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I've been without service for a month.

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herbdhall
New Member

I've been without service for a month.

I had really poor service for 3-4 months. Lots of trouble with SSL and DNS errors, sometimes running the troubleshooter and resetting the turbo page helped, sometimes rebooting the modem, sometimes it sucked for days and then got better.  About a month ago I was having trouble getting anything to connect. I tried all the usual stuff, and ended up cycling the power to the modem. When is came back up I could not connect. The top and bottom lights are on and the system and receive lights flash some but the send never lights up and it just cycles. I called support and was told I would have to pay for repairs. I lease the hardware, not own, so they offered to upgrade to GEN4. I don't want it. For $125 they will send a tech to repair. I don't like it but but I pay. Wait for appointment, take off work, tech is a no call no show. Call support. Tech canceled appointment due to no parts. He doesn't know what's wrong yet? Support says they are ordering parts and rescheduling. Two weeks later a tech come out (6 hours late for appointment), determines the modem is bad, but says he has no parts and will overnight a new modem to me. I already waited two weeks for parts and now he has no parts? It's a week later and I still have no parts. I am without service for a month and continue to get the run around. 
27 REPLIES 27
Chris11
Alum

Hi Herb,

Welcome to the community and thanks for posting. I'll look into this right away. I'm sure you're frustrated, any time without service will be credited to your bill. Once I have more information to go off of I will update you. Stay tuned. 

Thanks,
Chris
herbdhall
New Member

Thanks, My wife called support yesterday and she is waiting at home today for another tech to come out. She was told the modem was not sent as the previous tech had stated it would, because they didn't feel that the modem was the problem, now they think it is the dish. I should have recieved a call! I waited three weeks for the first tech because he didn't have parts. I was told he would have them when he came, but he didn't have any parts. (He did however have the parts to upgrade me to Gen4.) I hope this new tech shows up and is better than the last, and actually has the parts this time.

Honestly, all I keep hearing every time we call is you don't have any parts for the HN9000 but you can sell me a new plan and new GEN4 hardware. I don't care what hardware is used, I lease it from you because I don't want to worry about it. Yes, the Gen4 may be faster, but that isn't the issue for me. I've had Hughesnet for a over 10 years. I am used to the speed and the outages. What I am opposed to is the data limits in the new Plans. (I would upgrade to the Gen4 hardware if I kept my current data plan). I really do not appreciate the fact that your tech tried to tell me the new plans had unlimited night time data to get me to upgrade. It is a flat out lie!

Your best upgrade offer to me on the website is 20 gig per month for 59.99 (10 gig anytime, 10 gig bonus bytes). I currently have a ProPlus plan +IP. (You no longer offer the IP address option, but I don't use that anymore anyway) I get 475 meg per day or about 14 gig per month prime time and unlimited DL Zone (2-7 am) My usage report for 8/31 - 9/18 shows I used 37.8 Gig in 18 days so I average about 2.1 gig per day or 63 gig per month. The new plan's data limits are just not an option for me. I get FAP'ed on a regular basis now. My $79.99 Plan usually costs me $100-$125.00 per month ($10 for IP, $10 for hardware lease, $25 due to buying tokens.) If I had a faster DL speed I would use more data.

Ironically if I go to the website as a new customer I am offered a Plan with 15 gig anytime and 50 gig bonus for only $59.99 (two year discount rate $79.99 regular). I could almost live with 65 gig of data per month given my current usage, but it is not even close to what I really want to use. I don't want a two year commitment to something I do not want as I am working to get enough of my neighbors to signup for Time Warner so they will finish running cable the last few miles out my road.

