In the UK the main Broadband provider is BT and most users will have one of their wireless Home Hubs (v1.0 or v1.5), The most recent firware (6.2.6.E) was released about two months ago - about the same time I bought my Soundbridge.

I have a problem which is that the hub reboots itself every couple of days. After an encouraging five days, it rebooted again last night and I noticed that all the devices linked to the Hub were discovered afterwards except for the SB.

The purpose of this posting is to make a general appeal to UK users of the BT wireless Home Hub to tell me if they have had similar problems since adding their Soundbridge.

Many thanks to all who respond, positively or negatively.

Z

Hi Zygo.

My understanding is that the BT Homehub is a managed device. In that BT constantly send software updates to it unattended. Which rather puts you at their mercy regarding problems. I prefer to patch my own equipment when and if I think I need to. BT sent me a homehub when I signed up for total broadband, but refuse to use it. I still use my own VOIP router. This even works with BT Broadband phone.

I read about this auto update they perform on a number of different sites around the web. Who knows what untested software they send to your hub unknown to you.

There is some Thompson Speed touch firmware available for the Homehub I believe which reverts it back to a standard "open" unit, but I havn't tested it. My Home Hub is still in its box, and that's where it's staying.

Pete

Thanks, Pete - you're not more than 25 miles from me!

I have thought about changing the Hub as the technology is old and, as you say, BT regularly tinker with the firmware. But my impression is that it is the only wireless router that will run the hub phones and the BT V Box (using the two BT services - Talk and Vision - that I am tied into).

You seem to have succeeded in finding an alternative way; may I ask what router you use?

Z

Well well. Right on my doorstep .

I use a Draytek Vigor 2800VG.

It was quite an expensive router about £140 ish I believe.
It too has not been without its own set of problems though.
(tell me about a router which is perfect)

I have been through countless firmware upgrades, because I am out in a fringe area for Broadband I have had a few problems with loss of sync.
I must say though that the latest FW does seem to have helped enormously.

It has nice functions too. I use its VPN Function a lot, means I can dial in to my network using a VPN Tunnel from anywhere. So can upload music from wherever .

Has 2 phone sockets and supports SIP accounts which BT actually use.
So the broadband phone service works just like the HH.

Pete

EDIT:

I don't use the Video services however, I suspect my router would be not be compatible for that.

What you could consider doing, would be to get yourself a wireless access point and disable wireless on your HH. That way you wouldn't affect your music devices if the router goes offline temporarily.

I use an old Netgear Router (one that has a broken modem) just as a wireless access point downstairs in my house.

Thanks for this, Pete. I shall check it out when I have a moment. A while back I would not have entertained spending that much on a router when BT supply them for free, but against the time and stress this has cost me lately, £140 begins to sound cheap!

Still, if I am going to make that kind of investment, I should perhaps wait and see what other responses there might be first.

Cheers!

Z

Just a thought, and I may be mad but.........

You may not want to disable wireless on the HH, but is there anything to stop you plugging in a wireless access point set-up with a different SSID and on a different wireless channel and creating a separate wireless net just for the soundbridge? Not sure whether this is possible - hope someone with more knowledge will chip in.

No reason at all why not.

In fact that is what I have done using an old router just for my soundbridges downstairs.

Pete

Thanks for the idea, Mr Rusty. I presume you have a BT Home Hub? If I understand correctly, you're suggesting connecting another WAP to the BT Home Hub by ethernet?

A problem would be the limited availability of ports on the Hub. It is intended for wireless predominately so there are only two ethernet ports. I need to use one for the BT Vision recorder and I like to keep the other free for those all too frequent occasions when I lose wireless connectivity and have to reconfigure the Hub using a cable.

Nice idea though and I might give it a go. Interestingly, after surviving without failure for 4 days (almost a record!) it rebooted again this evening and I hadn't even reconnected the SB after this morning's failure so I could be barking up the wrong tree here and it might have nothing to do with the Home Hub after all.

I would love to hear from others with a Home Hub and Soundbrisge set up - whether it works or not.

Cheers.
Z

zygo wrote:

I have a problem which is that the hub reboots itself every couple of days. After an encouraging five days, it rebooted again last night and I noticed that all the devices linked to the Hub were discovered afterwards except for the SB.

I too have a BT Home Hub which I generally like. There have been a few occasions where it has rebooted itself (or needed a reboot from me) which shows up one of the failings of the device... it doesn't seem to remember which IP addresses it has given devices connected to it. Restarting the Soundbridge fixes this - I assume it is some DHCP thing, but who really knows. My hub doesn't reboot too often tho - current uptime of over 26 days. I have one hub phone (not used very much) and a BT vision box.

I don't have much in the way of wireless kit... maybe something on your wireless network is exposing a bug in the new firmware and causes it to crash? I had a non-wireless router previously and a sure-fire way to make it lock up was to send a file to a friend over MSN - go figure.

Steve.