I keep losing connection

[cherylaoife]

UPDATE 02/13/2020:  Finally got a tech to pay a visit late yesterday. Not only was the dish out of alignment but the modem and power pack had to be replaced. So it was a combo of the 2. And I now my system is a little bit faster that it was before the issues cropped up last week, even while out of data!

Thanks to everyone who responded and helped me maintain what little sanity I had left.

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Internet quality & connectivity severely degraded today. I keep losing connection. There is no obstruction or weather event. The connections are all good. The lights are flashing and then go dark. Then they come back on, flashing - even the power button flashes. I work from home building and maintaining websites and the inability to connect and stay connected to the internet is unacceptable. What is going on? Is there some system disturbance or maintenance that's happening? Or is my modem going out? I'd appreciate some information on why this is happening. This is the 2nd time Thank you, Cheryl Johnson

[Liz · Accepted solution]

Good morning cherylaoife,

  I'm glad you found the community, thank you for posting. Glad to see service is stable again. I'm able to run diagnostics on your site, and while everything is working well now, I would recommend a dish realignment. If you get in touch with business/SME support in the future should you run into intermittent connectivity, I would request a tech for a realignment, even if the diagnostics still show everything as OK at that time.

-Liz

[GabeU]

@cherylaoife 

When there is an issue, what is the State Code that is showing in the System Summary box near the top of this page?  You must be using a device that is connected to the HughesNet modem to see the page.  Preferably a LAN cable connected device, but you should still be able to get to it with a WiFi connected device.  

It's possible that weather at your gateway is affecting your service.  Bad weather at your gateway can affect your service in the same way as bad weather at your own location.  If you do not know where your gateway is, what do you see for both your Satellite Name and your Beam ID in the Satellite box on the lower right of this page? 

[cherylaoife]

24.1.1 -- Download throttled I understand 'throttled' and the problem isn't that my download is throttled. The problem is that I lose connection completely. Satellite Satellite Name EchoStar-19-NAD Gateway ID 8 Beam ID 55 Outroute ID 1

[GabeU]

@cherylaoife 

Your gateway is in Gilbert, AZ, but the weather there looks fine, so it's not that.  

It's possible that your modem is the problem, but it could also be a number of other things.  The reps will have to run remote diagnostics on your HughesNet equipment in order to determine just what the cause is.  Unfortunately, they're off until Monday.  If you can wait until then I'm sure the reps will be able to help you, but being that it sounds like you can't wait due to the reason for you needing the internet, I'd advise calling 866-347-3292 to get help sooner.  

However, if you have a business account you should call 800-347-3272.  If it is a business account, you'll likely have to get help from the phone reps through that number, as the reps here can only help with residential subscriber issues.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.  😞  

[cherylaoife]

You did fine - thank you very much! I do have a business account, and I don't have phone service where I live. I can't even run a VOIP phone system here, my latency is so bad. (that's another issue entirely, I think) Anyway, since we began this exchange, my connection has remained stable - and connected! First time all day long! Now that I'm too exhausted to do any work.... Thanks again, Gabe!

[GabeU]

@cherylaoife 

You're very welcome.  🙂

Though connection issues would render it useless at the time of the issues, of course, HughesNet does offer their own Voice service.  Regular VOIP service is hit and miss due to the high latency you mentioned, but their Voice service is designed to work with it.  There's something they do with their Voice service that helps to mitigate the negative effects of the latency, though there would still be a small delay while talking to someone.  I don't have their Voice service, personally, so I can't speak for how well it works, though I know a good number of people have it.  

It's just a thought.  

The reps here might still be able to help you, though I'm not really sure.  I know with most things with business accounts they can't, but I have seen them help business account holders in the past, though I can't remember with what issues.  

A couple of other options might be help through chat, or even Twitter.  I can't access business options on HughesNet's page to see if there is chat help for business accounts, but if it's anything like the residential options, you might be able to see what kind of support is available on the MyAccount site.  This is the link to it for residential customers.  With any luck it's the same for you, or it will at least default to a business page.  There's a "Support" header on that site, and hopefully it will show what options are available to you.

