Smart Hub 3 needing a daily restart for the last week

[BillyTheKid11]

Hi,

I had fttp installed in May, including the Smart Hub 3, everything has been fine up until last week.

Daily since last week, the whole network locks, no wifi, no ethernet, not possible to access the hub via 192.168.1.254 or the app. No error lights on the router and none on the ONT box on the wall.

My network is as follows;

ONT - Router - 8 port network switch - tp-link access point in kitchen, Xiaomi access point in garden office.

All of this kit has been in place and running correctly since 2021, on the old bt hub with the fttc connection.

When i restart the router, all comes back to normal.

I have raised this with ee, who told me there was a fault with the exchange that openreach were looking at, this has since been resolved. Now they are saying it is due to my network and the fact i am running network switches and this is causing some issue with the router! Instead suggesting i should be using their mesh system.

This is madness and i would much prefer the cable connection to my garden office which has been in place 3 years.

Am i yet another victim of the poor quality router supplied by ee? Do i just need to bite the bullet and get a third party router to replace the ee one? 

As far as a i am concerned, nothing i am doing on my network should be causing a problem. The two access points do not have DHCP servers, and use the central ee smart hub for all management.

I am massively frustrated as ee don't seem to even consider that it could be a problem with the router.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[JimM11]

@BillyTheKid11 Yes it makes 100% sense, AP to lan, AP to Lan, uplink of switch to EE router, no other ethernet connections on router or on the 8 port switch, TV, SAT box, Streaming, wireless or Ethernet connected. As this is a daily occurrence, and you are now on router 2, setup as per router 1. Have you tried when it is all locked up, removing the WAN connection to the ONT, or just switching the ONT off, 30 seconds then back ON to see if you have the same fault condition or it all springs back into life? 

[BillyTheKid11]

That is an interesting point. I haven't done anything to the ONT. Not sure the openreach engineer who has here yesterday even turned it off and on.

I hadn't considered it to be anything to do with the ONT as the restart of the router always seems to solve it. 

I will try that though.

I really, really wish that the routers event logs weren't wiped after a restart. Such a massive flaw, as it makes it so hard to diagnose faults that are only resolved by restarting the router.

[JimM11]

@BillyTheKid11 Always the way nothing ever easy, While you have a working system take a look on the web manager, go to advanced, technical logs, then have a look see in the events, My EE Smarthub+ generally writes about 1 page per day, recording devices on/off connecting moving about the mesh, but if there is something going on would possibly show up there, as you say, 5 months up on fttp, 2 routers same fault, need to start looking about to see what's going on. We are all just user's like yourself trying to help as best we can. Stupid faults can be the hardest to pin down, fresh eyes or ideas sometimes help. Keep us posted especially if the wan disconnect or on/off does kick it back into life....👍

[BillyTheKid11 · Accepted solution]

Just to close this out, as I really hate it when people don't post their solutions for technical issues on forums.

I did a full restart of the ONT, the network switch, also anything else plugged in in the media cabinet, tv, ps5, nvidia shield etc etc. I also installed the replacement router.

Somewhere between all these actions, all is fine again. Everything is stable and haven't had a drop out for some time now.

Thanks for your help.

[JimM11]

@BillyTheKid11 100% agree with you, glad your all up and stable, hope it does not re-occur but with your past experience on it baby steps. ONT first only one at a time, best way.👍👍