Ongoing Issues with Orcon Genius Connection

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Ongoing Issues with Orcon Genius Connection

nicten

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#138735 15-Jan-2014 09:06

Morning all,

Long time lurker first time poster :) .

I am having ongoing issues with my Orcon connection and am giving it one last try before I go elsewhere. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

THE ISSUES:
The Genius modem randomly disconnects and does not reconnect/reconnect properly (no Internet access or phone even though one or the other light is blue). This seems to happen much more often when it rains or is hot. I tried testing with a Netgear DGN1000 modem and this did not disconnect at all but the (un)helpful support desk said that I cannot use my own modem despite this being stated on the website. I have also had Chorus out to the exchange/cabinet/house on 3+ separate occasions and they have not been able to find anything wrong. (The cabinet is about 30 meters across the road from my house)
The modem firmware level is 1201 and the modem is the Genius Lite version and is the third one I have received from Orcon.

After numerous calls to the helpdesk over a year long period the issue is still not resolved and I experience the same issues that others in the forum have with no one calling you back and the support desk trying to go through their standard fault resolution process almost every time I call.

My ideal result would be (if I have to use a Genius modem) a modem that actually works properly and with a stable connection. I am also happy to use the Netgear modem but according to Orcon this is not an option.

Thank you for looking and as I said before any help/suggestions are greatly appreciated

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344 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#967344 15-Jan-2014 09:22

Can you please PM your account details?

4th gen i7 Haswell 4770k, G.SKILL RipjawsX 16GB (4x4 Gb) DDR3 2400MHz, x1 GTS 460, Intel 180Gb 530 Series SSD, x1 Seagate 1Tb HDD, x1 Seagate 2Tb HDD, Modular 850w PSU, R.O.G. Maximus VII Formula mobo, Cooler Master Storm Trooper Chassis, Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler

"Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind." - Terry Pratchett

No longer work for Orcon

FlameBeard

344 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#967367 15-Jan-2014 09:45

Ok, a couple of things off the bat, I see you're running an older firmware version for the modem so that may be contributing to the problem, I will perform the upgrade remotely for you which will cause the modem to power cycle. If you're happy with that of course.

Another thing, could be a faulty line but I doubt it is, for two reasons, as you mentioned the Net Gear worked fine, also doing some checking on the Chorus tools your line looks to be very stable. I have however started a 24 hour analyzer to capture any of that data so please if you could, leave the Genius connected to the ADSL at least until this time tomorrow.

I am unsure who told you that you cannot use the Net gear modem, you can fill your boots with that, (here comes the catch) the only thing is, if you have any issues with the ADSL line, we will need you to plug in the Genius otherwise its not supported.

As you can imagine for obvious reasons we need a baseline, or common variable for testing, and with ADSL modems becoming dime a dozen, keeping up with, let alone being able to support them all just isn't viable.

nicten

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#967377 15-Jan-2014 09:58

An firmware upgrade will be welcome. Currently the modem has dropped off and I will not be able to reset it till this evening. Will do as soon as I get home (unless you can still access it at the moment)

The house was all re-wired by Telecom (pre-chorus) for ADSL when I bought it and pretty much everything has been replaced from my house to the termination point

Thanks for the reply and it will be interesting to see what the trace brings back. I believe the only issue with using my own modem was that every so often it failed to start authentication (PPP failed) and I though that was down to the way that Orcon authenticate the modem (username/password + MAC address)

FlameBeard

344 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#967651 15-Jan-2014 16:21

Ok well unfortunately not ideal news, we seem to be unable to reach your modem remotely via our server so I will talk with the technician tomorrow regarding that in our systems team. By which time also the analyzer should have finished so we'll be able to correlate your RADIUS re-registrations with actual sync drops as supposed to the PPP drops. My apologies for the delay. I'll post back here tomorrow morning after we've got some more information :-)

nicten

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#968230 16-Jan-2014 15:15

Hey Flamebeard, is there any update on this?

TheKitchen

10 posts

Wannabe Geek
Inactive user

#968402 16-Jan-2014 18:05

Hi,

Just sent you a PM.

FlameBeard

344 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#969867 20-Jan-2014 09:38

Hi there,

I have just been speaking with our systems engineer around the remote management side, it appears the CPE isn't responding to our attempts to connect with it.
Has a factory reset been done recently? If not, can that be done? If that isn't yielding any joy, we may need to send you another CPE.

Cheers

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

nicten

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#969941 20-Jan-2014 11:35

TheKitchen is sending out another modem. I have the modem setup to forward all traffic to a firewall appliance

JayTaicho

294 posts

Ultimate Geek

#969982 20-Jan-2014 13:00

@FlameBeard Hi, do the firmware updates to the Genius modem need to be done by you guys, or can I do it on my end? I've been having the same issue for about a year now. Happens maybe a couple times a month. Need to unplug/plug back in to get internet up again.

Have never called helpdesk about it. Hasn't really bothered me too much. But if the update fixes it, I'll give Orcon a call.

Sounddude

I fix stuff!
1928 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

2degrees

Lifetime subscriber

#970014 20-Jan-2014 14:23

I have the modem setup to forward all traffic to a firewall appliance

That probably explains why its not working, you are probably forwarding the ACS (Modem config tool) packets to your firewall rather than letting the modem receive them.

FlameBeard

344 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#970528 21-Jan-2014 11:49

JayTaicho: @FlameBeard Hi, do the firmware updates to the Genius modem need to be done by you guys, or can I do it on my end? I've been having the same issue for about a year now. Happens maybe a couple times a month. Need to unplug/plug back in to get internet up again.

Have never called helpdesk about it. Hasn't really bothered me too much. But if the update fixes it, I'll give Orcon a call.

Nope you can do this yourself, login to your GUI then under option six - handy tools there is the option to upgrade to the latest version. It also will tell you what version you're currently running.

scarfacenz

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#971838 21-Jan-2014 19:53

Hi I am also on genius and am wanting to use my own modem router, where can I find the username and password to set this up?

I understand what you were saying earlier in regards to having to plug in the genius if there is a fault to get support..

Thanks in advance

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
79285 posts

Uber Geek

Administrator

ID Verified

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Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#971843 21-Jan-2014 20:04

scarfacenz: Hi I am also on genius and am wanting to use my own modem router, where can I find the username and password to set this up?

This is off topic and would be better to create your own new thread so this one can continue for nicten.

tkr001

416 posts

Ultimate Geek

#972353 22-Jan-2014 16:26

Look at the sticky at the top of the page!

nicten

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#972669 23-Jan-2014 10:34

Update: TheKitchen sent out a new modem which I got yesterday. Setup last night, it does seem better than the last (possibly faulty) one but time will tell.

Either way a big thank you to Flamebeard and TheKitchen. It is a shame the other people I talked to at Orcon could not be as helpful/give me correct information.

On a related note I was told the Orcon use PPP authentication and the MAC address of the Genius modem to allow connections. Is this correct?

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