topic Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs? in Broadband & Landline

Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

GothonaBrompton — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 08:16:54 GMT

Is there a history of dodgy firmware on some of the most recent hubs sent out?

Been with BT for years with no issue, but was offered the chance to upgrade to Full Fibre with EE as the BT contract would expire later this month.

Openreach engineer came on Wednesday and installed the new ONT box. All the lights on there indicate everything is okay. But the router is stuck on the constant orange flashing light, despite a restart and reset of both the router and the ONT.

EE Engineer came this morning and plugged his laptop into the router, but said the PPP settings were missing (apparently that is what talks to the fibre line), and that the area in the management console where these can usually be changed is literally not there. He suggested that the firmware on the router had not been installed properly.

I have seen reports elsewhere that these new black EE hubs are iffy compared to the old white ones, so just my luck if I have received an iffy one.

The engineer did not carry any spare hubs, so he has ordered a new one to be delivered early next week.

Its a bit of a pain as I was WFH all week and am back in the physical office next week, so thought this would be a good time for the switchover.

Thankfully I had the 4G BT Hybrid Connect on my Halo 3 broadband, so have that plugged into the BT router. Been working off that since Wednesday lunchtime.

The engineer did try plugging the red WAN cable into the BT router Port 4, but that didn't work either.

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

XRaySpeX — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 08:50:34 GMT

@GothonaBrompton wrote:

EE Engineer came this morning and plugged his laptop into the router, but said the PPP settings were missing (apparently that is what talks to the fibre line), and that the area in the management console where these can usually be changed is literally not there.

If he is referring to the PPPoE BB creds here, they are always present, hard-coded & can't be changed:

What are the black & old white EE hubs you refer to? The black EE Smart Hub Plus predates the white EE Smart Hub Pro.

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

JimM11 — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 08:58:27 GMT

@GothonaBrompton Not 100% that the BT Smarthub2 has updated enough to have the Auto Port 4 Wan switch operation, so was that checked, seems more that the EE have not activated the ONT takeover and settings correctly, and if the EE is stuck in orange it cannot authenticate itself on the Network correctly. What EE hub do you have, link below shows what is available.

https://ee.co.uk/help/broadband/getting-started/compare-our-range-of-broadband-hubs

This old link takes you to BT screen captures a few months ago.

BT Smarthub2 on a FTTC 40/10 split. - The EE Community

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

GothonaBrompton — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 10:09:29 GMT

It’s the SmartHub Plus.

Did some more tweaking with a guide on the phone just now, including trying the BT hub and switching on some Fibre setting in the Advanced section on that. No joy.

Also tried changing out the WAN cable for another one. Give him his dues, he did try every possible combination of boxes, cables etc to try and track down the fault. He seems to think it’s with Openreach rather than the hub, so I have a *third* engineer visit next week from them. But they are sending out another router just in case. If by some miracle I plug that in and it works, I can cancel the engineer. I’m not hopeful though.

In the meantime I am working off the BT Hybrid Connect.

Annoying though as I’ve had the various incarnations of BT broadband for years now and never had any issues at all.

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

JimM11 — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 12:19:53 GMT

@GothonaBrompton Is you BT Smarthub2 plugged into the phone socket at present to work? And also if it is, does the EE Smarthub+ they sent you have the DSL RJ11 port on it if so it would be the SH31B works on both copper/FF the SH32B is a FF only version with the modem taken out so NO RJ11 port on it?

ONT that OR fitted, power light green, los is green, lan flashes as the router tries to connect, PON is OUT no colour and NOT lit....

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

GothonaBrompton — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 12:27:51 GMT

There is no phone socket anymore, the big Openreach box was replaced with a smaller ONT one. The only reason the BT hub is even powered up is because the Hybrid Connect works off it. In theory it should also work off the SH32B but I don’t really want to unplug and lose the only connection I have right now.

i must have the SH32B as there is no RJ11 socket. The guide did ask me that.

On the ONT (which we did restart), I have steady green on Power, PON and LAN. Same result whether BT or Ee hub.

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

GothonaBrompton — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 12:29:35 GMT

Do Openreach need to flick a switch in the green cabinet or is that just for copper?

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

JimM11 — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:06:42 GMT

@GothonaBrompton Are you sure that you have a connection without the BT hub plugged in to the Master Phone socket?

Sounds if you have Internet then you are using mobile data, and if so the Hybrid is working it all!

Can you say WHY the copper line was taken away before the Fibre was fully up and working with the transfer from the fttc to your fttp line, if the engineer did that he must have thought going to be no issues and that's the dumbest thing he could have done!

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

Mustrum — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:09:07 GMT

@GothonaBrompton with FTTP, there is no cabinet involved, your fibre goes all the way to the exchange.

