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mpgstuff
join:2003-07-07
Kenosha, WI

mpgstuff to Meatball

Member

to Meatball

Re: SB6141 Firmware Update?

Sorry to hear you're still disconnecting, Meatball.
I'm convinced it has to be something on their end.

As stated in one of my above posts, on Monday I received an automated call saying they fixed something in my area and wanted me to confirm I still wanted the technician to come out on Wednesday - I confirmed this. However, I haven't had any disconnects since Saturday night. I'm starting to think that whatever they "fixed in my area" may have solved this issue.

Yesterday the technician came. He was very nice, seemed much more enthusiastic than the first technician. I was actually hoping he wouldn't want to change anything since I hadn't had any disconnects. However, similar to the previous tech, he was concerned about the levels of the cable boxes - still way too high on the input power reading.

He ran a new coax from outside (not the pole to the house, but the part that connects from that piece and goes inside) and eliminated a 2 way splitter we had immediately once the coax entered the house. He also added an amplifier which now goes into a 6 leg -9db splitter. Everything now comes off this splitter, including the modem. My upstream is about 47 and my downstream is +4/5 with SNR of 38. Also he got our cable boxes around -1 input power which he was very happy with. Additionally, he put new terminals on some of the coax that had an "older style" on them.

My log has been clean since we hooked everything up last night. However, prior to that, Sunday thru Wednesday all I had were two single T3 Timeout messages (not like before where I'd see 16 and T4 timeouts, etc - multiple times per day).

I think whatever it was, they fixed it in my area. I'm glad the tech ended up doing what he did, but I don't think it necessarily fixed the issue. I told him that I received the phone call about them fixing something, he said he wasn't aware and normally they call them when they do fix something like that.

I don't consider myself out of the woods yet. I'd like to see a solid week+ with no issues before feeling really comfortable. Fridays/Saturdays seem to be worse as well (last weeks were anyways). We'll see what happens over the next few days.

Please keep us updated!

Meatball
join:2006-03-26

2 edits

Meatball

Member

I know it's something outside at this point as well. Truck # 6 showed up Wednesday with the 'supervisor'. Guy was pretty cool and basically started outside and swapped out a bunch of stuff that hadn't been done. He saw a little kink in one of the lines, so he cut it back and put a new end on it. Saw a little bit of oxidation on the grounding block on the house, so he swapped that out. He tested the heck out of the lines, and it worked out well because he was here for almost 90 minutes. And while I didn't have any disconnects he got to see the wild fluctuations (on the order of 4-5 dBmV) I was getting in my signal, so he knew something was wrong.

He also discovered some other interesting stuff. First, they apparently still had my account flagged as having home phone service, which hasn't been the case for 3 months. He said that could cause issues and when he called in to have them remove that, he found that my account was not 'balanced.' They had 4 modems active on my account and there should have only been 2. The Arris for internet and an Ubee for their Intelligent Home service. He had them get that squared away.

He was amazed (as was I) that all the technicians I had dealt with before had missed all this stuff, any of which could have been the cause of my issues. He then called someone he knew in maintenance to get them out here to deal with the fluctuations in signal, since he was still seeing that at the tap out at the street. He leaves and 15 minutes later calls me back, "I think we have the wrong MAC address for your modem." I give him the MAC of the modem, and they had the wrong one in the system, so they fixed that and he tells me to call his cell phone if I had any issues after the maintenance guys show.

I see the maintenance truck outside about 30 minutes later and the guy does some stuff at the tap on the street for about 15 minutes and then bails. Two hours later...disconnect. I call the supervisor back, he sends the maintenance guy back, who I see once again outside for about 15 minutes. I don't have any more disconnects, but the supervisor calls back and I tell him I haven't disconnected, but I'm still seeing upstream and downstream fluctuations (I'm tracking them every 1-2 hours at this point.) He tells me the maintenance guy will be back out the next day, but maintenance wanted to bring another guy so they could trace the entire line and figure out the issue.

Thursday comes and I have 6 disconnects by early afternoon. I still haven't seen the maintenance truck by then so I call the supervisor tech. He calls the maintenance who claims that he couldn't get a 2nd guy to go with him, but 'should' be able to come out the next day (Friday). Regardless of that, the supervisor tells me they've discovered something. Since they've been out here so many time, and there's so many techs monitoring things, they've figured out that when my modem goes down, every modem on my block is also going down.

