Equipment Support > Hardware By Brand > Motorola > SB6141 Firmware Update?

reply to mpgstuff

Re: SB6141 Firmware Update?

That is quite odd that there seems to be a time pattern now?

Does tier 3 ever mention the possibility that it could be something beyond your house/drop? Like a misconfiguration on their end? Do you know if your "neighborhood node" maintenance ever happened? If you go to the RR network status page, do you see anything scheduled around you residence? (»help.rr.com/AA/rrwho.aspx?Return···tus.aspx)

Although now, like you said, your levels are super borderline out of spec so I would think that would be the first thing the field tech focuses on.

With each dropout do you still receive the same errors as in earlier in the thread? The T3 timeouts, failed to communicate on upstream, etc?

I just had a dropout myself, right in the middle of doing some work.
Here is a combination of two log files I've saved so far today. I notice I get two scenarios - both result in loss of connection. Sometimes I get the T4 timeout which logs a full modem reboot, resets modem uptime, etc. Sometimes I'll just get the "16 consecutive T3 timeouts" - still lose service and modem lights will cycle - but no legit modem reboot and uptime remains the same. My upstream signal level is around 48-50 and downstream -6 (tier 3 said that is fine, but I have had this modem on several different configurations where upstream wasn't as hot - still had same problems).

Jan 04 2013 19:45:34 5-Warning Z00.0 MIMO Event MIMO: Stored MIMO=-1 post cfg file MIMO=-1;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:01:53 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:00:19 3-Critical R07.0 Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:00:14 6-Notice Cable Modem Reboot due to T4 timeout ;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 19:43:20 3-Critical R04.0 Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 19:42:50 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 19:42:40 4-Error C401.0 DCC-ACK not received;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 19:42:40 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 19:40:37 5-Warning Z00.0 MIMO Event MIMO: Stored MIMO=-1 post cfg file MIMO=-1;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 19:40:28 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 19:40:02 3-Critical C206.0 DCC aborted unable to communicate on new upstream channel;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 19:40:02 3-Critical R08.0 16 consecutive T3 timeouts while trying to range on upstream channel 3;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 19:40:02 3-Critical R03.0 Ranging Request Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 19:39:59 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 11:00:39 5-Warning Z00.0 MIMO Event MIMO: Stored MIMO=-1 post cfg file MIMO=-1;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:00:43 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:00:20 3-Critical R07.0 Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:00:14 6-Notice Cable Modem Reboot due to T4 timeout ;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 10:59:35 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 10:59:34 3-Critical R04.0 Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 04:39:03 5-Warning Z00.0 MIMO Event MIMO: Stored MIMO=-1 post cfg file MIMO=-1;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 04:38:45 3-Critical C206.0 DCC aborted unable to communicate on new upstream channel;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 04:38:45 3-Critical R08.0 16 consecutive T3 timeouts while trying to range on upstream channel 3;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 04:38:45 3-Critical R03.0 Ranging Request Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 04:38:38 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 03:48:30 6-Notice I503.0 Received REG-RSP while in REG-HOLD2 state;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 03:48:27 5-Warning Z00.0 MIMO Event MIMO: Stored MIMO=-1 post cfg file MIMO=-1;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 03:48:11 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 03:47:20 3-Critical C206.0 DCC aborted unable to communicate on new upstream channel;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 03:47:20 3-Critical R08.0 16 consecutive T3 timeouts while trying to range on upstream channel 3;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 03:47:20 3-Critical R03.0 Ranging Request Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 03:47:13 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 02:31:28 5-Warning Z00.0 MIMO Event MIMO: Stored MIMO=-1 post cfg file MIMO=-1;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:01:23 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:00:20 3-Critical R07.0 Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:00:14 6-Notice Cable Modem Reboot due to T4 timeout ;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 02:29:33 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 02:29:33 3-Critical R04.0 Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 02:29:03 3-Critical R02.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 04 2013 02:28:53 4-Error C401.0 DCC-ACK not received;CM-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CMTS-MAC=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

I identify 100% with your post. I have a 2nd field tech coming out Wednesday and I am certain I will be calling the following day to speak with tier 3 and continue down the same road.

Looks like I have the same log messages in my post above as well. I've had 2 more timeouts since posting that.

Again, please keep us updated!

Tech just left, but I don't really think much was accomplished. Of course, I haven't had a disconnect in almost 24 hours, which is great, but I don't know if there's any reason for that or I've just been lucky.

No one can tell me whether or not maintenance has been out in my neighborhood and done any work, and I was still seeing high power levels, but things seem to be working.