I don't want sales pitches, or promises, unless you are offering unlimited data and 15 Mbps for $34.99. I just want you to fix your leased hardware according to our service agreement and allow me to continue with my current plan until I can get something better. 
Chris11
Alum

Hello Herb,

After looking through your account I am seeing the scheduled tech visit set for today. Please let me know that someone arrives and is able to repair the service. The last event reported on your account is that the tech did show up. I'll add a 1 month service credit to your account for any inconvenience that this interruption of service has caused. And provide you with some complimentary tokens as well. If you are happy with your current plan I would never suggest to change, especially if you don't see anything for you on Gen 4. Unlimited during the bonus period is pretty sweet. Get back to me soon so I can process everything. Looking forward to your reply.

Thank you,
Chris
herbdhall
New Member

Update:

A Hughesnet tech came to the house today. I was not home, but my wife was there to greet him. He had a company truck, Hughesnet shirt, and showed his ID. Very professional!, The previous tech had none of these. I'm guessing an independent installer???. The new tech thoroughly tested the system and replaced parts on the dish, then re-aligned it because it was not quite right, and updated the receiver as well. I have not been home to try myself, but my wife feels it is working better than it did when new.  

I don't know his name but if the Reps here could find out through a case ID (I don't think this is the latest, but it is one of the Case ID's: 101025412 I had in my email account at work). This Tech was a exactly what we expect in a service tech. My wife said he was courteous, knowledgeable, and determined to ensure that everything was perfect for us. Please commend this tech for his work. He turned a very frustrating experience into a happy conclusion. If this tech had been sent on my first call, I wouldn't have been without service for a month.

Now I just need to see that we are credited for the lost service time.

Thanks
Chris11
Alum

Hello Herb,

Perfect. Glad the tech was able to resolve everything. I will go ahead and add the credits and tokens that I mentioned in my previous post. Thank you for working with us to help address your concerns. Once I've processed everything I will let you know.

Thanks,
Chris
herbdhall
New Member

Thank you!
Chris11
Alum

Hi Herb,

Everything is set. I credited your account $125 based off your most recent payment to us. Also added a token package which you should receive notifications for. Hopefully all of this was able to facilitate your satisfaction. You should be able to verify everything in the support center at http://myhughesnet.com. If you need anything else please let me know.

Thank you,
Chris
herbdhall
New Member

I got an email for a purchase, but it didn't show any details. I will check when I get home. Thank you
herbdhall
New Member

I see the credit and the tokens. Thanks

System seems pretty slow right now. I figured it was offline for a month so I likely have some updates running, but I have my routers bandwidth monitor up and i don't see any traffic except my opening pages. I'll look for the speed test I saw recommended in other posts and try for a few days and see what it looks like.
Chris11
Alum

Hi Herb,

Sounds good. Keep us posted

- Chris
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

Herb,

This is probably what you are referring to with the speed tests.  Just make sure you do the tests with a single device connected directly to the modem with NO ROUTER. 

http://customer.kb.hughesnet.com/Pages/7001.aspx


herbdhall
New Member

I am still having some issues. It seems to me like Latency in the DNS. My download speeds are great, but when I am surfing pages I often get a timeout or no DNS error. sometimes if I just wait the page will load after a minute. Other-times I have to reload the page, sometimes several tries. Once it starts loading the rest of the page is usually really fast. Loading these forums took many tries.It doesn't do it all the time, sometimes it works as expected. I have been using Hughesnet for a long time, so i am pretty familiar with the normal latency. This is much worst than usual. I have seen issues like this before with SSL pages. I had not thought of it till now, so i hadn't been looking. I will try to keep track and see if there is something common with the pages that are especially slow. This site (myhughesnet.com) was really slow and it is HTTPS, so maybe something with that. I was having issues like this off and on before. It got really bad before the hardware failed. I was hoping the new hardware would fix it. It's better that is was a month ago, but not quite right.

I have had the modem freeze three times now. Hughesnet status meter pops up and says it cannot find the modem. Twice it came back after a little while without doing anything. The other time the transmit light was off and the other 4 were on but none of them flashed at all. I left it for 4-5 minutes with no change and then cycled power. I noticed that the the modem was changed, but not the power supply. I will test to make sure the power supply voltages are stable and correct. I have seen many issues caused by bad power supplies in my work.