What??? An entire block of people are all dropping their modem connection at the same time for over a month, and it takes me calling them 30 times, six techs and 3 maintenance trucks before they figure that out? Ugh...

So to wrap up, my last disconnect was about 4 hours ago, and I wait with my fingers crossed to see if the maintenance guy actually shows today. The supervisor tech told me he's off today and tomorrow, so my gut tells me that I probably won't see or hear anything from them until Sunday, but I'll still be dealing with disconnects the whole time.
mpgstuff
join:2003-07-07
Kenosha, WI

mpgstuff

Member

Wow. I would think now that they have identified it as an area/neighborhood issue it would be escalated to the point where it is on a few people's radar's and their main priority to fix it???
Meatball
join:2006-03-26

Meatball

Member

Saturday evening, no truck, still getting disconnects. 6 yesterday, 4 today (so far). Time Warner is just awful. I'm going to phone blast the one tech who seemed to do anything tomorrow because he's the only one getting stuff done.

I swear, there's 10 different 'support' departments, none of which knows what the other is doing, and none of which seems to care if they actually fix an issue, they're just there to get in and get out to pass the problem on to another department so they can wash their hands of it.
Meatball

1 edit

Meatball

Member

Nothing new to report on Tuesday evening. Still not seen any trucks, and now the tech that gave me his cell (the supervisor) isn't returning calls. The quality of customer support with Time Warner is amazing.

Only 1 disconnect Sunday, 2 on Monday and back up to 9 today. Called in yet again and expecting what I assume will be truck and tech #7 out here. It's funny, I'm starting to know what keys to press on their phone systems before it even says it.
Meatball

Meatball

Member

Holy jumping jehoshaphats...I just got off of the phone with phone support. (It took me 4 calls and 45 minutes, because the first 3 techs disconnected me.)

According to this tech, everything in their records show that's it's been fixed and I'm not having any problems. Considering I've had 9 disconnects today, I just don't get it. They've put my modem on a 'watch list', which apparently checks my modem every 15 minutes. This of course doesn't do jack, because when I do drop it's only for 2 minutes, so it's most likely they'll not see it being down. This is probably why when I call in and say I'm having disconnect issues, they say it looks like my modem has been up for days without issue. They want me to wait another 24 hours now that I'm watched and call back if I'm still having issues.

I asked if they could check the modem every minute, b/c then they'd be sure to see the disconnects, but the tech didn't think that was possible.

This is extremely aggravating and I'm seriously thinking of dropping TWC and going with Windstream DSL. But I've had them in the past, and not only are they slower, but their service/support is just as bad. Man, what I wouldn't give for Fios or Google Fiber right about now.
mpgstuff
join:2003-07-07
Kenosha, WI

mpgstuff

Member

That is insane. If they've identified it affects everyone in the neighborhood you would think they would be all over it?

I'm not sure what exactly they "fixed" in my area, but I've not had a full disconnect since Jan 6th. Jan 7th I received an automated call saying they fixed something in my area. I still receive maybe 1 "T3 Timeout" single message per day. Here and there I also see a new one, "Timing Synchronization Failure". But again, I have not had a full blown disconnect/reboot now for over a week.

I feel your pain, that is ridiculous that it is still going on. Again, if they have identified this as a neighborhood issue I can't see how they are not trying everything under the sun to fix it.
Meatball
join:2006-03-26

Meatball

Member

Well, the fiasco continues. On the morning of the 16th I received a call from a 'supervisor' over at TWC and he said they were going to send someone out to sit outside and monitor the line for a while. He seemed to think it was a problem in the house (even though previous techs have tested the lines 5 times, replaced just about everything and seen the problems at the tap on the street.) He said they have someone out first thing in the AM on the 17th.

Have 4 more disconnects that evening.

17th rolls around and the tech (#7) shows up bright and early. He spends about 20 minutes testing things and can't seem to find anything wrong. Decides to swap out the Arris modem in the off chance the high signals I had a while back fried something. He puts the modem in and tells me to call back if I have any more problems.