When the tech showed up (another new guy, that's 4 new guys in 4 visits), I walked through the whole situation once again (don't these guys document anything?) I might have been talking over this guys head because he's nodding and says, "Yeah, I think I had a call in your neighborhood a week ago, a guy had good signal levels, but was getting I3 and I4 timeouts." So I say, "You mean T3 and T4?" And he nods, "Yeah those." Oi...

He checked the lines, and of course they were fine other than the signal being high. The only thing he did was swap out the one splitter I had left, a Commscope SV-V2G that knocked each output down 3.5 dB's with a Commscope SVD-C6G that knocked down one output 1.2 dB's (fed to the intelligent home Ubee modem) and the other down 6 dB's (fed to the Arris internet service modem). Power levels on the Arris are now 7-9 dBmV across the 4 downstream channels and 34.75 dBmV on the one upstream channel.

Unfortunately, there's little for me to do but wait and see what happens. The Tier 3 guy I spoke to last night might have hit the nail on the head when he told me, "Lot of times the guys coming out just keep swapping out stuff until things work, but we never figure out what the problem actually was." I'm pretty sure that's what's happened in my case. I did ask the tech that was here if he had any other modems on the truck, and all he had was the same Arris model I had.

So at this point, I'll give it a few days and if I don't see any issues, I'm going to throw the Motorola back online and see if it works. I doubt it though since I'm out of range of the power levels Motorola told me were best for the SB6141.

And once again, I spoke too soon. 2 Disconnects within 15 minutes...GAH!

Edit: Make that 3 times in 20 minutes...

Edit 2: Make that 4 times in 30 minutes. Swapping the SV-V2G 3.5 dB splitter back in.

Well, just got off the phone with these guys again. Got transferred up to Level 3 support. He said he was seeing 'very high' Rx levels and that they were all over the place. That could be caused by the weather, but they should be able to fix that.

Of course, they have to send another tech out, and the next available appointment is Monday at 11 AM. And that's probably just for them to come out and say, "Yeah, they look high, I have to put in a Maintenance ticket."

Flipping unbelievable...

That is ridiculous, exactly the type of cycle I am hoping to avoid, but seems inevitable.

Does tier 3 ever make mention of escalating the issue up to a "network engineer" or anything? The one tier 3 guy I spoke to mentioned this, but he said he had to witness/have proof of my connection dropping and another house in the neighborhood dropping before he could escalate it as an "area issue" for a network engineer. All the customer service reps, two tier 3 guys, and one field tech have all said my signal levels look fine, well within spec.

As you've stated, the intermittent nature of this problem doesn't help the troubleshooting process at all. My connection has been flawless since 11:08PM last night, up until an hour ago. I've had 2 disconnects in the last hour.

I'm playing the waiting game until Wednesday when the field tech comes. I am very doubtful that he will find anything wrong inside the house. I am going to stress that the tier 3 guy said he didn't think it was anything inside the house and that he scheduled the truck roll "just to cover all bases". The tier 3 guy said he made notes for what the field tech should test for, hopefully that is true.

I also called the national support # last night to see if they had any "monitoring results" from what the tier 3 guy setup on Dec. 30th. The national helpdesk person said he could only see 24 hours worth of monitoring data. I then asked if "name" from tier 3 made any notes on my account and he said the only thing it showed was that he scheduled a truck roll. I'm hoping there are some notes, somewhere on my account, that this tier 3 guy wrote since he witnessed 2 timeouts while I was on the phone with him. Probably not, and it will be like starting fresh the next time I talk to someone.

I'm 99% certain I will be calling support Friday after the field tech visit on Wednesday. Hopefully I can get to tier 3 relatively easily. On the RR network status page for my area there is a "planned event" on Thursday about 4-5 blocks away from my residence that says: " ... CUTTING OVER COAX AFFECTING NODE ... " and then lists some sort of node ID and a specific house address. This probably doesn't mean anything and will have no affect on my connection, but I've resorted to putting all my hope of getting this issue fixed into 'events' like these.

reply to Meatball
Well, I got lucky and they were able to get another guy out here today. 5th guy/truck in less than 2 weeks, yay! He ran signal tests outside and found that the signal was running "very high" at both the tap on my house and on the street. Levels were like +19 dBmV downstream and +25 dBmV Upstream. He was shocked none of the other guys had noticed this. (Seems to be a recurring theme) and said there was probably an amplifier pushing out way too much to my house and maintenance should be able to fix it.

This guy seemed to be pretty good and actually called into his supervisor to discuss and the maintenance dispatch while I was standing right there to tell them to expect the maintenance request shortly. While I was talking to him he mentioned a few nice tid bits.

1) Even though 2 previous techs had said they were going to put in a maintenance ticket, neither had done so and maintenance had never been sent out.

2) The maintenance trucks aren't allowed to contact the customer, and there really isn't an easy way to find out if it they actually go to your neighborhood unless you actually see the truck.

