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koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

koitsu

MVM

[Connectivity] D3 in Bay Area - only 1 downstream channel after

I'm on the Ultra plan, and have a DOCSIS 3.0 modem (SB6120).

This morning, it appears Comcast performed CMTS maintenance of some kind -- I was completely offline (no cable sync) from exactly 0300 to 0357 PDT. I have logs showing this behaviour if anyone wants proof.

After things restored, I found that my modem is reporting I'm bound to only 1 downstream channel, and 1 upstream channel.

Speed-wise, I'm seeing ~23-24mbit down, and ~6-7mbit up. Prior to this maintenance, I was seeing 3 downstream channels bonded. I can paste a screenshot of what I'm seeing if someone wants it.

I've tried resetting the modem to factory defaults + resetting, but it makes no difference. I do not see any indication that a new configuration file is being downloaded from Comcast, and the last one downloaded was the sb6120_ultra config, so I'm not sure why my modem isn't bringing up the other 2 downstream channels.

I have a contact at Comcast who I can probably call later this morning and talk to about this, but I figured I'd post about it first and see if other D3.0 customers are seeing the same after tonight's maintenance.
koitsu

koitsu

MVM

Re: [Connectivity] D3 in Bay Area - only 1 downstream channel af

Called Comcast support, got some dude who had no idea what bonding meant/was, and interpreted everything I said as "so your signal levels are a problem?" After explaining the problem in layman's terms, he tried to access my modem via MAC (to look at levels/etc.) and said that he was getting an incredibly bizarre error from the Comcast system which he'd never seen before, thus was unable to look at any of my modem details. Hmmm, CMTS issue? No idea.

Eventually he gave up and asked me to call back during normal business hours "when the Internet team is on shift".

I'll have to try contacting the cool support guy I dealt with last time I had issues...
koitsu

koitsu

MVM

SteveTeow See Profile is assisting with this problem, and has managed to track down the source of the issue -- thankfully technology isn't responsible, looks like human error is.

Things aren't fully recovered, but hopefully by the end of the day they will be. Steve's incredibly diligent about making sure it gets fixed.

I consider this another example of Comcast's improved customer support -- we would not have seen this kind of support 5, or even 2 years ago. Big time thumbs up.

(Now if only Charter would do this... maybe then they'd actually listen when I tell their service techs "No, the problem with my mother's cable connection losing sync randomly IS NOT the fault of their router, but either a bad cable modem or shoddy signal levels, which you won't give me but insist are fine"...)
juanvaldez3
join:2009-05-18
San Jose, CA

juanvaldez3 to koitsu

Member

to koitsu
Folks,

I have been experiencing this issue down here in San Jose, CA starting around Friday, May 15, around 10am. It's been hell over the last two weeks trying to stay connected to work since the connection kept resetting. I am on the D3 22/5 ultra tier.

I have a tech coming out to replace the modem, but I highly doubt it's the modem. However, I still will let him change the modem, so that I can hand him a printout of all these other folks having the same issue, with the hope he can escalate it.

I had a long outage on Sunday night(May 23), and from Monday, May 24, it was solid for two days, then started dropping again on May 27.

Right now I have to fall back to my Sprint 3G card that I normally use when I travel for work.....
rnugent
join:2008-03-11
Campbell, CA

rnugent to koitsu

Member

to koitsu
Can you detail what the fix was? Maybe share your comcast contact? Seems lots of people in the Bay Area are having this problem so any detailed insight would be appriciated.

Ray
juanvaldez3
join:2009-05-18
San Jose, CA

juanvaldez3 to koitsu

Member

to koitsu
I am still having the issue after the modem was replaced yesterday. Was solid for 15 hours after the new modem was put in yesterday evening, but started rebooting around noon today.

The helpful tech has told me to keep him in the loop to see if he can get escalations going on his side. I have been giving him printouts of the forum discussions here of other people having the issue.

Luckily, ComcastSteve has contacted me and hopefully we can resolve this.

Based on the number of complaints here, I am certain this has to be something going on "in the system", for lack of a better term.

When I initially upgraded to D3 back in March, it ran great for 2 months, until this started happening.

Best of luck to everyone, and I hope we can figure out what's happening soon, for everyon'e benefit.

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

koitsu to rnugent

MVM

to rnugent
said by rnugent:

Can you detail what the fix was? Maybe share your comcast contact? Seems lots of people in the Bay Area are having this problem so any detailed insight would be appriciated.
I can't disclose the root cause because even Comcast isn't 100% sure what the root cause was. Comcast was able to confirm that what caused my problem was indeed maintenance being performed between 0300 and 0400 the day I posted my initial post. Cable modems in the area were all supposed to reboot, fetch configurations, then start working again -- but apparently mine did something different. I lost downstream bonding, and my speeds went down to 16mbit/1mbit. (I pay for the Ultra tier, and have a SB6120 as stated)

SteveTeow See Profile was able to get everything back up and working, but it took a couple of days due to the nature of the problem. Apparently a whole series of engineers were trying to figure out why my SB6120 wouldn't pick up the proper configuration file for the Ultra tier despite numerous resets + etc... eventually they figured it out, and everything began working perfectly again. I was issued a credit too, since the problem was on the Comcast side.

What they had to do to fix the problem was complex -- a lot of different pieces of the system (CMTS, servers delegating config files, billing, and some accounting stuff) all had to be changed, by numerous groups. Comcast admitted that DOCSIS 3.0 stuff is fairly new for them, and that there are still little quirks and so on which they don't have the experience with yet to know how to solve quickly (unlike 1.1 and 2.0), so my scenario was a learning experience for them as much as it was for me.

But that's *my* experience -- your problem could be completely different, I really don't know for sure.

My recommendation is to get in touch with SteveTeow See Profile and ask him for assistance. Steve is one of the most diligent and dedicated Comcast support people there is, and he's persistent about getting things fixed. Without him, who knows how much rigmarole I would have had to go through. We need more guys like him.