Within 3 hours I start getting disconnects again. I call back the supervisor and tell him. He says he's going to walk down the hall to talk to the maintenance supervisor and get their trucks out to check the neighborhood stuff. I'm working and don't notice any maintenance trucks for 5 hours, but had 5 disconnects in the meantime. I call the supervisor back, he doesn't answer, so I leave a VM that I haven't seen anyone, and still having problems. Amazingly within 15 minutes I see two maintenance trucks (the ones with the bucket lifts) drive down my street. Ten minutes later, off they go and fifteen minutes after that, disconnect.

I figure maybe they were working up around the corner so I give them the benefit of the doubt and don't have any other issues before I head to bed. When I wake up this morning I see two disconnects overnight in the error logs, so I call the supervisor again this morning. He says he's going to send his 'lead tech' out between 3-5 PM and run some line tests on everything going from the street to the house (even though that's been ruled out already multiple times). He's also going to tell the maintenance guys the problem isn't gone. Five more disconnects before 4 PM.

'Lead Tech' (up to tech #8!) shows up around 4. He runs a test both on the line going from the street to the box on the house and from the box on the house up to the modem with some super duper Coax cable tester that apparently the only have one of in the whole region. Tests all come up fine, but he decides to run a new coax from the street tap up to the house and see if they can rule that out. (Didn't we already do that?) If that doesn't work, he tells me they can come out and run a new line from the outside box up to the room the modem is in. Now I'm kinda cranked, because he'll leave, I'll have problems, they won't get out here for a day or two to replace that second line and I'll have problems again and be stuck with another day or two before maintenance comes out.

I tell the 'lead tech' that and he calls the supervisor. The supervisor agrees to set up another call for first thing in the AM tomorrow morning (just what I want to do on my day off, get up at 7:30) to run the second line if I continue to have problems and I can cancel if need be.

So...I sit here and wait for them to run the 2nd line from the side of the house to the modem tomorrow, just so they can prove that it's absolutely, positively no way something going on in my house, which I think we've proved multiple times already. I haven't had a problem since the tech left, but that was only a few hours ago, and I've seen, on rare occasion, things work for 15-20 hours before going to crap again. I'm not cancelling tomorrow and I'm going to let them run that 2nd line b/c I'm positive I'll have problems over the weekend after they do that. At that point they replaced everything from the street to the modem, multiple times.

At this point, if it's not fixed by month end, I'm going to search for every TWC exec email I can find and send an email blast with this big ass text log I have of the whole disaster.
mpgstuff
join:2003-07-07
Kenosha, WI

mpgstuff

Member

Unreal.

What make/model modem did they swap your Arris out with? Same one?

Do any of the techs still say that it is a neighborhood issue with multiple homes dropping at the same time? Like you said it seems like that was already proven, but they're still focusing on house-specific items.

Nevertheless, good luck. Hopefully the tech tomorrow finds something, although it seems like they're still kind of going the wrong direction.

Keep us updated - I'd be really interested to see what the root cause of this is.
Meatball
join:2006-03-26

Meatball

Member

Yeah, same modem. The Arris DG860A. Every tech I've asked about modems, the only one they're giving out is that one.

The problem I'm finding is that these guys don't communicate at all. One guy comes in, does his thing, and then when the next guy comes here, I have to explain everything that's happened all over again. With the 8 trucks that have been here, it's been 8 different guys.

Once they change that last cable there's no way they can say it's anything other than a neighborhood issue. Problem is, maintenance will come out, check the line and if it's good right then, they drive off. The chance of them catching the 2 minute downtime when they are watching is slim.

I've also found out that since the modem isn't actually rebooting, from their perspective, it's not having a problem b/c they look at it and it's been 'up' for a week or two.
Andrew LB
join:2005-10-10
Seal Beach, CA

Andrew LB

Member

I've been going through the exact same hell that you've been experiencing Meatball and I think i found a solution!!!

»forums.cox.com/forum_hom ··· 751.aspx

He had the same exact T3/T4 drops, MIMO, ACK, etc issues and finally COX came out and did a re-wire of his house and everything works perfectly now.