In the past when I had problems with HTTPS pages, that didn't go away after 10 mins or so,  I found that resetting the turbo page would sometimes fix it for a short time. It hasn't gotten bad enough to try that yet. Pages seem to load, it just takes a long time to get through the DNS lookup and initial page contact. Long enough to time out and error with No DNS or page not found errors on the browser.

I am working with my PC connected direct to the modem. I didn't see ant difference with or without the router. I'm not sure if it matters, but I have an assigned IP from Hughesnet on my modem. I know that isn't common, so maybe it makes a difference. 

http://testmy.net/db/NUSpozL1l


I got the following message trying to submit this message:

This site can’t be reached
community.myhughesnet.com’s server DNS address could not be found.
DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN
Chris11
Alum

Hello Herb,

Are you familiar with how to change your DNS server settings in the modem? Try google and see if you see a difference:

Google Public DNS operates recursive name servers for public use at the followingIP addresses: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 for IPv4 service, as well as 2001:4860:4860::8888 and 2001:4860:4860::8844, for IPv6 access.

Keep me posted on the things mentioned you'll try as well. If anything we can try a replacement modem as well. That was not replaced correct?

- Chris
herbdhall
New Member

The modem is new, it was replaced the other day. It locked up again today. Status meter couldn't find it. The Lan, system, and Power lights were on steady, and the Trans & Receive lights were off. Watched for about 5 mins, no change. Went and got my multi meter. Unplugged the power cable tested the voltage on the pins according to the chart on the power supply. Pins 3,5 were good at 13.5v. Pins 4,8 measured 47.5. That's .5 volts shy of the 48v they are supposed to have. Is that within specs for your modems? Could you send a replacement power supply? (The modem is new but the power supply is old)

 After testing I plugged the power back in and the modem powered up. It seemed like it took a long time (after the modems lights looked like it was done booting) before the status meter could see the modem again, but it did connect and is working right now.
Yesterday I left the System Control Center up on my browser. I noticed several times that there was an error in the main frame of the page (the part that auto refreshes) that said the page took too long to respond. It came up after I refreshed the page. I was direct connected (no router) at the time.

Websites still timeout on the initial contact sometimes, although today I have been waiting when the error shows on the browser and within a minute or so today they have all appeared without refreshing.

I have changed the DNS in the past and it didn't help, but I just changed it to use google. We will see what happens with the page errors. 
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

Herb,

Just a question.  Is this happening with multiple devices, or is it happening with a single device that you use? 

herbdhall
New Member

My wife and granddaughter use an iPad and an Android phone and complain that the internet is slow or not working sometimes, but they don't see any errors, it's just slow or not responding. They only connect through my wireless router so they have been disconnected a lot while I tested with my desktop connected directly to the modem. Several times when they complained I found the status meter on the PC had the error message saying it couldn't find a modem. Sometimes it drops out for a while and comes back, other times after waiting 5-10 mins I reboot the modem (unplug/wait/plug in) and it works. When the Status Meter looses connection, the modem doesn't respond at all. It appeared like it rebooted a few times the first day after it was installed. I figured maybe it was updating the internal software, which would be normal for new hardware. I get the status meter error on my desktop computer with or without the router, and I get the page timeout/no DNS errors with or without the router. I changed to the google DNS yesterday, and although I still had some pages timeout before loading it seemed slightly less than before. I need to test it longer to really be sure though as it works really well some times, and really poorly at others.

The two problems do not seem to be the same issue. That is I don't always have page load errors before the modem locks up/looses ability to communicate and both issues come and go seemingly independent of each other. But I could be wrong, as I have not always been actively using the internet when it failed. The first time I rebooted the modem I thought the plug was not seated fully, but I had it lockup twice after that and it was definitely tight those times. I have also tried different network cables between the modem and the router and computer and trying to ensure they are really well seated after I switch the router in and out. I am confidant that when the Status Meter cannot find the modem that the cables are good. I'm quite sure the modems Ethernet port just stops responding some times and sometimes doesn't recover.