3) They've been having all sorts of issues with the Motorola's.

4) They've also been having issues with the Arris modems as well. (He didn't have any other suggestions on what Modems to try.)

5) The tools that the Tier 3 guys use aren't the same ones they're using in the field and a lot of times they'll see different results.

He basically put in the maintenance ticket right in front of me and told me that if things weren't squared away by noon tomorrow to call in again.

I ended up going out right as he left since they'd killed my entire day off and I had to get some stuff done. About 45 minutes after he and I left, I see in my modem logs that there was about 10 minutes repeated Synch errors ("Synch Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Synch", "RCS Partial Service", "Lost MDD Timeout") had some Synch failures for about 10 minutes and then everything cleared up. Modem hasn't had a problem in the three hours since and levels look better. Down to 5-6 dBmV downstream and 34 dBmV Upstream.

I'm hoping that means the maintenance guys were here and fixed whatever the root problem is, but at this point I won't believe anything till the modem has been up a week without the issues coming back.

Good luck with your call!

Thanks for the update. Sounds like you got lucky and got a good field tech out there, hopefully your issue is resolved. It makes me uneasy to hear they are "having issues" with certain brands of modems. Do you plan on switching back to your SB6141 if everything seems to have cleared up?

I'm sure you'll be keeping an eye on the logs/connection. Let us know if you happen to experience any of the same dropouts over the next few days (hopefully not!!).

Edit: I've had 8 dropouts in the last hour and a half. I think that might be a record for me frequency-wise. Tried to call and speak to tier 3 but they would not let me since I have this field tech visit scheduled for the 9th. She said if a level 3 person set up the truck roll, it will be a "level 3" technician sent to the house she said "the best of the best, rest assured they will fix it".

Yeah, hopefully things have been taken care of, but I've seen it go for a day without a problem and then go to heck again, so I'm not holding my breath. I did see one "No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out" error about 40 minutes ago, but nothing else in the last 5 hours.

If things are good for a few days, I'm going to try to swap the SB6141 back in. I already paid for it and it's long past the return date, so instead of paying $4/month to TWC for the lease and eat the cost of a SB6141 sitting on the shelf, I'd like to swap it back into play. The one downside I see with the Moto modem is that it'll never get a firmware update since Moto won't give it to consumers, and TWC won't do it because they don't own it. Firmware is already over 18 months old on that thing.

Good luck with the best of the best. Whatever you do, make sure he really put a maintenance ticket in if that's what they think it is.

I think my record modem uptime for the month of December is like 2 days and a few hours - so I'd agree I don't think you are out of the woods yet, especially if you saw that one T3 Timeout.

I experienced 11 or 12 disconnects/reboots between 8PM and midnight. Very frustrating.

reply to Meatball
Well, we're at the moment of truth. Had a full 24 hours without a single error/disconnect, so called in and had them reauthorize the Motorola SB6141. I was hoping they could leave the Arris authorized and if I started having issues I could swap back real quick, but I guess they can only have one authorized at a time.

Switched from the Arris to the 6141 about 30 minutes ago and been alright so far. I'm not 100% comfortable with the current power levels of 4-5 dBmV downstream and 34 dBmV, but time will tell if the Motorola will work alright at those levels.

On another topic, earlier this afternoon I got a call from TWC "Social Services" or something like that. Apparently they saw one of my tweets 'expounding' on my challenges with their service and support. Woman asked if everything was alright and offered to credit me a month's worth of service and call me back in a week to be sure everything was still working.

Moral of the story, make sure you tweet what's going on with @twc in the tweet. May take a week or two, but maybe they'll compensate you a bit for your troubles. Does it make up for all the time and aggravation? Absolutely not, but I guess there's not a whole lot more I can ask for.

Well, that was a short experiment. Within 4 hours the Motorola dropped connection twice, so I called back in and swapped the Arris back in as the main modem. Been up 8 hours without any problems.

While I don't think the Motorola is bad, I think the signal levels are still a bit off and the Motorola is just finicky about the signal, so it's dropping. Guess I'm stuck with the Arris and paying $4/month for the lease. I guess it's worth it so I don't have to deal with every support tech I call into telling me any problem I have is because I own my own modem and they can't do anything about it.

Ah, and unfortunately for those of us on TWC that purchased the Moto's directly, there's no way to update the firmware. Moto won't offer it to consumers and TWC won't update customer owned equipment.

Am in NYC and have experienced the very same problems. For the firt two months the SB6141 worked perfectly; then the drops, the same error messages (e.g., no ranging response received, T3 timeout) But I have to restart the modem from the Config page.