Knowing this makes me so f'ing mad because last summer I was supposed to get a re-wire and the tech got there to do the job and ended up only running new wire from the tap which was just in front of my house, underground for about 10 feet, and up the wall in my backyard where it hit the first splitter.

oh yes... he did one last thing. He found out that we had a second dedicated cable line running from the tap down the opposite side of my house to my home theater setup and the a$$hole decided to cut it off the connector and ran ANOTHER splitter on the other line which ran into my attic and the lazy SOB then spliced it into a 35 year old coax cable that was originally for the antenna on our roof before cable existed. I'm still pissed.

So basically there are two DCX3510 boxes, one SB6141 modem, and the modem for VOIP which is Arris. Oh yeah... and a third TV which doesn't have a box but is getting signal.

That's a total of 5 devices and a total of 3 2-way splitters.... ALL of which are now between the SB6141 and the tap. The modem is the last device in that long mess....
Meatball
join:2006-03-26

Meatball

Member

Well, we'll know for certain today. I had 4 more disconnects after the tech left yesterday, so I let the next tech (#9) come out this morning. He just left and ran a new cable from the box on the house up to the modem. Everything from the tap on the street to the modem has been switched out (multiple times in some cases) and is brand new at this point.

If it drops again, it's a maintenance issue somewhere beyond my street tap.
Andrew LB
join:2005-10-10
Seal Beach, CA

Andrew LB

Member

Was he an in-house tech? Or contracted out? I tell TWC when i make an appointment that the person MUST be in-house. Contractors are never in-the-know when it comes to TWC's BS and for some reason the in-house guys always make it a point to dish the dirt such as how the past two appointments never resulted in the tech adjusting the amplifier for the tap.
Meatball
join:2006-03-26

Meatball

Member

Surprisingly, every tech that's showed up here has been an in-house guy. I think TWC must be bringing most of their guys in house in this area b/c I haven't seen a contractor doing TWC work in a few years.
Meatball

Meatball

Member

Well, as expected, have had 2 drops since the tech left. Called him back and since we've basically proven it has to be something beyond the tap at the street, they're going to try to get maintenance involved again.

He called his supervisor (who is off today), who emailed the maintenance supervisor (who is also off today) and also called the one maintenance guy on call today. That guy likely can't get out today, and since maintenance supervisor isn't working, he said I may not see anyone out until Monday. Two more days of disconnecting fun!

The only positive is that they're apparently seeing the disconnects now, so they know I'm not crazy.
Andrew LB
join:2005-10-10
Seal Beach, CA

Andrew LB

Member

So they have officially rewired your entire property with brand new RG6 coax???

Here in SoCal, the guy who actually adjusts the amplifier is maintenance and is never the same guy that does the work on your property. Perhaps the amplifier needs to be adjusted to get the numbers back in line with the much better lower resistance RG6??
Meatball
join:2006-03-26

Meatball

Member

Well, the rewired the whole property with new cabling, but I don't think anything would change unless distance would cause a problem. They replaced the cable from the street tap to the house with the same cabling that was already underground and same with the cabling from the house box to the modem.

I don't think that's causing any of the issues since I had the exact same issues long before they replaced anything. I will keep it in mind though.

JohnnyG101
Mafiaoso
Premium Member
join:2000-12-25
Charlotte, NC

JohnnyG101

Premium Member

Wow, this whole thread bring back bad memories. My issue ended up being a bad cable under the street from one tap to the tap in front of my house. I can't ell you how many techs came out and checked before someone actually went over to the main tap and saw the signal was good on one side of the street but was crap when it got to my side.
Meatball
join:2006-03-26

Meatball

Member

Yeah, I've had a joyous time in the last day or so. I had 8 disconnects yesterday after the tech left, and today I've had at least 19. I say at least because the modem log only holds the last 20 entries and there were about 10 hours that I can't actually account for because by the time I was home/awake to check the log, it had rolled over past a big block of entries.

On average I'm seeing the full disconnect every 20-30 minutes. I've called the supervisor twice today (he's off, so not answering) and the tech that was out here today. The tech actually answered and said 'he'll see what he can do', but I'm not holding my breath. If they haven't called me by 9 AM tomorrow morning, I'm going on a calling spree.

And I've about had it with this. I work from home, so this is just absolutely unacceptable. I feel like I've been patient enough and with almost 7 weeks of issues if this isn't fixed by Friday I'm going to start hunting for every TWC exec email I can find and email them my text log detailing every call/visit and disconnect I've been seeing. That text file is over 450 lines long and 20Kb in size already.

