Virgin - Remote modem reset by their support?

[thetapeworm]

My Virgin broadband went off yesterday afternoon at about 15:30, it used to do this on a daily basis at one point (always around midday with no input from my side), I'd reset the box and check connections (a Hub 3.0) to pre-empt their requests to do this, wait a little and then it would generally come back on in the next hour or so. I used to report the fault to them if it stayed off for longer, they sent a new box, they booked (and then cancelled) many engineer visits to the house but 100% of the time it's been an issue at their end and it still happens fairly frequently.

So when this happened yesterday I went through the motions but the box didn't come back on, I rang to report it and was told there were no area faults and an engineer would be booked to come to the house - standard response but at least reporting it gets it on the radar if there is a wider issue.

I then went out until about 19:30 and when I came home the Internet was connected again, I presumed all was well, they had fixed something on their side as usual.

Then I realised none of my wireless devices were connected. Further checks revealed my router has been set back to factory defaults, presumably remotely by them so the config I'd changed on there (guest WiFi, passwords, MAC filters, DMZ settings etc had all been lost.

I have a config backup and a screenshot version of it too in case this doesn't work but I'm still miffed that someone has just randomly opted to reset the device like this without speaking to me first.

Obviously I'm being a 'bit' dramatic but as I can't actually speak to anyone sane at Virgin to discuss this and still have an engineer visit due tomorrow I just wanted to vent somewhere and see if anyone else has experienced this from them.

I had to pester Virgin to come and provide to the street as we only have "up to 8mb" otherwise and in my experience it's far less than that so having Vivid 200 was a treat at first but they are so painful to deal with and damn expensive. Perhaps when 5G becomes widespread it'll be time to just move to a 5G modem and cut the cables, it doesn't ever look as though BT will fibre to this little new-build enclave I'm in so I definitely want to look at other options.

Thanks for the therapy session if you're as bored as me and got this far.

[speedyman]

Virginmedia india support is just basic stuff as I found out, see if you can get transfered to a UK 2nd line support. It worked for me anyway. Good luck.

[TX1]

Yes its absolute torture, you try and report a fault and you go through all the crap and at the end you get the message asking you to ring back if the problem is still present, so you have to ring again instantly and go through that all over again to so you can at last talk to a human being and report the fault.
I had a similar problem to yours one minute the internet working fine and all of a sudden just goes off for a few hours and than back on again and works well for a week or so, this kept on going for 3 months with plenty of frustrating calls and visits and they were even going to change the cable coming under my lawn.
Before they dug the lawn another engineer turned up and noticed that the downstream was very high and once the downstream goes to 42-43 SNR (DB) I was losing connection so had nothing to do with the cable being damaged under my lawn.
A network engineer sorted it out the next day on the outside and it now is 37 - 38 and have not had a problem since.
Might be worth checking your downstream in case its the same problem.

[anonymous-user]

YES
I know they do this as its happened to me
I uszed to have the superhubs in modem mode and used my own beloved TP Link rack mount 8 port wired router for "my side" of the connection it was an excellent piece of kit much loved much missed. I only parted with it when someone offered me good dosh for it for his small office (it was Dual Wan )
I then used the Superhub 3 in standard mode and simply switched off the wifii as I have WAPS at a couple of points in the house.
Again all was well
Then I thought would use the wifi in the SH3 to supply the google home devices upstairs
All was not well
It appears that having a Google home connected via wifi to the SH3 causes issues and it shows a long running script on the initial page after log in - the one that shows the connected devices
It affects it only when the Google home is wi connected to it - doesn't happen with a phone or laptop
Fortunately I'm linking up a Netgear D6300 (when it comes) I use them as access points and hadn't realised that Netgears D range of routers can be used both for cable and ADSL - its just a case of selecting the WAN to the cable input

[thetapeworm]

TX1 said:

Yes its absolute torture, you try and report a fault and you go through all the crap and at the end you get the message asking you to ring back if the problem is still present, so you have to ring again instantly and go through that all over again to so you can at last talk to a human being and report the fault.
I had a similar problem to yours one minute the internet working fine and all of a sudden just goes off for a few hours and than back on again and works well for a week or so, this kept on going for 3 months with plenty of frustrating calls and visits and they were even going to change the cable coming under my lawn.
Before they dug the lawn another engineer turned up and noticed that the downstream was very high and once the downstream goes to 42-43 SNR (DB) I was losing connection so had nothing to do with the cable being damaged under my lawn.
A network engineer sorted it out the next day on the outside and it now is 37 - 38 and have not had a problem since.
Might be worth checking your downstream in case its the same problem.

Cheers, I'm 38-40 at the moment but I'll keep an eye on it.

[thetapeworm]

So it just happened again - bang on midday I lost connectivity, checked the box and it was rebooting itself.

It came back, I tried to log in to it - factory defaults again.

So I called them (India obviously) and asked to be transferred to the second line team in the UK, they refused until I went through the issue with them. They insist that there is no way for them to reset the box back to factory defaults from their end. Now I've never worked for Virgin but I have connected to a lot of network equipment remotely before and most of it has had an option to do a remote reset.

