Vodafone TV - new Gen2 box

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187 posts

Master Geek

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#2375954 15-Dec-2019 20:05

sansom:
liquidcore:

We have a Netgear Orbi system (RBK50) and we have been having ongoing problems since purchasing the Vodafone TV - unfortunately connecting it via ethernet is not an option as it will result in undesirable placement of the Orbi system.

The things that I have noticed/experienced:

1) VTV appears to show both the router and satellite SSIDs separately despite having the same name and working as a "mesh". This does not occur on any phones/other devices.

2) VTV struggles connecting to the WiFi network despite mobile phones in the exact same location displaying good 5Ghz signal (-50dBm). Eventually it will connect after entering my credentials about 10 times (and rescanning for networks, etc etc) and work for a few days. Unfortunately, it sometimes then disconnects and will refuse to reconnect until I do a hard reset and/or set it up from scratch again. I am not sure where the problem lies as when I log into Orbi's admin panel, I can see that the VTV has been issued a LAN IP successfully. I have a feeling it is not the signal strength causing problems.

The Orbi is set to a fixed 5Ghz channel (36) and unfortunately there is no option to separate out the SSIDs for the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands via the GUI, so I can't test whether that makes a difference.

Would love to troubleshoot further/be a guinea pig :)

Hi @liquidcore,

More than happy to make contact tomorrow (Mon) to troubleshoot. In the meantime, try a different fixed 5GHz channel.... something a bit higher in the range.

Thanks for the swift reply @Sansom - I have changed the channel (48) and I am still observing unusual connectivity behaviour. Upon first turning on the VTV, it seems to be connecting okay (regardless of 36 or 48), however if I start browsing the Settings menu, I begin getting SC401 errors and the stream stops. The only way to recover from this is by way of a hard reset.

heapsort

245 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2375990 15-Dec-2019 20:52

I bought one today at the $99 sale price. Here are my initial thoughts.

TL;DR: working very well over Wi-Fi, even on a TV far from the router - although I needed to be closer to the router to register it. Already decided to buy a second one.

We are currently on HFC 200/20, but moving to 900/400 fibre with another ISP very soon. (2deg modem delivered, now just waiting for fibre install.) Initial plan was to use the VTV unit either with our main TV (in same room as router, where 5G speeds are good) or "distant" TV (far end of house and up a floor, where 5G drops to around 23 Mbps. I know a range extender will improve that, but I've had no need to buy one yet.)

I tried to register the VTV on the distant TV at first. No luck. So I registered it on the main TV without any problems. Then on a hunch that perhaps there might be a minimum bandwidth test only at time of first connection, I moved the already-registered unit back to the distant TV. It's working great there too; seems barely 20 Mbps 5G is not a problem. I'll get another so we have one at each TV - and get a range extender if the one far from the router has any issues.

MikeB4

18435 posts

Uber Geek

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Trusted

#2376103 16-Dec-2019 09:14

@Zollymonsta As per your request I tried the VTV over the weekend using Wifi, however I had to revert to using wired Ethernet. We were experiencing micro pauses, black screen flashes and grey screen flash. This all stopped when I reverted to a wired connection. This was occurring on both Free to air and Sky channels. It also occurred on catchup and recorded.

IvanPiacun

378 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2376176 16-Dec-2019 11:31

MikeB4:

@Zollymonsta As per your request I tried the VTV over the weekend using Wifi, however I had to revert to using wired Ethernet. We were experiencing micro pauses, black screen flashes and grey screen flash. This all stopped when I reverted to a wired connection. This was occurring on both Free to air and Sky channels. It also occurred on catchup and recorded.

Sorry to hear it did not work. It was worth a try though.

What is your broadband speed Mike and are you on fibre?

Were your family using other devices at the time of your problems?

I believe this is a problem with Goggle Mesh not having Quality of Service or requiring 2.4Ghz support on devices connecting, as well as 5 GHz support. How is it working on a wired connection now?

