Extra Channels - constant "You have lost connectio...

Question

The Extra Channels are now driving me and my Mrs (her more than me) mad. From getting a very rare and occasional "you have lost connection" message and frozen screen, I am now getting this error cropping up almost every 10 minutes.
My setup (now) is:
Infinity 2, 76 down, 17 up. Has been like this and 100% stable since installation in March.
Vision box connected by long ethernet cable (about 20m) to port 1 on the HH3
8-port Gigabit Switch connected to port 4 on the HH3
Wifi not enabled on HH3 - using Apple Airport Extreme/Time Capsule to use 5Ghz
TV/DVD in lounge and TV/WD box in bedroom connected to the Gigabit switch via Netgear Powerline
I originally had my Vision+ box connected to the switch via Powerline, but about 3 weeks ago (when this issue really raised its ugly head) my vision+ box threw up a message saying it was no longer connected to the internet, check connections, blah blah. Checking on the HH3 showed that the box indeed wasn't connected. Power cycling the box, HH3 and the Powerlines wouldn't remedy the situation, even though everything else was working 100% - TV would connect and stream Netflix, BBC iPlayer etc. So in desperation, I laid in a 20m ethernet from the Vision+ to the HH3. Initially, it still wouldn't connect, but after another couple of HH3 and Vision+ reboots, it connected and all was well - well, sort of.
From that point on, the "You've lost connection to this channel (VMC011) errors have been getting worse, until yesterday, you could barely watch a programme without the damned thing dropping out.
So, contacted Vision+ support in India - do all the usual stuff off his script, but it still hasn't resolved, so he said he'd escallate to 2nd line and they'd phone me today. No call (real surprise there).
So, call back, again have to do all the usual - power off the VDSL modem, HH3, Vision+, back on etc. He then claimed he'd 'reset' the service from his end and 99.9% sure that would 'cure' the problem. Well, guess what - it hasn't.
Since my call to India at 2pm, I have had disconnections at 14:26, 14:51, 15:16, 15:34 and now just at 16:06.
No amount of 'force resync' gets it working, nor does changing channel. The only thing I can do is to wait for the stream to restart, and it usually does with lots of pixellated/garbage picture for about 10 seconds or so before it clears and is watchable again. This 'outage' lasts between 2 minutes and 8 minutes.
Whilst this is happening, there is no continual stream of data on the LAN1 led on the VDSL modem - just the occasional short burst of data, which is coming from the Vision+ box as if I unplug it from port 1, this 'polling' stops.
This is going to be a nightmare once the sport starts - but I'm now getting aggro from my Mrs (who is recovering from Cancer treatment so tends to watch quite a bit of 'her' telly) as she quite rightly feels we are paying for a service we are barely getting. Because of the long and unweildy cable, I'm stumping up £120 or whatever to have my master socket/VDSL modem/HH3 moved adjacent to the TV as this was initially suggested as a fix, and BT are coming out Monday (supposedly) to do this work. But I can't believe this will effect a cure as I can happily watch Netflix or iPlayer without any issues whilst the Vision+ box is dropping it's stream.
I cannot believe this is the 'standard' of service that most subscribers are getting - and I believe this is an exchange or equipment issue, but all India seem capable of doing is reading dummy instructions from their script and 'resetting' the service (whatever that means) - it needs an engineer in the exchange with a data monitor to see what is going on.
Problem as I see it is that on our FTTC cab, there are not many subscribers (yet - I was No. 2 and an Openreach engineer was No. 1) and from what I understand, no other Vision+ subscribers, though that will probably change when Sport is activated. So because of this I doubt that BT are getting any other complaints.
 The cynic in me thinks that the new HH4 is being released to cater for all the 'new' BT Sport subscribers as there is an issue with the HH3. Wonder if the HH3 is just not up to handling the multicast stream properly?
Anyone got any sure fire methods of escallating this?

Answer 1

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