Child Item

Site Totals

61363 Questions Answered 267 Categories

Open Issue - Getting Frustrated

Dear Verizon,

I have an outstanding issue open regarding a hardware problem with my Actiontec revision D router. The hardware problem necessitated the shipment of a replacement router. I have now had two routers shipped as replacements for my revision D router, a revision E and F router. Both of these have failed to be stable when connecting my broadband coax connection to the router. What happens is that the router will begin to go into a boot cycle reboot, meaning the router starts up, gets to a certain point in the boot process, and then starts another reboot. When I do not connect the broadband coax the router starts up and stays up. Another problem with these replacement routers is that I can make a config change in the router, and once I click apply it causes the router to reboot. Suffice it to say I do not consider these routers stable, and have fallen back to my revision D router presently.

I have tried to communicate this to your technical support folks, both on the phone and in person, but to no final resolution. I have a ticket open for a tech to come to my home on Saturday from 9 am to 12 pm. I have made it clear that this tech is not leaving until we get this resolved once and for all. I am beginning to get frustrated by the lack of resolution.

I am a 28 year technology professional. I have managed large multinational infrastructure teams for international banks. I know what a router does. I have tried to provide as much information as I can to the support folks I have been engaged with, but some have treated me as a typical "user", which I am not. Let me put it to you this way. Do most of your typical "users" have a Cisco Catalyst 6506 in their home as their main network switch? I am betting I am the only one you will ever come across with this.

I would be happy to provide the ticket this has been opened under, as well as any additional information, but I need this resolved. I deal with too many infrastructure problems at work, and do not want to come home and deal with more. And one last thing...please begin to provide your customers with a quality 802.11N router. The days of 802.11G are dead. All customers should have N routers, not just the customers with 150 meg service. Cablevision provides a N router to all their customers and Verizon should do the same. You can begin by doing this for me.

Thanks,

Steven {edited for privacy}

Comments

PistolPete13

I feel your pain. I wonder what these routers are seeing with the coax to cause this loop. The only thing I can think of that would cause a self-reboot would be an automated firmware upgrade.

The reboot while making changes is something else entirely. You need to buy a lottery ticket after getting two defective routers.

I don't know if Verizon ships these things pre-configured for certain settings, but maybe do a complete reset to factory settings to see what happens. If you're in a private house, look at the coax connections coming from the ONT and make sure the grounding wires on the coax splitter are secured.

I've worked with plenty of 6500 series switches at the data center, but for home use, I'd hate to see your electic bill!

SteveFXP

Before I was married I had 30 amp power to my Catalyst. The electric company, when they came out to provide the 30 amp service, looked at me like I had 3 heads...which I sorta did. Now that I am married I changed the power supplies to take 20 amp power, so I am back to normal use finally. I also dont have the switch maxed out. Only have a Sup-2 card and two 48 port 10/100/1000 ethernet cards!

I think there is a firmware upgrade that is going to that is causing the reboot also but Verizon tech support will not clear this up. Second I should not be able to cause a reboot by making a simple config change like deleting an entry from DNS on the router. Again the tech folks tried to tell me this is how a router works....to which I told them they need to go back and get their CCNAs again!

One other thing that would be very helpful is robust logging of what is going on in the router. Just because a router reboots does not make that an accepted occurance, and the logs show that they think every reboot is ok....not! I have alot of syslog output that I have tried to offer the Verizon tech support folks, but their inability to ask for it leads me to believe they wouldnt know what to do with it. How many people have opened threads in these forums about the messages they are seeing, only to go with no response for the majority.

PistolPete13

Those Catalyst power supplies are loud as hell too! Best of luck with resolving this issue. I've had FiOS for a week and knock on wood no issues so far.

The access speeds are amazing, especially to someone who remembers being happy connecting to at 28.8K and upwards of 33K with MNP5(?) compression! I've got a few years on you so you probably don't know what I'm talking about. 🙂

SteveFXP

Doubt it...I have been in technology since 1984, and I remember slower than that. In fact my first Internet connection was 2 bonded 64k ISDN circuits...lol.

PistolPete13

Ahh, my apologies, I misread. I thought you were a 28 yr old tech professional, not someone with 28 years of experience! Then you definitely have a few years on me! 😄

ISDN, that was a state of the art connection. I still have nightmares about remapping SPID's in IOS trying to get a dial backup going and trying to decipher error logs.

smith6612

That's an unusual problem to be honest for the router to just reboot while connected to the Coaxial cable. Have FiOS TV by any chance? Curious if the Set Top Boxes are causing crashes when the MoCa LAN Link comes online. If it's repeated, I doubt it has to do with firmware upgrades. They aren't pushed out that often. As for the settings causing a full reboot? Also unusual. Usually the router just reloads modules for some settings but they should not cause a full reboot!

Also, sweet deal on the Cisco Catalyst. I have a pretty wired network here, but nothing as fancy as that Cisco. Got switches and all from Linksys/Cisco, and run an ActionTec MI424WR Rev. D with DD-WRT loaded onto it (which is rock solid, by the way, no MoCa support though. Don't need MoCa as I'm on DSL at the moment). Set that Cisco up as your main router and be done with the FiOS router for crying out loud. Get the ONT switched to Ethernet if you've got the right stuff in the Cisco.