If still a problem on the wired connection you could enable 5GHz on your router (if it supports 5 GHz Wi-Fi) with a fixed channel of 36 and Quality of Service with a different SSID for the network from your Google Mesh so it does not interfere with that, or get your ISP help with setting that up, and then try it on that Wi-Fi.

Ivan Piacun CITPNZ

IvanPiacun

378 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2376196 16-Dec-2019 11:52

liquidcore:

We have a Netgear Orbi system (RBK50) and we have been having ongoing problems since purchasing the Vodafone TV - unfortunately connecting it via ethernet is not an option as it will result in undesirable placement of the Orbi system.

The things that I have noticed/experienced:

1) VTV appears to show both the router and satellite SSIDs separately despite having the same name and working as a "mesh". This does not occur on any phones/other devices.

2) VTV struggles connecting to the WiFi network despite mobile phones in the exact same location displaying good 5Ghz signal (-50dBm). Eventually it will connect after entering my credentials about 10 times (and rescanning for networks, etc etc) and work for a few days. Unfortunately, it sometimes then disconnects and will refuse to reconnect until I do a hard reset and/or set it up from scratch again. I am not sure where the problem lies as when I log into Orbi's admin panel, I can see that the VTV has been issued a LAN IP successfully. I have a feeling it is not the signal strength causing problems.

The Orbi is set to a fixed 5Ghz channel (36) and unfortunately there is no option to separate out the SSIDs for the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands via the GUI, so I can't test whether that makes a difference.

Would love to troubleshoot further/be a guinea pig :)

The NetGear Orbi System usually uses the same SSID for 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands and this can cause a problem for devices which can only connect on one of those frequency bands. In these cases implementing two SSIDs one for 24Ghz and one for 5Ghz may help. The web page at https://www.tech21century.com/separate-ssid-for-2-4-and-5-ghz-on-orbi/ may help

I believe Orbi usually also swaps channels automatically to improve performance which may cause problems for the VTV Gen2 STB as well. @Sansom may be able to inform you better on this and if there is a way of setting a specific channel at an access point for 5Ghz access.

Ivan Piacun CITPNZ

Kraven

729 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2376197 16-Dec-2019 11:54

I finally had some time over the weekend to watch some shows on the VTV, motivated by the free Sky TV channels (thanks Vodafone!)

And... the experience was excellent! No issues at all, everything works. I love that the thumbnails now show during FF/REW, makes skipping ads/promos and finding the start of shows so much easier. Looks like the hard work going on behind the scenes is having some effect and I look forward to seeing what new developments are on the way.

MikeB4

18435 posts

Uber Geek

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Trusted

#2376200 16-Dec-2019 11:57

IvanPiacun:

MikeB4:

@Zollymonsta As per your request I tried the VTV over the weekend using Wifi, however I had to revert to using wired Ethernet. We were experiencing micro pauses, black screen flashes and grey screen flash. This all stopped when I reverted to a wired connection. This was occurring on both Free to air and Sky channels. It also occurred on catchup and recorded.

Sorry to hear it did not work. It was worth a try though.

What is your broadband speed Mike and are you on fibre?

Were your family using other devices at the time of your problems?

I believe this is a problem with Goggle Mesh not having Quality of Service or requiring 2.4Ghz support on devices connecting, as well as 5 GHz support. How is it working on a wired connection now?

If still a problem on the wired connection you could enable 5GHz on your router (if it supports 5 GHz Wi-Fi) with a fixed channel of 36 and Quality of Service with a different SSID for the network from your Google Mesh so it does not interfere with that, or get your ISP help with setting that up, and then try it on that Wi-Fi.

