Virgin Media probs.

[Guest]

Any other Virgin Media cable customers having problems with slow loading of web pages and non loading of certain pages (including the VM service status page.... ) .

 

Of course could be just a localised problem but curious to know if there is a bigger problem.

 

It's the same regardless of which ever browser I'm using.

[carlt]

No problems here.

[alan_fincher]

I doubt this is relevant to you Martin, but maybe to others for whom cable broadband isn't 100% reliable ?

 

I have had broadband down the same wires since they were first put in many years ago, (Telecential became NTL became Virgin), and until recently my service has been reliable. But for a few months I have had problems when it slows,or disappears, usually only for minutes, but sometimes hours, in the worst case as much as half a day.

 

Had a "technician" out yesterday, who diagnosed the signal strength as far, far too high, apparently at about 20 dB more than "desirable" the worst he has ever seen. He says these levels do change as they modify bits of the infrastructure, but probably ours is because it switches from fibre to copper in a green box just outside the house, so the signal is not getting attenuated by the copper cable, as it would be for houses further down the street. (OK, OK, not sure I'm completely happy with that, but it is what he said!).

 

Anyway I now have a shiny 20 dB attenuator inserted into the feed to my modem, and, so far, one day on, have has no drop-out of service.

 

I believe as long as you have a service at all, Virgin support call centre can do at least some basic checks remotely to see your "levels" are about right, (they can't actually do anything if they can't currently "see" your modem). If they think there is an issue, they can then arrange an on-site technician to check. Am now wishing I complained more sooner - but it is quite tiresome trying to get through to someone sensible in support, and then there is so much background noise from their call centre, I find it very hard to have a clear conversation with them.

 

Might be useful to someone, even if this is not your issue ?

[Guest]

I doubt this is relevant to you Martin, but maybe to others for whom cable broadband isn't 100% reliable ?

 

<SNIP>

 

Might be useful to someone, even if this is not your issue ?

 

Interesting - we are only about three houses up from the 'green box' in our road so it's not that far away. and what you describe is similar to the 'outages' I'm getting. We too have had the cabling in the road from the very first days of NTL ??? 15-16 years.

 

It was slow most of late yesterday, seemed to come back up early this morning then dropped back off again just before I posted the first message in here. The VM service status page when it eventually loads shows no problems but it's not unknown for that to be wrong.

 

I can't work out why it's only affecting certain sites though - CWDF loads as fast as ever but by way of example Amazon and eBay take an age or never load at all when it happens. Given what you've said I'll see how things go over the next few days and if needed give them a bell.

[MoominPapa]

The cablemodems that Virgin uses have an internal webserver that will give you lots of useful information about signal levels, signal-to-noise ratios and stuff. It also has a log page which lets you see drop-outs and what caused them. I have the old "NTL:" branded blue modem and the web server is at http:://192.168.100.1/ Newer modems might be different.

 

MP.

[alan_fincher]

I can't work out why it's only affecting certain sites though - CWDF loads as fast as ever but by way of example Amazon and eBay take an age or never load at all when it happens. Given what you've said I'll see how things go over the next few days and if needed give them a bell.

If it is only certain sites, it is probably a routing problem.

 

I have suffered this in the past, but fortunately it is not common on sites I now use, (was a PITA with a certain genealogy site I used, when heavily involved in that - site worked fine for others, but kept dying for me....)

 

Although you can diagnose the routing path you are actually taking to reach a certain site, I've never been clever enough to know what you do with such information to actually get the problem fixed!

[magpie patrick]

We have Virgin, fibre optic (Frome is well ahead of other rural areas!)

 

Lost signal totally from 6am to 9am this morning, on all three computers, so I wonder of there was a central problem given others have had issues today

[Guest]

If it is only certain sites, it is probably a routing problem.

 

I have suffered this in the past, but fortunately it is not common on sites I now use, (was a PITA with a certain genealogy site I used, when heavily involved in that - site worked fine for others, but kept dying for me....)

 

Although you can diagnose the routing path you are actually taking to reach a certain site, I've never been clever enough to know what you do with such information to actually get the problem fixed!

 

Cheers Alan - this is looking like the most likely issue -

 

I can for example search on Google which brings up the results in an instant, but clicking on the links in some of the results starts the 'swirling line of slow death' and a blank page.

 

The same happens with CWDF if I click on a video somebody has linked to on You Tube - the post loads along with an image of the video but click on the video to run it and nothing happens....

 

 

..

Edited March 7, 2012 by MJG

[bag 'o' bones]

Any other Virgin Media cable customers having problems with slow loading of web pages and non loading of certain pages (including the VM service status page.... ) .

 

Of course could be just a localised problem but curious to know if there is a bigger problem.

 

It's the same regardless of which ever browser I'm using.

 

Yes. Pages are slow and 'sticky' I thought it was something I done wrong or my lappy had picked up a bit malware. A clean later and the connection was still slow.

 

Today as I write this everything seems back to normal.......

[Keeping Up]

I had similar symptoms on my BT broadband last November, which were eventually traced to a fault in next-door's Sky TV box. Its power supply had developed a fault that meant it was radiating huge amounts of RF interference around 600kHz, which was being picked up by her phone line - especially as the Sky box was plugged into the phone line. It was then travelling down the line and knocking out the broadband signal for everybody who was served by that length of cable. It took them a month to diagnose it, and the test equipment the brilliantly successful engineer used was simply a medium-wave transistor radio.

 

Apparently this is quite a common fault with Sky boxes.

[muddywaters]

The ex had her VM broadband go off for 24 hours over the weekend

[Guest]

Would somebody please mind posting up the VM helpline number for their cable broadband.

 

It seems to be getting slowly worse and extremely frustrating when I can't pull up their number to give them a ring.

 

CWDF seems to be one of the diminishing number of web sites I can still access.

 

Cheers.....

 

Ignore me found it -

 

150

 

Now just wrestling with their crap automated system and a ruddy password I can't remember.....

 

OK have now managed to get to an automated message indicating there was a problem with service in an adjacent post code area but got cut off before I could speak to someone. Very poor service.

Edited March 7, 2012 by MJG

[Uncle Arthur]

I'm also on VM and had the same problem for ages Martyn but was never able to get to the bottom of it (it was always working fine when I got through to the VM callcentre) until one day they eventually agreed to send out an engineer.

 

He took one look at the old cable modem I had, swapped it straight out for a new "superhub" and I've had no problems since - I recommend insisting on a visit from an engineer.

 

Good luck!

 

Arthur

[Guest]

Cheers - it's flying again now and all the pages I couldn't load before are now loading instantly. If it continues and I actually mange to get to speak to someome I will thanks.