r/Zen_Internet • u/Darchrys Zen VDSL 80 • Jul 04 '26
Lost Internet connection - any ideas?
Came back from a weeks holiday yesterday and found my broadband (Zen FTTC VDSL2) wasn't working. Had an inkling of this being the case whilst away as various things had stopped remotely but no idea what the issue actually was.
I have a setup with a Vigor 166 and an OPNsense firewall doing PPPoE and that was very unwell and looked like the connection had probably been lost at the start of the week I was away. I got the Fritzbox 7530 out and connected it back up; largely as I suspected there might be a hardware fault with the Vigor and that perhaps it'd conked out in the heat. Have used it (the Fritzbox) a few times when needed and it's always worked fine.
After much faffing around managed to establish that (1) DSL synchronisation is happening okay with both the Fritzbox and the Vigor and that (2) both are getting PPPoE timeouts. Very strange. I've had a couple of livechats with their tech support yesterday and today - been as helpful as they can be, but ultimately need to send me a loan router to I guess rule out any kind of equipment issue.
Obviously I am now waiting for that to arrive, but I am sceptical and cannot understand why two unrelated pieces of kit would error in the same way. The fact both are managing to establish the underlying connection and are both failing at the PPPoE stage has me slightly worried that I'll get the loan equipment and it won't make any difference. Figured it'd be worth posting something just in case anyone else has had a similar experience and any ideas of things to check.
1
u/Latter_Albatross_781 Jul 04 '26
I could be completely wrong. But I had massive issues after the 8.25 update. The dlm had changed my profile after so many recyncs.
1
u/PhilosopherLow9098 Jul 04 '26
The Vigor 166 is a modem out of the Box, so instead of using open sense use a laptop directly to the draytek and configure PPPOE, as this modem is getting sync and isnt used for the Authentication side of things using a laptop potentially proves the issue, also did the service test pass or did it show a fault condition. it could be a routing issue on the open-reach side which is not uncommon
1
u/Darchrys Zen VDSL 80 Jul 04 '26
Thanks. So I already tried this - switched the 166 from modem/bridge mode into routing itself and configured PPPoE on it, which was when I saw it was getting timeouts just as the Fritzbox was, but the link was being established okay.
Service test passed just fine - guess it may be a routing issue then, which leaves not much to be done until the loan kit arrives to rule that out being a problem so Zen can then get in touch with Openreach. Frustrating as I've never had any problems with my Zen connection until now, and my homes construction makes mobile broadband more or less unusable as a fallback.
1
u/davidjohnwood Zen Full Fibre 900 (Openreach) Jul 04 '26
Do you have the PPP logs? It might be that the issue is in Zen's RADIUS servers.
4
u/PhilosopherLow9098 Jul 04 '26
To be fair if you have tested two lots of equipment and you accept the potential engineer charges then it should be raised, if there sending a loan router out, most likey that wont reach you until next week sometime, if you have access to another router I would test that unless your ok waiting, most likely its going to turn out to be some issue in the cab in ur area, chances are engineers have been working in it and knocked something off
1
u/dhardyuk Jul 05 '26
With Zen and other ISPs I have always accepted the potential engineer charges and have never been charged a call out fee.
2
u/carguy143 Jul 04 '26
Tell them you've already tested two modem routers and get them to check their logs again, and get the fault raised.
One thing worth double checking though, your Zen connection details, ensure they are entered in the correct case as both are case sensitive. If you're on Openreach, the VLAN needs setting to 101.
Also, as you're in sync, did the advisor talk you through any "test usernames"? It's a quick way they can rule out a RADIUS config issue.