31–40 of 40 posts
There is no reason why properly working equipment should need a periodic restart. Either his modem is bad and needs to be replaced or the other end (the DSLAM) is bad and bouncing the link temporarily fixes the problem as a side-effect.
If increased packet loss is occurring seemingly randomly, it could be something on the network is updating/syncing and saturating the link. It could be Steam games, desktop OS updates, mobile device updates, podcast downloading, game console updates, etc.
Basically restart the modem by cutting the power every time the connection is flaky. With a very complicated setup. Cutting power repeatedly a large number of times is a great way of eventually bricking the box. This modem has an admin web interface. The author could have used it to trigger a restart. The whole thing could have been automated with just a pi at 100 times less cost, effort and risks.
You can’t access that web interface from the internal network as the Vigor 130 is not a router. Unless someone has a fancy trick I’m missing I have to disconnect my router and connect a laptop directly to the modem with a fixed IP to access it, unfortunately. The Vigor 130 is really more of a PPPoA to PPPoE converter, or at least, that’s how it’s commonly used.
not the full web interface, but... try wireshark on it
if you have the right setting enabled, you'll find it is broadcasting its status onto the network for you to pick up
vigor's routers use this info. to show line speed etc. when using a modem via the router
This seems like an over-engineered, half-assed solution like putting tape on a check engine light. There is no reason why properly working equipment should need a periodic restart. Either his modem is bad and needs to be replaced or the other end (the DSLAM) is bad and bouncing the link temporarily fixes the problem as a side-effect.
As A&A's wiki ( https://support.aa.net.uk/Packet_Loss ) describes, you can see packet loss at link saturation. There is another option, buffering, which causes high latency. The intermediate device must either buffer (causing "buffer bloat" = increased latency) or drop the packet. If increased packet loss is occurring seemingly randomly, it could be something on the network is updating/syncing and saturating the link…
This seems like an over-engineered, half-assed solution like putting tape on a check engine light. There is no reason why properly working equipment should need a periodic restart. Either his modem is bad and needs to be replaced or the other end (the DSLAM) is bad and bouncing the link temporarily fixes the problem as a side-effect.
The reason I chose to automate it is that when I'm away from the house I want the connection to self-repair where possible, and resetting the modem is something basically everyone in the UK has to do sometimes to fix their line (seriously). Yes I could probably have A&A investigate it, but at some point, if it is an identifiable issue, they'd likely have to request an OpenReach engineer to work on something and then there's just the risk of it being made even worse.
RevK's blog has plenty of interesting anecdotes about the issues with our internet infrastructure here: https://www.revk.uk/search/label/BT
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can’t access that web interface from the internal network as the Vigor 130 is not a router. Unless someone has a fancy trick I’m missing I have to disconnect my router and connect a laptop directly to the modem with a fixed IP to access it, unfortunately. The Vigor 130 is really more of a PPPoA to PPPoE converter, or at least, that’s how it’s commonly used.
vigor 130 - not the full web interface, but... try wireshark on it if you have the right setting enabled, you'll find it is broadcasting its status onto the network for you to pick up vigor's routers use this info. to show line speed etc. when using a modem via the router
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Have you ruled out the Draytek?
I don’t have anything to swap it out with unfortunately, and due to the infrequent nature of the issue it’d be pretty hard to predict. Intermittent packet loss is something I’ve experienced everywhere I’ve lived in the UK and with different devices. The only constant has been the BT/OpenReach network on which many of our ISPs are based :|
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Typically this is done with something like an Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5.
This is what I’m using. The plugs are also Aeotec and work well, although there is some minor high audio frequency when very close to them. Mine are a few years old though. The Z-Wave integration for Home Assistant is basically plug and play with this stick. I run HA in docker and just pass the device through, works nicely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ruled out the Draytek?
I don’t have anything to swap it out with unfortunately, and due to the infrequent nature of the issue it’d be pretty hard to predict. Intermittent packet loss is something I’ve experienced everywhere I’ve lived in the UK and with different devices. The only constant has been the BT/OpenReach network on which many of our ISPs are based :|