Home Hub 4000 5GHz advanced settings not working

[rosbif35]

I have the HomeHub 4000. I am in a residential area with lots of wireless signals and the optimise my wifi is complete pants, everything just sits in the same channel.  I unchecked that option and can set the 2.4GHz signal to a less crowded channel (and this updates), but the 5GHz signals, despite changing in the config, do not actually update, and sit in the crowded channel, whichever channel I try to choose on the config.

Anyone else seeing this?

Cheers, frustrated Brit in Ottawa

[BellPatricia · Accepted solution]

Hi there @rosbif35. Thanks for your post, and welcome to the Bell Community.

Very interesting! The modem should automatically detect less crowded channels. Is that not the case for you?

If you haven't already we recommend resetting your modem to factory settings, and then try to change the Wi-Fi settings. For a step by step check out How to reset my Home Hub 4000 modem to factory settings

Keep the Community posted, we're interested to know how everything goes.

- Patricia

[BellPatricia]

Hey @rosbif35.

I wanted to follow up to see if you are still experiencing an issue when saving 5GHz advanced settings.

Let us know. We would love to look into this further if you still need help 🙂

- Patricia

[Gord_R]

In a related issue: I just got fibre to the home, home hub 4000. Like rosbif35 user, I find that the WiFi router selects the most crowded channel in the 2.5GHz band (My channel 6 has 1 weak network, channel 11 has 5 or 6 networks. The router adds to the pile-up on channel 11). I suppose I can override that by turning off the "optimise my wifi". I have not tried this because I am not sure what "optimise my wifi" does. Does it just attempt to select the least used channel, or is there more to it? ...Gord in Ottawa

[BellPatricia]

Hey there @Gord_R, thanks for reaching out to the Bell Community 🙂

We do recommend that you leave Whole Home Wi-Fi turned on. This allows the Home Hub 4000 to optimize the Wi-Fi connection automatically throughout your home so you get the best possible Wi-Fi performance/connection. 

Test that out, and let us know how everything is working.

- Patricia 

[Gord_R]

Hi,

I have left the "Whole Home WiFi" on, I have never tried to turn it off. The WiFi channel that it picks is counter- intuitive. It started on the most crowded channel in my area, channel 11. 2 days later it went to the channel 1, also fairly crowded. Then it went to channel 6, which is (by far, and consistently so) the least congested channel (1 network right now) . I thought maybe it had figured things out, but this morning, it's back on channel 11, sharing it with 6 networks.

You might think that this is academic. However, we are noticing that the internet drops out for 3-5minutes at a time daily. Last one was 7:56AM today (Tuesday Feb 14). It happens on all computers/phones at once; not sure about the TV yet. It appears that the WiFi connection is still there, but without internet, so it may have nothing to do with the WiFi channel changing every day. So, today, I will set up a computer connected directly to the router by ethernet (no WiFi) and will have it ping the outside world every 30 seconds and see if the pings stop when we experience an internet outage. If it keeps working during our internet problems, then the problem is the WiFi, and I will try turning off the "whole home WiFi" optimization to see if that helps.

Any other suggestions?

Cheers,

...GR

[BellPatricia]

Hey @Gord_R.

Very interesting, since the modem should automatically connect to the less crowded channel.
Do you see any error message on the modem when the Wi-Fi stops working?
Does it reconnect automatically, or do you need to reboot everything to get back online?

Keep the Community posted on how all of your testing is going. We're interested to hear how everything works out, and will be here to help if you do need further assistance.
- Patricia

[rosbif35]

Hi Gord_R

Networkery is my bag, whilst not wifi specific, I know enough. The whole home wifi is a crock... I analyse before and after it does its magic, and it is patently rubbish after the magic happens. I have to rebuild the wifi channels again manually, and I can define where there are gaps in the massively crowded space out here in the 'burbs of Ottawa.

If I set it and forget it, then access my set up with the Bell app on the iphone, it reverts to the whole home thing again, and my kids complain. So I had to uninstall the app, to stop the reversion.

Honestly, despite the great fibre, the execution of the hub is pants. I'm tempted to buy a 3rd party router, but I'm a mean bugger, so I won't.

Cheers

[ZaneP]

Hi @rosbif35 

The HH4K had a firmware issue where if whole home wifi was turned off, it would turn on again after a modem reboot.Your scenario may also trigger also reversion. Not sure.

I've been told that the latest firmware - more recent than v1.7.5 - has corrected reversion-after-reboot problem. I don't know if you can have the latest version pushed to your modem by requesting it on this Community forum. You can request it on Bell's private forum on DSLR, here . You'll need to sign up for a UID as anonymous posts aren't permitted on that forum.

Cheers,

ZaneP

[Gord_R]

Hi,

We had 2 internet outages this morning (Feb 16) at about 8:55AM - 8:59AM and 10:06AM - 10:11AM . During these outages, the Apple desktop computer (which is connected by WiFi) lost connectivity, and a Microsoft computer (connected by ethernet cable) stopped pinging. (It was running a script that would ping www.bell.ca once every 30 seconds. During the outage, the ping command returned "Request timed out". (Also, lost service 1:17PM - 1:21PM Feb 15, but we were not home so I only know that the pings stopped) SO, I conclude that the WiFi and the "Whole Home WiFi" option is not the problem. It's further back in the network. I did not have to reboot anything to restore service, it came back by itself. I did not see if there were diagnostic messages on the hub. I logged onto the hub, (Firmware 1.14.1, by the way) and there is nothing recorded in the Systems Log, or anywhere that I looked.

