Broadband connection to Pro Hub dropping several times a day

[SirGar]

Have 1.6gb Busiest Home on the Pro 7 hub with 3 extenders. It has worked perfectly for 6-7 months. Recently the router has been restarting (orange flashing lights) and reconnecting. Sometimes it is every 3-4 days, other times 3-4 times a day. Very frustrating.

Openreach line check reports no problem with the fibre connection. Under EE instructions I’ve factory reset the ONT modem and will be doing the router this afternoon. They have dispatched a new router - but I’m not hopeful as hardware seldom fails these days.

The problem seems to coincide with the latest firmware. The router and extenders are all updated.

Has anyone else had similar issues recently?

[SirGar · Accepted solution]

After lots of testing I narrowed the broadband disconnects down to when my third party VOIP phone was connected. I have a Grandstream HT802 adapter connected by ethernet to the router. This has worked happily for several years. Contacted VoipFone who said the issue was likely due to changes to the SIP ALG protocol on the EE router. They kindly changed a port setting on the adapter and all is now working fine after 3 drop free days. The EE change must have been introduced in 4.29.1 firmware update.

This is one to keep an eye on if you use a third party VOIP phone.

Thanks very much for the help on this problem.

[bobpullen]

@SirGar - curious!

Did you determine if the hub was physically restarting or just the WAN/PPP dropping when the problem was evident? Did VoipFone provide any specific technical detail of what exactly they changed?

[SirGar]

Sorry @bobpullen , I had sussed out the adapter problem before checking if it was a full restart or a WAN drop.

The excellent VoipFone helpdesk reported  that on the Grandstream VOIP adapter  'all I changed was the port being used for registrations. By default port 5060 is used (which SIP ALG runs on) I changed it to port 5065 instead' .

I wont pretend I know what SIP ALG is, but all is good now!!

[JimM11]

@SirGar Did you have to go into the Grandstream and set the Local Sip Port of default 5060 to the new 5065? Or VoipFone did it remote for you.

[SirGar]

@JimM11 VoipFone did it remote for me and the configuration downloaded once I reconnected the adapter. Very helpful

[JimM11]

@SirGar Running the HT801 V2 model and just checked SIP Port is currently on 5065 but it is on VF Voip connection.