the small incompatibilities can cause 'stale sessions' which give the Error 300 / no IP.
It's unlikely to be a radius issue, probably a stale session that needs clearing in the DSLAM.

[fogster]

Cheers Mr Stabby - how do I go about getting this stale session cleared? Will leaving the router unplugged do it? Or does this need to be done by Sky?

I rang again tonight - still can't get through to Tier 3. Really quite frustrating...

[Isitme]

Normally a T3 job I think, but try this, switch on your router, then turn it off for 40 mins., then switch on again.

[fogster]

Rang Sky again last night around 8pm - spoke to a helpful British guy who tried over and over to get me through to T3 - eventually got cut off, but full marks to him for trying. The difference in approach between the UK and Phillipines customer support is simply unbelievable. The guy I spoke to could relate to me, sympathised, dealt with the query fantastically well (although, being T1, couldn't help me himself personally). He did what he coudl though and, although I was no further forward than the day previously, at least I had a much more positive outlook when I got off the phone.

Still, the 'net is still not working and I'm still waiting for a callback from Sky. This is really poor....

I'll keep you updated....