JohnnyG101
Mafiaoso
Premium Member
join:2000-12-25
Charlotte, NC

JohnnyG101

Premium Member

let us know how this plays out if you dont mind.

Sucks about the whole firmware update problem. I do understand their position but I wish there was a way for us to do it on our own. oh well.
Meatball
join:2006-03-26

Meatball

Member

As it stands right now, I've not seen a disconnect for 12 hours. Of course, I've seen it go 20 hours on occasion and then go crazy again. Maybe they were out here first thing AM and finally figured out what the problem was, but I didn't see any trucks and noone called me to say anything was fixed.

Until I see this thing stable for 48 hours I won't get my hopes up, and I won't believe it's been fixed until I see it stable for 5-7 days.

That leads me to the next question, once I believe it's fixed, do I take the risk of tossing the Moto back in since the firmware is already 19 months old and will never get updated.
Meatball

Meatball

Member

Ah, all good things come to an end. I was hopeful when I got up this morning and still hadn't disconnected. I had to go into work today, so I was gone most of the day, but after 25 hours of no disconnects, I dropped. Then dropped again a few hours later. So, we're back in the same boat.

Supervisor is now ignoring my calls, so I'm back to calling TWC support directly and seeing if they can get the trucks out here. Talking to L3 support right now.
Meatball

Meatball

Member

Well, here's the latest and greatest. Talking to L3 on Tuesday night, he saw that maintenance was supposed to be out, but there were no notes, so he asked for an update and was going to check into it. They'd call me. (Yeah, I've heard that before.)

Wednesday I wasn't home most of the day, but when I did get home I saw I had had 2 disconnects, so I called in again and immediately got bumped up to L3. This L3 tech told me that noone had put a maintenance request in until that morning, but they had not come out that day. She said they should be out the next day.

Thursday I was out again most of the day, but around 5:30 at night the supervisor that had been ignoring called and left me a long VM. Apparently my call to L3 must have kicked them going again and he said they were watching the modems on the street that day and were seeing some spikes and corrections. He had talked to a maintenance supervisor and they were sending out a truck that night to replace the GNA/Amplifier down at the end of the block. He said if that didn't work, everything had been changed out other than the 'tap face plate' and they'd have to hand over the information to Engineering so they could look to see if there was a problem with the card servicing our area.

I didn't get home till close to 8 PM, so I don't know if the truck actually showed up. I had 3 disconnects Thursday before that 5:30 PM call from the supervisor, but nothing in the 12 hours since. So, now I wait and see if any errors pop up.
mpgstuff
join:2003-07-07
Kenosha, WI

mpgstuff

Member

Meatball, I appreciate you keeping this thread up to date. When I read this all I can do is shake my head, I truly hope they fix this soon.

Have they offered to refund you January's service cost?

As far as switching back to the Motorola SB6141 once it's fixed, in my personal experience, I haven't had any problems. I was receiving the same disconnects/timeouts as you describe and show in your logs, but I guess we can't say for sure the root cause is the same (I don't know what they actually fixed in my case, I received an automated call saying something was fixed in the neighborhood. Several days later I had a tech come out for a pre-existnig appointment and he put a new line in from outside to inside, put an AMP and a new splitter in - I truly don't think this "fixed anything". Whatever they fixed in the neighborhood did it).

My SB6141 has been up since the 9th, when the tech visited and started snipping all the wires. To my knowledge, there have been no issues. I get advertised speeds, my latency is fine (although Fri/Sat nights I do experience short spikes, that could be/probably is something on my end of the network).

Over the 16 day period, I still see an occasional "No Ranging Response received T3 Timeout". My log is still showing the messages from the 9th (with this issue, as you know, the log would completely fill up and turnover multiple times in a day - so I guess this is a "good" sign that there aren't a ton of messages). Since the 9th I show 5 "T3 Timeouts", but I haven't noticed them.