I was hopeful that the low voltage on the power supply could be the cause of the modems Ethernet port dropping out (status meter "no modem errors") and the apparent rebooting/locking up issues. I only tested the voltage for a few seconds as well. I work with building automation systems and have seen many issues with failing power supplies that have fluctuating low voltage, but some hardware is far more tolerant of this sort of thing than others, it's all in the engineering specs... Maybe the modems internal diagnostics can detect and report this sort of thing, I know they have a great deal of info in them. I have not tried to look at all the troubleshooting info on the modem myself. I'm hoping a hughesnet tech can connect with the modem from remote and diagnose the issue.

I'm happy that its working again, even if it has some issues. I'd like to solve the issue with the status meter loosing connection with the modem and the modem locking up first. Once that is stable then maybe the page response/dns issues will be easier to troubleshoot.
Gwalk900
Honorary Alumnus

One thing that comes to mind is a potential IP address conflict between the Hughes modem which is hardwired to 192.168.0.1 and your router.
It is suggested that your router's LAN IP be set to 192.168.1.1 and that DHCP be enabled.
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

It's not likely that a 0.5 volt difference would be causing the problems.  Normally components are pretty reasonable with small drops or raises in voltage, and one of 0.5 volts isn't likely to trigger anything. 

The reason I asked about what devices were having the problems is that I was thinking that it could be a network card issue, but if you are having issues at the same time with other devices it's likely not what I was thinking it could be. 

herbdhall
New Member

I have an old plan with an assigned IP address. The modem has an assigned IP of xxx.xxx.xxx.189 and my router wan port is assigned address xxx.xxx.xxx.190. (My computer gets assigned .190 by the modem when I connect directly to it.) Currently the router (and computer when direct connected) are setup to acquire the address from the modem using DHCP.

The router lan/wireless side is using 192.168.1.1 for the router and issues addresses above 100 with DHCP. I used to use addresses below 100 for assigned IP's on my various project machines. In a former life I worked in IT and had 5-10 systems running at any one time, with various hardware and software configurations, as well as my Desktop gaming system and several laptops. I changed careers, so I really only surf the web a little, check facebook, and play games at home right now. So i don't have anything assigned a static address. Everything is using DHCP and right now it looks like:

WAN
Configuration Type           Connection Type
Automatic Configuration - DHCP  
IP Address                         xxx.xx.108.190 
Subnet Mask                     255.255.255.252 
Gateway                            xxx.xx.108.189 
DNS 1                                192.168.1.1 
DNS 2                                8.8.8.8 
DNS 3                                8.8.4.4 

Active Clients
Hostname                                  IP Address
DIRECTV-HR21-C327A877       192.168.1.107
android-24bff45bee0c84eb       192.168.1.136
CM-ASUS                                  192.168.1.112
DIRECTV-H24-2472BDC9         192.168.1.104
android-619e76ec5370734d     192.168.1.139

Several times when the status meter reported that it couldn't find a modem, i had the computer directly connected to the modem, so there was no chance the router was conflicting. I also left the system control center page up in a browser window while connected directly to the modem. Several times it failed to refresh the page and chrome gave an error that the page didn't respond.

I have a laptop here I don't use often. The weather is really bad tonight, so I am not going to test at all tonight. Although it is working great as i write this, I ordered dinner, my granddaughter is on social media on her phone, and windows is downloading a large update that has used up my data three times and it's working very well. If it clears up tomorrow I will try using my laptop for awhile and see what happens.
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

Herb,

This isn't anything to do with your problem, but I would dump that DirecTV connection.  Connecting DirecTV to Hughesnet is highly advised against.  It can use a lot of data, even when the DirecTV receiver is "off", as it's not really off, but in standby.  The amount of data it can use varies.  If you have a Smart TV that has it's own apps I would use that instead.  DirecTV and Hughesnet do not play well together.