Internet disruption 2020-01-16 13:52 ?
Did anyone else experience an internet disruption today (2020-01-16) at around 13:52 ?
The modem's lights were still normal (cyan for downlink, blue for uplink, etc), but suddenly all browsing failed, the VOIP ATA lost connection to VOIP servers. Pinging IP addresses directly worked, with a fair bit of packet loss. Pinging domain names failed.
Both wired and wireless devices affected. The local network was still functioning and I could access my router's and the modem's web admin pages.
Eventually I did a full factory reset and then the internet was functioning normally again. However it was quite disruptive in the middle of the business day.
Did anyone else experience this? Any ideas what could have caused it?
Answers
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No issues on my side5
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No,
Sorry for you.
My internet is fonctionning well all day.5 -
Did you try to reboot?
It seems a network congestion, or some kind of problem in your zone, can you share it?5 -
Nope. Everything has been running smoothly today. I’m in Montreal4
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I was streaming video this afternoon and come to think of it, my stream connection cut out. But it was back 10 seconds later.5
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Try to reboot your modem5
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As I mentioned, resetting the modem got it working again, but having the connection go like that is unacceptable. It disrupts phone calls and business activity. I would like to identify the cause if at all possible.
Would network congestion cause it to stop working? And if so, how would rebooting the modem help that?
Thanks to those reporting their internet status. Elias, do you remember what time your connection cut out?
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Did you try chatting with an employee ? (using your cellular, of course, since you didnt have internet)6
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No, getting an agent took too long and I didn't have time. Resetting restored the connection functionality. I'll try chatting tomorrow and hope support can provide some details.5
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Nothing for me5
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No interruption on my end, but the problem you describe sounds like something with the modem, as I'm experiencing the same issue from time to time. By any chance, do you have the DLNA feature enabled, or anything plugged into the modem's USB port? If so, I would suggest trying to disable it if the problem comes back. Otherwise, glad it works now, and lets hope that's the end of it!3
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no issues for me either3
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A chat agent noted that there were signal fluctuations on my line on 1/10, 1/11, 1/12, 1/13, 1/14, 1/15, 1/16, different times of the day, including corresponding with the timestamp I indicated for this disruption.
The best guess was that it might be due to extreme cold weather. However I did not have such issues with my previous cable ISP that we were with for years and 7 days in a row seems like more than coincidence to me. Understandably, the agent could not speculate as to a precise cause. Proper diagnosis would require a technician using a TDR (time-domain reflectometer).
It seems the only thing to do is monitor the connection and report immediately if there is another disruption, since they cannot send technicians if there is no ongoing problem, even if there is a historical record of issues.
So, it's the waiting game. Either hope for no more problems, or if there are, try to catch them in time to have a chance of fixing it...
I should note that the agent I got, Jiri, is exceptionally knowledgeable. I would be thrilled to have such good service again in the future.
EDIT: Once again, I am not the one who selected the "best answer". I would prefer mods not to close open/ongoing questions.
UPDATE 2020-01-22: There was another similar internet disruption today. Contacted support and got a technician appointment on the same day. The technician verified that there were intermittent issues with the signal to noise ratio, and line capacitance, probably due to the exterior cabling. He replaced the cable and ran new coax from the pole to our house. A supervisor also came over to check up on things. I'm hoping this finally solves the problem. It may be that the cable had problems that got noticed only when switching to Fizz (30Mbps), since the Fizz modem is DOCSIS 3.1 which uses many more channels/spectrum than our previous service (15Mbps) with a DOCSIS 3.0 DCM475 modem.
UPDATE 2020-02-04: It has been about two weeks without noticing any more modem reboots or connection issues. Looks like the issue was in the exterior cabling and having them replaced has solved the problem.1