So, BellPatricia, what should I do next? I assume a 5 minute outage 1-2 times a day is not usual or acceptable quality of service. What's my next step to fix this? (BTW: a friend told me that he had similar problems, and the issue turned out to be  that the optical signal was too strong, they installed an attenuator. For whatever that's worth.)

Thanks,  ...Gord

[Gord_R]

An update...

It certainly does not have anything to do with the WiFi, as the outages also happen on a computer (running PING every 30 seconds) directly wired to the Giga hub. So, maybe I should move this onto a more appropriate thread???
-Outages are generally 4-6 minutes. Several times a day. (Saturday was a high of 9, Sunday was a low of 1) We have had 21 documented outages of 4-6 minutes over 5 days. The outage "goes away" by itself; I do not reboot the modem. And, the modem is not rebooting itself.
-As far as I can tell, the phone service and TV are unaffected. internet browsing is what we notice.
-There are no messages on the Giga Hub screen.
-There is nothing odd on the "system log" at the times of the outages.
-In one case, it appears that internet browsing stopped working and pinging stopped working, but a video streaming session that started before the drop-out continued unaffected. So is this a DNS issue (This is at the limit of my knowledge)?
-I ran the virtual repair tool. It said it found and fixed one "outside" issue, but it made no difference. 
-My system is very simple and standard, I have 3 computers (2 X PC and 1 X Apple), 2 i-pads, 2 cell phones (Apple and Android), 1 printer. Nothing fancy. I have not changed anything significant on the Giga HUB.

WHAT IS MY NEXT STEP?

Thanks,  ...Gord

[Gord_R]

Hi, rosbif35

Thanks for sharing your experience. I dislike the fact that my WiFi bounces around from channel to channel without any obvious logic behind it. That will be the second layer of the onion. For now, though, I need to get the internet (even with cable, no WiFi) working reliably! Then, maybe I'll get back to you about manually "rebuiliding the channels".

[BellNick]

Hi there @Gord_R 
We would recommend periodically power-cycling your modem if you have not been rebooting it and it hasn't been rebooting by itself.
Do you happen to be using any VPN?
If the issue occurs again, can you please try accessing the Modem GUI and testing a ping to see if there are any results. To do this, please go to 192.168.2.1 > Advanced tools and settings -> Utilities -> ping.
Please keep the Community updated on how that goes.

 

[Gord_R]

Hi, BellNick,

I did a manual reboot on Feb 17 at 10:36AM, I had a drop at 10:59AM and again at 11:36AM, within an hour of the reboot. (Each about 5 minutes) And again in the evening of Feb 17 at 9:47PM and 10:26PM. (You can see that I have been keeping extensive records of the drops) So, I'm not convinced that a reboot is going to help. 

I have a computer (ethernet connection, not WiFi) pinging bell.ca every 30 seconds. When I experience a drop (as seen by an unresponsive browser), I get the message "Request Timed Out" from each ping until service is restored. I can try the same thing on the modem if I'm fast enough, will let you know. Of course, right now it pings just fine.

I am not using a VPN, at least not intentionally. 

One other clue: If we start streaming something (we have a remote Wyse camera, for example), and an interruption happens, the streaming continues even though pinging returns "Request Timed Out" and internet browser queries go nowhere. This must be telling us something? 

As of Feb 24, we had about 30 drops over about 9 days.

Cheers, Gord R

[Gord_R]

Updated reply:

The internet went down (symptoms: browsers on i-pad, android phone, and i-phone (all on WiFi) stopped working) at about 5:43 PM this evening (27 Feb). I ran the PING test from the modem: the ping DID continue to find www.google.com ! Ping continued to work through the service drop! This is in contrast with the computer (on ethernet) doing continuous PINGing: it returned "Request Timed Out" (as usual during an outage).. SO, it seems like the problem is in the modem. Should I have a new modem sent (this one is only 2 weeks old, we just received the fibre to the home service a couple of weeks ago)

Here is another clue: The internet is far more likely to drop when it is being used. Most drops occur at around 11AM and 4:15PM . My wife checks on her elderly parents with a remote "Nanny cam" (from Wyze) at 11AM and 4:15PM. The correlation is not perfect: Sometimes she can run the Wyze camera and the network is unaffected, AND we have seen the network drop even if the Wyze camera is not used. BUT the Wyze cam frequently causes the internet to drop. And it remains working even while all other browsers freeze. We have had the same Wyse camera for a year, and it never caused this problem before, not until we got the fibre. Other relatives also use the Wyse and have no problems.

I did a manual reboot on Feb 17 at 10:36AM, I had a drop at 10:59AM and again at 11:36AM, within an hour of the reboot. (Each about 5 minutes) And again in the evening of Feb 17 at 9:47PM and 10:26PM. (You can see that I have been keeping extensive records of the drops) So, I'm not convinced that a reboot is going to help. 

I have a computer (ethernet connection, not WiFi) pinging bell.ca every 30 seconds. When I experience a drop (as seen by an unresponsive browser), I get the message "Request Timed Out" from each ping until service is restored. 

I am not using a VPN, at least not intentionally. 

As of today, we had about 38 drops over about 12 days.

Cheers, Gord R