Ivan Piacun CITPNZ

I am on the Orcon Gigantic plan which gives me speeds of 929.39mbps download and 498.58mbps upload 3ms latency. My iPad Pro will give a speed test result where my VTV is situated of 402.68mbps download and 397.42mbps upload with a 4ms latency. I did try turning off all other wifi connections to ensure there was not congestion, also where we live there is no interference from neighbours Wifi. As for the Google Wifi I have not experienced any issues like this on other devices using streaming services. I have also experienced similar issues with the VTV if I turn off Google Wifi and turn on Wifi on the Netcomm Orcon Router. Please not When the Google Wifi is turned on I disable Wifi on the Netcomm Router in order to eliminate interference.

When the VTV was connected to the Google Wifi system I did set it as a priority device.

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IvanPiacun

378 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2376262 16-Dec-2019 13:47

Kraven:

I finally had some time over the weekend to watch some shows on the VTV, motivated by the free Sky TV channels (thanks Vodafone!)

And... the experience was excellent! No issues at all, everything works. I love that the thumbnails now show during FF/REW, makes skipping ads/promos and finding the start of shows so much easier. Looks like the hard work going on behind the scenes is having some effect and I look forward to seeing what new developments are on the way.

Are you sure you are not in the Beta Test group and that your post should not have been made in this forum but the Beta Test forum, as the Visual Scrubber has not been released as yet to the general public.

Ivan Piacun CITPNZ

Bazzi99

16 posts

Geek

#2376309 16-Dec-2019 14:16

IvanPiacun:

The NetGear Orbi System usually uses the same SSID for 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands and this can cause a problem for devices which can only connect on one of those frequency bands. In these cases implementing two SSIDs one for 24Ghz and one for 5Ghz may help. The web page at https://www.tech21century.com/separate-ssid-for-2-4-and-5-ghz-on-orbi/ may help

I believe Orbi usually also swaps channels automatically to improve performance which may cause problems for the VTV Gen2 STB as well. @Sansom may be able to inform you better on this and if there is a way of setting a specific channel at an access point for 5Ghz access.

Ivan Piacun CITPNZ

Hi @IvanPiacun, I believe that the information in that link you provided is no longer current. Latest information I've seen, and confirmed by my own experience, is that even if you follow the instructions and manually rename the SSID's differently, as soon as you reboot, those changes are undone and you end up with the same SSID name for both 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz bands.....sadly :-(

This appears to have happened with the Orbi firmware update a few months back and is particularly annoying as I really wanted separate SSID's for each band. I probably would have gone a different path if I had known they were going to force this limitation on us.

IvanPiacun

378 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2376315 16-Dec-2019 14:19

MikeB4:

IvanPiacun:

MikeB4:

@Zollymonsta As per your request I tried the VTV over the weekend using Wifi, however I had to revert to using wired Ethernet. We were experiencing micro pauses, black screen flashes and grey screen flash. This all stopped when I reverted to a wired connection. This was occurring on both Free to air and Sky channels. It also occurred on catchup and recorded.

Sorry to hear it did not work. It was worth a try though.

What is your broadband speed Mike and are you on fibre?

Were your family using other devices at the time of your problems?

I believe this is a problem with Goggle Mesh not having Quality of Service or requiring 2.4Ghz support on devices connecting, as well as 5 GHz support. How is it working on a wired connection now?

If still a problem on the wired connection you could enable 5GHz on your router (if it supports 5 GHz Wi-Fi) with a fixed channel of 36 and Quality of Service with a different SSID for the network from your Google Mesh so it does not interfere with that, or get your ISP help with setting that up, and then try it on that Wi-Fi.

Ivan Piacun CITPNZ

I am on the Orcon Gigantic plan which gives me speeds of 929.39mbps download and 498.58mbps upload 3ms latency. My iPad Pro will give a speed test result where my VTV is situated of 402.68mbps download and 397.42mbps upload with a 4ms latency. I did try turning off all other wifi connections to ensure there was not congestion, also where we live there is no interference from neighbours Wifi. As for the Google Wifi I have not experienced any issues like this on other devices using streaming services. I have also experienced similar issues with the VTV if I turn off Google Wifi and turn on Wifi on the Netcomm Orcon Router. Please not When the Google Wifi is turned on I disable Wifi on the Netcomm Router in order to eliminate interference.

