topic Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose in Broadband & Landline

EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

humeka — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 15:01:38 GMT

Having moved from BT to EE in January , replacing my BT SMARTHUB 2 with EEs SMARTHUB PLUS, I have had numerous issues.

I (and others) have reported the problem with CONTACTS .... the inability of the SMARTHUB PLUS to accept exported contacts from SMARTHUB 2 ( or ANDROID mobiles or Windows) because of formatting issues requiring manual editing in hexadecimal !! Also the inability to EXPORT any contacts that you may finally manage to IMPORT or manually store, so if you return to factory defaults you can't recover them.

My latest issue with DIGITAL VOICE , is ALL my calls are going to 1571 WITHOUT my phone ringing and WITHOUT the call being registered in the called/calling list .

I discovered I can solve the problem by de-registering the 4th Alexa phone (any one of my 4 phones), as soon as I re-register the phone , calls start going to 1571 again. So the limit appears to be 4 phones.

I demonstrated this to "The Guide" and have reported a fault and arranged for an engineer to visit my house , since the fault is so easy to reproduce . No doubt the engineer will re-boot the router and will fail to collect any diagnostics (dumps or traces) , but he's in for a hard time from me.

PS Today I finally got £94 paid into my bank account from BT , after both BT and EE took payment in January .... and I only got the refund after two calls to "The Guides".

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

Rach_H — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 17:56:33 GMT

Hi @humeka,

Welcome back to the Community!

We want to make sure you're getting the very best service when it comes to your broadband and Digital Voice, so I'm disappointed to hear about the trouble you've been having, and that this is taking some time to get resolved.

I'm sure the engineer who is due to visit will be able to take a look into why this is happening, and will be able to get things back on track for you.

Rach

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

humeka — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 18:44:21 GMT

I'll have a bet with you that the engineer powers the router off/on ... which removes the condition without fixing the inherent fault with the firmware and fails to take any diagnostics to the designers/programmers.

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

Leanne_T — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 08:47:35 GMT

Hi @humeka

Please let us know how you get on after the engineer has been and completed any work that is needed. If you continue to experience problems after the engineer has been, please contact our technical support guides who will get this investigated further for you.

Leanne.

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

humeka — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 09:15:51 GMT

AS I stated in the post it was a "TECHNICAL GUIDE" who has put a call for an engineer at my insistence . She checked (whatever she could check) and said she couldn't see any fault ... I guess she just looked at the hub and event log, but was unable to perform a trace or storage dump , so no analysis or problem determination.

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

Leanne_T — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 09:24:08 GMT

Thanks for coming back to me @humeka

The guide would have run tests to see what could be causing the problems for you when you called and this has needed an engineer visit.

Please let us know how it goes after the engineer has visited 🙂

Leanne.

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

humeka — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 09:47:22 GMT

20 years ago I was responsible for Line Test Systems on System X & Y and the Generic Test Controller (ADSL) within BT..... What tests are available on Digital Voice ? Especially within the Hub ? and can diagnostic testing be performed ?

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

Leanne_T — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 13:04:57 GMT

Hi there @humeka

If you would like to discuss what tests have been completed at our end for you, please give us a call and the team can help you further.

Leanne.

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

Steve_BT — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 08:57:31 GMT

Hi @humeka

As you've said, these sounds very much like firmware/process defects that I'd very much like to take back to the team.

Can I just confirm you're on a Hub serial starting +114404 and software version r2.68.18?

Thanks

Steve

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

humeka — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 10:10:36 GMT

On the 2nd screenshot , you can see the lack of an EXPORT function.

But the IMPORT function fails to work because the format of SMARTHUB 2 EXPORTED .vcf files are not accepted due to CR LF ( Hex 0D 0A) incompatibilities.

I think the 4th Alexa phone registration issue will disappear when the Hub is rebooted , since it's probably some cache control block with corrupt/invalid data.... Hence I don't want to reboot to clear the condition because does not fix the problem and as a Computer Science graduate (1972) I would want diagnostic information .

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

Steve_BT — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 11:08:35 GMT

Thanks very much - the contacts one I will document, raise bugs and speak to the dev team about.

With the handset / 1571 issue. Do you have any tips on how to re-produce it? I've set up the same hub with 5 handsets and all is working for now. Is it after a period of time or another trigger you have noticed?

Thanks

Steve

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

humeka — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 11:29:20 GMT

I had been using the Hub with ALEXA phones for a few weeks, and it wasn't until recently I discovered I was missing calls... I don't receive many calls , so difficult to know how long this condition has existed.

I was a trialist for the BT nuisance call project , so i do have a number of 1572 blocked calls, but I don't think the problem lies in the network , because it's only the registration of the 4th phone that calls not to ring out and eventually go to 1571.

I have an engineer visit booked for Friday PM ... so I'll try now to reproduce

1) Only 3 phones registered and I'm receiving calls from my mobile OK

2) I've pressed WPS and handset 1 has register and sync'ing data

3) I get dial tone on the 4th phone

4) I ring my Digital Voice number and none of the 4 phones ring out and eventually the call goes to 1571

I'll now go into PHONE SETTINGS on the handset and RESET the handset to remove the registration.

Now when I ring from my mobile , the 3 registered handsets are ring and OK .

So still reproduceable ...hope this helps

IS THERE ANY HIDDEN MENU FOR DEVELOPERS I CAN ACCESS TO EXPORT A DUMP OR TRACE WITHIN THE HUB ?

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

Steve_BT — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 11:44:07 GMT

Thankyou, very helpful.

Would you mind registering the 4th handset again so it's in the error state and I'll see what the network/server looks like.

Thanks

Steve

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

humeka — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 12:43:07 GMT

Hi Steve, Sorry pop'ed out shopping ... I'll leave it registered until 3PM...Keith

PS One other observation that might help ... when the phone fail to ring out (4 phones registered) , the calls don't appear in the call log on the phones ... which is a little odd

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

Steve_BT — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 14:06:23 GMT

Hi @humeka ,

Thanks for that, do you have anything plugged into the green FXS port on the rear of the hub?

Thanks

Steve

Re: EE SMARTHUB PLUS not fit for purpose

humeka — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 14:12:17 GMT

No ... nothing plugged in ..I only use the Advanced ALEXA phones

Weird ...It's fixed now ... Have you done anything ?