Loss of internet - brief interruptions late at night

[souwesterly]

Pretty well every single night - for ages now - I find myself off-line.  A few minutes later (or maybe a few seconds or perhaps half an hour later) and I'm back on-line again.  This usually happens after say 11 pm and onwards.

It's so damn annoying.

For myself it's not perhaps as annoying as for my wife.  I just browse whereas she often settles to watch a film or to catch up on a soap.  So while I can continue to read the article or page I'm on, she finds her film and her concentration to be totally broken.

So please tell me - is it maintenance or a fault?  If it's maintenance then for heavens sake quit doing it all the time - and if it's a fault then damn well fix it soon.

Answers will be very much appreciated.

PS  Haha!  My message has been turned down because "You have exceeded the limit of 0 tags per message"  You're having a laugh!  So what's the use of tags, then?

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Yes, hopefully the boosters will resolve the issue 🙂

Chris

[souwesterly]

Hah, much as I suspected, to be honest.  Nothing wrong with the main internet 'supply' but wi-fi signals aren't carrying right through the house efficiently.

As for another router - no, TalkTalk sent me just the one which I guess I'll have to make do with.

What I do have is a set of three TP-Link boosters which I guess I'll need to install.

Fingers crossed!

Cheers

Chris

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi souwesterly,

I've checked the realtime data on the Openreach website for the last 3 days and not showing any interruptions to you internet connection so it does look as though it's a wifi signal issue. Do you have another router that you can test with?

Chris

[souwesterly]

Hi Michelle,

Firstly to answer your latest questions - no, it isn't always at the same time and also no, to the best of my knowledge, we're not using Homesafe.  But - having checked my services I discover that we've been using Homework Time for some reason.  That's strange since there's no-one in this family under 64 never mind about 6 or 4.  I've now turned it off.

And secondly, my observations based on last night.

I was upstairs soon after 10 pm and to my surprise there was a loss of connection very soon after that - far earlier than the usual interruptions.  It only lasted for perhaps 2 minutes at most - rather typical of our 'usual' interruptions though.

At about 10.45 pm I came downstairs with my laptop and with it sitting on my desk, I turned on my PC - and there I stayed until midnight without any interruptions at all.

Assuming that nothing was going to happen when right next to the router, at near enough midnight I went back upstairs and within five minutes my viewing was interrupted by a very brief break (say 20 seconds or so) and then a little later another one that lasted for around 3-4 minutes.  Those were the only interruptions right through until I turned off at around 1.15 am.

At that point I was perhaps 20 metres from the router - and it was also then that I noticed that there were only 2 bars of connection showing on the wireless icon.  Obviously I'm not as well connected as I thought!

But that's about all I can add - so it's over to you now please.

Good hunting,

Chris

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Morning,

Can I just confirm, is it always at exactly the same time every night? Do you use HomeSafe?

Thanks

[souwesterly]

Hi Chris,

Sorry to take a while coming back but I've just been out doing the weekly shopping😓

Not only is it hard work but what a waste of money!  I swear I could live on a tenth of what we spend but what the missus wants is what we get even though it hurts me.  Such is life!

Re: what devices lose connection I'm not yet certain.

I'd be inclined to think that it is just the two laptops that lose connection but since (until now) I haven't been able to be in two places at once!  However, tonight I'll bring my laptop downstairs and keep my PC running too - and see what happens.

[In my mind I tend to feel that it's a local problem that's causing the loss of connection.  I know, for example that the next door neighbour has MS and I've wondered if he turns on some kind of machine to help keep him alive that then interferes with our internet.  Or perhaps our connection is so poor overall that a drop off at night breaks the connection entirely.  Just thoughts, but I'm no technician.  Ookla speed test just now (4 pm) comes back at 34.29Mbps and 9.37Mbps Upload]

Whatever, please bear with me and I'll come back with some more information tomorrow.

(I hadn't thought of all the alternative solutions and options - sorry I'm not fully set up to inform you right now)

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi souwesterly,

Just to confirm, are you only experiencing disconnections on devices connected to your router by wi-fi?

Chris

[souwesterly]

Hi Michelle,

I'm not surprised that you've found no faults - our connection is a new one installed by Openreach in mid-June.

As far as I can remember, the answer is 'yes' - it does happen every night - or at least if there have been any late nights (i.e, from say 11 pm through to perhaps 1 am) when it hasn't happened then I don't remember them.   And these interruptions have been happening ever since our new connection was first installed.

As for lights on the router - I'm sorry, but the router is on an open shelf inside my desk whereas I'm upstairs in my bedroom and my wife is on the other side of the lounge when these interruptions happen, so I just don't know.  Additionally, while it does affect both of our laptops at the same time, I've no idea if the PC is affected since it's turned off at that hour.

However, if it'll help then I'll bring my laptop down tonight to see if I get the same interruptions and so that I can watch the router.  I'll also keep my PC running to see if it's affected too and I'll report back here some time after that.

By the way - our router has just one light - which shines blue when things are ok and orange when they're not. It flickers when a connection is faulty or just being set up.

Also Michelle - what's the re-connection about?  Did we actually lose our connection during the day on some occasion or was that one night-time drop off?

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Hello,

I'm sorry to hear this and I will take a look at this for you now. I've run a test on the line which hasn't detected a fault and I can see 1 re-connection in the last 7 days. Just to confirm, does it happen everyday? Do any of the lights change on the router when this happens? Are all devices affected at the same time?

Thanks

[souwesterly]

Sorry - didn't realise that would be of any relevance.

However, my router has the following ID on it.

Device Ver: FAST 5364-3.T8

By Sagemcom

By the way, my PC is connected via an ethernet cable (because it and the router are both sitting right next to the incoming Openreach feed), but my wife and I are on laptops at night obviously with wi-fi connections.

I haven't had reason to experience the loss of connection on my PC at that late hour. (I'm 77 - hence early to bed!)

Thanks Divsec for coming back quickly - it's much appreciated.

[Divsec]

Hi @souwesterly I'm guessing maintenance. You don't mention which router you have? Your post has been escalated and the team will get back to you soon.