When the VTV was connected to the Google Wifi system I did set it as a priority device.

Mike the I believe the NetCom NF18ACV is a VDSL2/ADSL2+ modem router perhaps you should get Orcon to update your modem to a better Fibre router.

Ivan Piacun CITPNZ

MikeB4

18435 posts

Uber Geek

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#2376343 16-Dec-2019 15:02

IvanPiacun:

Mike the I believe the NetCom NF18ACV is a VDSL2/ADSL2+ modem router perhaps you should get Orcon to update your modem to a better Fibre router.

Ivan Piacun CITPNZ

@IvanPiacun I am not sure what Orcon alternatives are available. I have fired an Email off to my wife and she will check with her Orcon associates. I have also asked her to get advice from them recommendations of compatible alternatives I can purchase if they don't have alternatives

Aaron2222

216 posts

Master Geek

#2376365 16-Dec-2019 15:14

Would it be possible to get BVN on Vodafone TV?

DjShadow

4084 posts

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#2376452 16-Dec-2019 17:20

Is there any update on The Cheese?

IvanPiacun

378 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2376454 16-Dec-2019 17:21

Bazzi99:

IvanPiacun:

The NetGear Orbi System usually uses the same SSID for 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands and this can cause a problem for devices which can only connect on one of those frequency bands. In these cases implementing two SSIDs one for 24Ghz and one for 5Ghz may help. The web page at https://www.tech21century.com/separate-ssid-for-2-4-and-5-ghz-on-orbi/ may help

I believe Orbi usually also swaps channels automatically to improve performance which may cause problems for the VTV Gen2 STB as well. @Sansom may be able to inform you better on this and if there is a way of setting a specific channel at an access point for 5Ghz access.

Ivan Piacun CITPNZ

Hi @IvanPiacun, I believe that the information in that link you provided is no longer current. Latest information I've seen, and confirmed by my own experience, is that even if you follow the instructions and manually rename the SSID's differently, as soon as you reboot, those changes are undone and you end up with the same SSID name for both 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz bands.....sadly :-(

This appears to have happened with the Orbi firmware update a few months back and is particularly annoying as I really wanted separate SSID's for each band. I probably would have gone a different path if I had known they were going to force this limitation on us.

@Bazzi99 Have you tried connecting the VTV Gen2 STB to an Orbi Satellite or the Orbi router via an ethernet cable? In which case you shouldn't have the problems with VTV not connecting on 2.4 GHz. This presupposes that that Orbi will then put the backhaul traffic onto a 5Ghz Wi-Fi channel.

Ivan Piacun CITPNZ

liquidcore

187 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#2376456 16-Dec-2019 17:26

Bazzi99:

IvanPiacun:

The NetGear Orbi System usually uses the same SSID for 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands and this can cause a problem for devices which can only connect on one of those frequency bands. In these cases implementing two SSIDs one for 24Ghz and one for 5Ghz may help. The web page at https://www.tech21century.com/separate-ssid-for-2-4-and-5-ghz-on-orbi/ may help

I believe Orbi usually also swaps channels automatically to improve performance which may cause problems for the VTV Gen2 STB as well. @Sansom may be able to inform you better on this and if there is a way of setting a specific channel at an access point for 5Ghz access.

Ivan Piacun CITPNZ

Hi @IvanPiacun, I believe that the information in that link you provided is no longer current. Latest information I've seen, and confirmed by my own experience, is that even if you follow the instructions and manually rename the SSID's differently, as soon as you reboot, those changes are undone and you end up with the same SSID name for both 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz bands.....sadly :-(

This appears to have happened with the Orbi firmware update a few months back and is particularly annoying as I really wanted separate SSID's for each band. I probably would have gone a different path if I had known they were going to force this limitation on us.

While unfortunate, it is comforting to hear that somebody else is also having problems with the Orbi...! Hopefully VTV firmware is enhanced further to be able to handle mesh networks.

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