I have "remote access" disabled but the lovely lady in India could clearly see the device names I have connected etc so it's obviously (and not surprisingly) not just a case of them having visibility of "connected" and "disconnected".

20 minutes of "troubleshooting" later and they have agreed to escalate the issue.

The 5G rollout can't come soon enough, either that or I need to move house to somewhere that isn't so poorly serviced.

[Allanv]

Seems quite common.

https://tinyurl.com/yy329mnl

I have the super hub 3.0 but because I use it in modem mode I have no idea if mine would be doing it as well, I just logged into it and everything seems normal.

[HRL]

I had a similar painful issue for months.

When an engineer finally came out he fixed it in 2 mins and said it was due to static on the cable. Not sure if that’s true or not but it’s been fine ever since, about 3 months now.

[cqueen]

I'm having the same problem now. Lunchtime it goes down for an hour or so, then at other random times during the day. Only affects wifi. Have just spoke to Virgin and they have ordered me a new router. Hopefully that'll work?

[anonymous-user]

cqueen said:

I'm having the same problem now. Lunchtime it goes down for an hour or so, then at other random times during the day. Only affects wifi. Have just spoke to Virgin and they have ordered me a new router. Hopefully that'll work?

If it doesn't then genuinely well meant go and buy your own router, use that for routing and put the Virgin Hub in modem mode

[xjay1337]

I genuinely can't see how they can get access to your router.
I think you may just have a faulty router or something.

[WinstonWolf]

xjay1337 said:

I genuinely can't see how they can get access to your router.
I think you may just have a faulty router or something.

That's just because you don't know how to do it. Virgin will have access to all the routers connected to their network for maintenance purposes.

[aaron_2000]

A couple of years ago, I had it so bad that every night it'd go down. Seems to be better now, but still not great. My solution will be to get a much better router, and use the SuperHub in modem mode, the use the Ethernet adaptors across the house for devices like the PS4. The 1st line support people you get put through to aren't useless, they're just there for basic troubleshooting. I do look forward to services like Google Fibre.

[IanA2]

thetapeworm said:

So it just happened again - bang on midday I lost connectivity, checked the box and it was rebooting itself.

It came back, I tried to log in to it - factory defaults again.

So I called them (India obviously) and asked to be transferred to the second line team in the UK, they refused until I went through the issue with them. They insist that there is no way for them to reset the box back to factory defaults from their end. Now I've never worked for Virgin but I have connected to a lot of network equipment remotely before and most of it has had an option to do a remote reset.


I have "remote access" disabled but the lovely lady in India could clearly see the device names I have connected etc so it's obviously (and not surprisingly) not just a case of them having visibility of "connected" and "disconnected".

20 minutes of "troubleshooting" later and they have agreed to escalate the issue.

The 5G rollout can't come soon enough, either that or I need to move house to somewhere that isn't so poorly serviced.

A Huawei 4G router and a twenty quid Three sim and they'll be a long forgotten bad dream.

[anonymous-user]

aaron_2000 said:

A couple of years ago, I had it so bad that every night it'd go down..

Kamagra
A definite 90° (degrees),solution

[xjay1337]

WinstonWolf said:

xjay1337 said:

I genuinely can't see how they can get access to your router.
I think you may just have a faulty router or something.

That's just because you don't know how to do it. Virgin will have access to all the routers connected to their network for maintenance purposes.

Maybe I need to read Web Surfer Pro magazine.... !!

I know it can be done, it's not hard - but I can't see how Virgin would have enabled such a feature that could be so easily circumvented -

[anonymous-user]

To be fair I would now think it's a software bug in the router. Mine happened due to a service intervention - that's why I know they can do it

Best way to get round this is to make them think theres an intermittent fault with the router such as losing connection
That's on/off switch to you and me
That will pretty much ensure a new one gets sent out

[xjay1337]

Spoke to my mate who is a techie at Virgin.

Turns out you can do stuff like reboot devices remotely!

[TX1]

Was having problems with streaming from my Nas drive on to the tv which is only 25 - 30ft away with a couple of plaster board walls in between.
Very temperamental, most times all is well and all of a sudden buffering, so got a couple of NETGEAR PLP1000-100UKS 1 Port,1000 Mbps, 1 Gigabit Port Powerline Adapter with Extra outlet and they seem to have sorted the issue.
Getting roughly 90% of my connection speed while before with wifi it was low 20's.

Edited by TX1 on Wednesday 13th March 23:11

[Chuffedmonkey]

aaron_2000 said:

A couple of years ago, I had it so bad that every night it'd go down. Seems to be better now, but still not great. My solution will be to get a much better router, and use the SuperHub in modem mode, the use the Ethernet adaptors across the house for devices like the PS4. The 1st line support people you get put through to aren't useless, they're just there for basic troubleshooting. I do look forward to services like Google Fibre.

Just out of interest what is Google Fibre? As the UK only has 2 largely widely available fibre networks. BT and Virgin. BT let most providers run on their network, like Talk Talk, Sky Vodafone etc but Virgin currently do not let anyone run on their home network.