Had a Tech 3 come out to the house and got me grrat power 2 downstreaml around 36 or 8 upstream; good s/n ratio. After he left, worked fine for two days and then....the S.O.S.

I am pretty sure that the problem is on thier side; and have resigned myself to sit tight until they resolve it.

One quick question: do your modems restart on their own?

Thanks.

I haven't actually seen the modem reboot as it's in another room, but the error message I usually see says it is: "Notice Cable Modem Reboot due to T4 timeout" and since at that point the modem stops responding for a minute or so, I assume it is rebooting.

For what it's worth, switched back to the Arris about 14 hours ago and not a single issue since. It's gotta be something on their back end that just isn't playing right with the Moto's.

reply to Meatball
Glad to hear you aren't having any issues on the Arris, Meatball, although that is unfortunate about the SB6141.

I would have to agree that it has to be something on their end causing the issue. Prior to my SB6141, I had an SB4100 that was rock solid for 11 years up until 2-3 months ago when I started having this issue. Then I get an SB6141 thinking its the SB4100's fault, and continue to have the same issue.

RolandM - my cable modem is right below my PC and the behavior I usually see is 1 of 2 scenarios:
1 - Log will display "16 consecutive T3 timeouts" along with other various upstream messages. The lights on the modem will immediately start cycling. Downstream locks right away, but upstream will try and try and try, then it will go back to downstream lock downstream, then continue on to upstream. Eventually it hooks up. In this scenario, there is no "Cable Modem Reboot to T4 Timeout" message and the modem uptime remains unchanged, but there is a loss of connection during this time.
2 - The other scenario is the same as above, except there is a full reboot and a corresponding "Cable Modem Reboot due to T4 Timeout" message in the logs. From what I remember, when this happens, all lights go out except power - pause a few seconds - then it starts its cycling process. This resets modem uptime.

As far as my issues, I received 3 automated calls today. The answering machine got 2 of them. The recording basically said they had fixed something in my area and wanted to confirm I was still having an issue - and whether or not to keep the scheduled tech call. I opted to keep the tech call. The first call was around 9AM and my log is clean as of Saturday night around 11PM with the exception of one single T3 timeout message at 4:40PM today.

All good things must come to an end and I'm starting to see some issues once again, with the Arris still. Things are still certainly better, but I'm still occasionally getting disconnects. I had one yesterday and two today.

Two disconnects today isn't a lot compared to what I was dealing with previously, but they of course happened right in the middle of a conference call with my boss. The fact that it's happening at all means it's the exact same problem. The exact same error messages are popping up in the modem log, which means the root cause hasn't been fixed. For grins I tracked the power levels I saw on my modem throughout today. I tracked the highest level I saw downstream (was always channel 49/585 Mhz) and the upstream power levels.


8 AM - 2.4 dBmV, 34.21 dBmV
10 AM - 4.9 dBmV, 34.21 dBmV
1 PM - 5.0 dBmV, 34.21 dBmv
2 PM - 6.9 dBmV, 34.21 dBmv
3 PM - 7.2 dbMv, 36.71 dBmv
4:16 - 5.5 dBmv, 36.25 dBmv, Connection Drop
4:35 - 7.1 dBmV, 36.25 dBmv
4:39 - 6.0 dBmV, 36.25 dBmv, Connection Drop
4:54 - 7.6 dBmV, 36.25 dBmv
5:10 - 5.7 dBmV, 36.25 dBmV
7:10 - 7.5 dBmV, 36.25 dBmV
8:10 - 7.3 dBmV, 36.25 dBmV
9 PM - 5.2 dBmV, 36.25 dBmV
10 PM - 6.8 dBmV, 36.25 dBmV


I know there's supposed to be some fluctuation, but I'm pretty sure swings of more the 3 dBmV is bad.

I contacted their online chat support to see if they could check it because I was on the phone. Dealt with about 30 minutes of platitudes from the tech like, "Yes, that would really frustrate me as well, I sincerely appreciate your patience and effort." Ugh. Anyways, after 30 minutes of trying to get my point across, he tells me I have to call the main support number and gives me a third ticket number.

I call the support number and after a bit on hold, go through the whole thing again, the tech says he's transferring me to level 3, and gives me a 4th ticket number. Get transferred to level 3, and the guy spends about 10 minutes reading all the back information, which is nice, because it's a first. He then says he's sending out the 'supervisor' in the morning, since this should have been fixed already and the techs should have found this. So, I await truck number 6 tomorrow at 9 AM.

Things are getting better, but until I can go 1-2 weeks without seeing this error, I'm going to call them every time I see it more than once in 24 hours. It's a giant pain, but I don't know what else there is to do. I can't keep losing connection in the middle of the work day, even if it's only once or twice.