@JimM11 you seem to getting confused, the Hybrid Connect uses its internal SIM and come into operation when the main circuit goews down, which it has since the copper circuit has been disconnected.

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

JimM11 — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:13:18 GMT

@GothonaBrompton Did a few corrections and redirect's to try and get the correct information drawn out, but thinking i have managed to extract it all now, as you will see on the edited post!

Only concern just now would be the lan not pulsing as the EE Router tries to get the connection back to EE....

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

GothonaBrompton — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:25:23 GMT

Yes M, that was my understanding. There will be a Hybrid Connect on the Fibre when that eventually works, it's part of the package. Interestingly there is a log on the Hybrid Connect which shows where it has had to kick in, and it's not very many times since 2021 - I think the main hub must restart/update in the middle of the night sometimes, as many of the events are 1am or 3am - and a date in July 2024 when my windows were changed and the old socket moved (the line comes in just under my window frame).

The Openreach guy that installed the new fibre line used the same hole for the new line, so the copper was pulled and replaced and the old big box removed, replaced with the ONT.

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

GothonaBrompton — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:29:14 GMT

I've just had another look at the ONT box, and if by pulsing, you mean flickering vs solid not moving, then yes, the EE Router is trying to connect, but not getting anywhere, and stuck on the neverending orange flashing light.

If it's not the green cabinet anymore, maybe someone forgot to flick a switch at the exchange? 😉

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

JimM11 — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:34:33 GMT

@GothonaBrompton That would be the case, but with the PON on the solid green, you have light on the Fibre, OR know about the ONT and that is back to the Exchange, so Either OR have stuffed the ONT or EE have done so, someone has got a miss match just do not see why the BT and also the EE that is TWO router's both failed to connect on the FF connection.

Again WHY was the copper line take out before the Fibre was fully up and working!

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

GothonaBrompton — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:40:12 GMT

I think I had the dumb engineer. I should have made sure he stayed until it worked. He did the install bit involving the drilling a bit earlier than the scheduled slot, and then said that once it passed 13:00hrs, the lights would change and I would get connected.

In any event, the copper had already been pulled by then.

The EE guy that came this morning plugged a cable into the EE router to his laptop and accessed the management console to check PPP settings but go nowhere. TBH he was pleasant enough but I'm not sure he really knew very much apart from the fact that access to what he wanted to check was not there.

I got further with Connor, the guide on the phone, when we tried the BT router and accessed the setting on that one to switch over to Fibre, which didn't work.

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

JimM11 — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:41:58 GMT

@GothonaBrompton That's the cutt and run, OR should not have done so, they connect the fibre up, watch the ONT on power up THEY can tell from the ONT light sequence that it works, get's it FW update and that takes a couple off goes if it does not do it right 1st time. When they are happy, it's a let's connect your router to it now, change over is only a couple minutes, yeh the fibre is working thanks, cuppa time just leave it all alone, copper will fade away into the background, as NOT allowed to have BOTH at the same time....

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

Mustrum — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:47:29 GMT

@JimM11 You do no know the circumstanses and there are reasons where the option of using the copper cable to pull the fibre through is the only way to get it connected.

Whilst not ideal, not all customers are lucky enough to be able to leave their copper cisruit working until their fibre is up and running.

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

JimM11 — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:59:36 GMT

@Mustrum Yes fully aware that is the case, when it does not work let's see OR pull the fibre out, the copper back in and address it that way, never going to happen....

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

GothonaBrompton — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 14:01:53 GMT

My cables run from the pole, and it does look like there are now two kinda wrapped in each other slightly just outside the window (I am on on first floor) before where it/they came in.

It made sense to me to use the existing hole, but I didn't really consider the implications that way I'm afraid. I'm not an engineer so trusted that it would just work as the BT copper version did for so many years.

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

JimM11 — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 14:06:15 GMT

@GothonaBrompton It's just one off those now, OR back to check there side, serial and mac off the ONT all match up, EE have the right info from OR and someone correct's it when they spot the oop's, at least having the Hybrid saved the day....

Re: Dodgy EE Smart Hubs?

GothonaBrompton — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 14:25:47 GMT

TBF I'm not a heavy user, and you can hardly tell the difference. Once the main hub gets working I will definitely be having the Hybrid back on there.

BTW is there any weirdness associated with the fact that any log dates on the EE hub are all in 2024? Or is it just the case that is when it was manufactured/firmware installed, and it has not been able to connect to the time server to update itself?

It may not have broadband, but it knows my Mac is connected. In February 2024 apparently. 😉

I just got a text that they are sending a new hub so in case it is something there, fingers crossed.

While things may not work as yet, the last Guide, Connor, was very good. We went through literally everything - and he was sceptical a new hub would fix it, and also very displeased I had the dumb engineer.