Yeah, routers are noisy things when you're talking about the monsters behind key Internet or Private Network infrustructure. I work at a datacenter too, and the stuff is crazy loud when you've got racks upon racks of them, sitting next to noisy servers all running along with large, somewhat-noisy fans that push air into the cold aisles.

farfaxviews

i share your pain and frustration with Verizon 'help and support'. Customers have no where to turn, little recourse in the event of provider problems.

i'm on the other end of the tech spectrum, i do not have much expertise in troubleshooting, diagnosing, etc. but am a paying customer nonetheless.

i expect to turn up the heaat on this customer service issue shortly and will report the resloution, if any, in this forum.

SteveFXP

Hello all,

I wanted to provide an update on my tech visit from Saturday.

I got a very nice tech who was very willing to help. He was knowledgeable in routers, so he also knew a continued reboot of a router is not right. We plugged in the coax and in less than 5 minutes the router began its reboot dance. He had the network techs on the phone and was trying to tell them what he was seeing, but they seemed stuck on the fact that the revision D router was actually working, if not completely operational, and why we were trying to replace it. I finally got on the phone with the network techs to explain that while the revision D was mostly operational there were two hardware issues that required a replacement:

1) Advanced port forwarding and port triggering were not working due to firewall chip failure of some kind.

2) Revision D router has a 1K NAT table, which causes me alot of pain with some of the torrent work I do, which is of the legal variety!

After about 30 minutes of back and forth my onsite tech terminated the call and worked on trying to obtain a new revision I router. After 15 minutes he found one and we both agreed this should resolve any issues. I plugged it in and it was good to go. The tech then left and I was happy.....until 90 minutes later when the revision I router began its reboot dance! I immediately called back into Verizon and this ticket is now flagged as chronic. A couple of important pieces of information came out with this call. One about 2 months ago my home installation was converted from ethernet to MoCA when I had FIOS Digital Voice added. Second the original FIOS implementation done about 6 years ago re-used the existing coax from another provider.

I was shocked to hear from the tech on the phone that the re-use of the coax should never have happened. I am now wondering if my conversion from ethernet to MoCA has now exposed some form of signal to noise tolerance problem, where the revision D router is more tolerant of this and the revision E, F, and I routers are not. I have asked Verizon to come back out and replace the entire coax run, including new splitters and patch cables. Its the only way we are going to get to the bottom of this.

Steve

MrsMark

StevenP,

I def. feel your pain. I have been having many issues with Verzion for about 6 months now. Before that, the service was flawless. I guess thats why I still hold out for hope that they will finally resolve all issues.

I have talked to many techs and it didn't take long for me to know that they are nothing more then customer service reps with books of if this happens in front of them. A tech had to be called out to my home twice in less then a 2 week period and even he tried to blame my hardware. I assured them that their is nothing wrong with my equipment but as also, being a female, I run into people assuming that I am clueless. I started explaining how the router should work. I know the issue isn't with my equipment. I explained that I make sure all my systems are updated and he said that is probably the problem. Well he quickly changed his attitude when I started asking him questions that he couldn't answer. He then stated all he does is wire the homes and push buttons on the remote to ensure it starts up. He also shared a trade secret......they are required to place in-home agent on all computers they set up.

I refuse to allow anyone to place any programs that aren't needed. Computer Geek since 82. 🙂

SteveFXP

A tech again came to my home today, and would you believe it the router didnt act up. It was rebooting all morning up til about noon, and then was perfectly stable. The tech showed up at approximately 1:15 pm. He did replace a piece of coax coming out of the ONT, but nothing else was replaced.

As of right now all is right with my service, but I hate these types of intermittent issues. What is even more annoying is that the messages that come from the router do not give you anything to go on when trying to troubleshoot. I am soo not used to this, considering my Cisco 6506 in my basement.

We shall see how things go.

Steve

Anti-Phish1

@SteveP wrote:
about 2 months ago my home installation was converted from ethernet to MoCA when I had FIOS Digital Voice added. Second the original FIOS implementation done about 6 years ago re-used the existing coax from another provider.
I was shocked to hear from the tech on the phone that the re-use of the coax should never have happened. I am now wondering if my conversion from ethernet to MoCA has now exposed some form of signal to noise tolerance problem,
A quick check of your MOCA stats should reveal if there is a MOCA signal problem.
How to check MOCA stats?
Poor MOCA stats shouldn't cause rebooting, but will typically cause connectivity issues.
FIOS is designed to reuse existing coax as long as it meets specs.
i.e. It should be RG-6 tri-shield or better and the install tech should have tested each leg with his sunrise meter to ensure signal levels at various frequencies on each leg were within spec.
If these problems persist, I'd suggest going back to a cat5 connection to the ONT.

SteveFXP

The MoCA stats are showing 238 Mbps TX and 251 Mbps Rx, so it sounds like my coax is ok. Its very weird that this mysterious rebooting would all of a sudden stop, but I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. At the very least I am now on an up to date router, although even this router is behind the times in not providing dual band support.

When will Verizon bring us into the 21st century, or provide a service that allows us to bring our own router of choice without losing features/functionality.

Steve

Child Item