Good luck and keep us updated.
Meatball
join:2006-03-26

Meatball

Member

They haven't offered January reimbursement yet, but we'll see. At this point I've about exhausted every support avenue I have. Still having the issues and L1 can't help, they pass me up to L3. I've talked to two L3 guys in the last day that were both oblivious. One said he couldn't schedule maintenance directly and would have to send out another tech. Another told me that I should get business class service with a static IP, because that's my problem. What?

So, my only hope left is that local supervisor who only returns 1 out of 10 of my calls. I called him twice and left voicemails in the last 24 hours telling him I'm still having issues.

They have till Tuesday evening to fix this. I won't be around/doing much online until then and it gives them 4 days. At that point I'm going to email blast my text log file (now up to 28 KB in size) of everything that's happened to any TWC executive I can find.

So, does anyone know where I can find email addresses for TWC executives?
RySean
join:2013-02-18
San Diego, CA

RySean to Meatball

Member

to Meatball
There's a new firmware update for Time Warner cable for the SB6141, apparently as of today :-D It's SB_KOMODO-1.0.6.10-SCM00-NOSH according to the TWC rep I talked to. They said they couldn't push it manually, but it would be rolling out over time. Hopefully that doesn't exclude mine which is owned by me rather than rented.
Meatball
join:2006-03-26

Meatball

Member

Yeah, I'd almost bet my modem that they will not upgrade yours b/c you own it. Multiple people I talked to made it point to specifically state that they 'do not upgrade customer owned equipment'. They claim it's due to the fact that since they don't own it, if they brick it, they don't want to be responsible for replacement. And while that's probably partially true, I'm sure they also want to do whatever they can to drive folks to rent from them.

I don't even have the option to rent the 6141 here, only the old Ubee or the Arris DG860.
Meatball

Meatball

Member

Just a quick update on my whole fiasco. It _appears_ to be fixed. I don't know what they did, and noone will return my call to tell me if they actually fixed anything, but the last 'T3 timeout' error I ran into was back on Feb 2nd. Since then things have been pretty solid and I've only had two or three disconnects. I have seen a pretty regular recurrence of two DHCP errors. I get a "DHCP RENEW WARNING - Field invalid in response v4 option;" and then a "DHCP Renew - lease parameters tftp file" every 3-4 days.

It doesn't appear to actually knock me offline, so I haven't really called in about it. I did make 2-3 attempts to call the local supervisor that had been helping me to at least get verification that they had fixed _something_ and if they could let me know what it was so I know if it happens again, but he never answers or returns my calls.

So it took 7-8 weeks to get my issue fixed. During that time I called their support line and talked to 30+ Level 1 & Level 3 phone technicians, 'chatted' with 10+ online chat support technicians, went to their office twice, had 9 technician trucks at my house and 5-6 maintenance trucks visit the neighborhood. All the while having anywhere from 10-20 disconnects per day during the entire time.

TWC has some of the worst customer service I've ever seen, and if I had any other realistic option, I'd drop them in a second. Every person you talk to or that visits your house is interested in simply closing out the 'ticket' they are working on and handing your problem off to the next person in line. There is no ownership of any problems and they could care less if they actually fix your issue, but just that they can put a check in the box that they attempted to help. You can be passed from online chat, to L1 phone, to L3 phone to truck at your house and to maintenance, and not one of those people are actually held accountable for your issue being fixed. Just that they passed it on to the next step.

Until TWC makes technicians truly responsible for 'fixing' and issue and seeing it all the way to the end, they'll always be a mess.
RySean
join:2013-02-18
San Diego, CA

RySean

Member

Yeah, that sucks :-( I read this thread through all the way because I've been experiencing T3 and T4 timeouts regularly. I was hoping a firmware update would fix it, because I really don't want to deal with having technicians sent out since they tend to mess things up half the time, but it appears I may not have a choice :-/ What's strange is that I was using this same SB6141 at an address not far from here without issue, but once I brought it here, any amount of torrent traffic causes the internet to go out almost immediately (even with super conservative settings for connection speeds and number of connections allowed to be made). It's a bit ridiculous, hopefully I don't have to go through what you did to fix it.

tonyram57
join:2001-11-08
Brooklyn, NY

tonyram57

Member

I know what you are going through. I went through this crap starting August 26th for a couple of months. New cable drop, swapped modems etc and I still have problems sometimes at night with slow upstream. I now own the SB6141 to see if it helps with this.