Good luck.  I hope you can get it straightened out soon.  🙂  

[cherylaoife]

@GabeU Although I didn't do anything, my connection has been stable since we started our conversation here last night. It may be coincidental but I find that a bit odd and a bit suspicious. In any case, I'm thankful that I can get some work done and my cats are grateful I've stopped yelling and cussing every few minutes. 😉 Cheryl

[maratsade]

Gabe could not have done anything to improve your connection, since he's not an employee and has no access to diagnostic tools, so it's likely that whatever was causing a bad connection stopped happening, so your connection is now better and you and your cats are happy. 🙂

I'd suggest to keep monitoring things, though;  whatever caused the issue may crop up again.  

Good luck!

*I am not a Hughesnet employee or representative. This is a customer-to-customer tech support community, and I am a customer.

[cherylaoife]

I absolutely realize all that. I just found it a wee bit odd that the instability that had been happening all day just suddenly stopped happening. And this is the 2nd time this has happened. The first time, HughesNet tech support said they couldn't find anything wrong. In any case, things are working as they should now.

[maratsade]

Great! I hope it sticks this time. 🙂

[cherylaoife]

It didn't. I lost the signal around 6am PST and it just came back a few minutes ago. It's still intermittent. I was able to get an email to Customer Support and to post here.

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@maratsade wrote:

Great! I hope it sticks this time. 🙂

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[MarkJFine]

I’m just curious, is your dish mounted on a post outside, or is it on the roof?

[cherylaoife]

@MarkJFine Hi Mark, Mounted on a pole outside. This isn't the first time this has happened. I had a brief 'episode' of this a month or so ago. It seemed to clear up on its own. I did contact Customer Support who ran tests and couldn't find a problem. They wanted me to call, which I couldn't do and told them so. They never responded after that and the problem seemed to clear up. Until yesterday morning.

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@MarkJFine wrote:
I’m just curious, is your dish mounted on a post outside, or is it on the roof?

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[maratsade]

I'm not sure how much, if anything, the reps on this site can do for you, because this site is for residential accounts only, so the reps have little access to the business side.   But they may be able to do something this coming week.  

EDIT:  do you have access to a cellular phone? 

[cherylaoife]

@maratsade I get that. It's just nice to be able to chat with you all about it because I'm totally frustrated otherwise. Accounts are one thing and technical issues with equipment are another. It still seems to me that the modem is the issue, based on the way all the lights kept going off and on and flashing, etc. I was able to get an email submitted to Customer Support, so I'm hoping I'll get a useful response. And I do have connectivity at the moment.

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@maratsade wrote:

I'm not sure how much, if anything, the reps on this site can do for you, because this site is for residential accounts only, so the reps have little access to the business side.   But they may be able to do something this coming week.  

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[maratsade]

You're welcome to post here, Cheryl.  No problem at all, and anyone who can help will help as much as they can, no worries. 

Do you have any cell phone access where you're at?  

[cherylaoife]

@maratsade I do have a cell phone but reception here is very poor and is mostly useless except for texting and emails.

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@maratsade wrote:

You're welcome to post here, Cheryl.  No problem at all, and anyone who can help will help as much as they can, no worries. 

Do you have any cell phone access where you're at?  

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[maratsade]

@cherylaoife 

Not sure if you want to reveal this, and it's fine if you don't want to say, but I'm curious: what state are you in? 

[cherylaoife]

@maratsade California. In a rural area in a rural county. Our county has 18000 population. Yes, you read that right - 18 thousand in our entire county. Yosemite National Park in is our county too. Our county Board of Supervisors are not too interested in bringing the county into the 21st century. It would be nice if we could just get to the 20th century.

[maratsade]

Wow.  I think I know what county you're in.  Too bad the county's so against bringing tech; in this day and age that's silly and I imagine it can be dangerous too. 

[GabeU]

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@cherylaoife wrote:
It still seems to me that the modem is the issue, based on the way all the lights kept going off and on and flashing, etc. 

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The lights react to issues that aren't related to the modem, as well.  Though it may very well be the modem, when there's a problem with such it's normally continual.  I don't mean continual as in constant, but rather not intermittent.  But, anything is possible.  Hopefully you'll get a response to your email and they'll be able to figure out what's going on.