About mweasner

For those who have followed this and other threads about the ftp and other issues with HughesNet service that I began experiencing in December 2018, here is the latest update.   Unfortunately, the problems with ftp connections and other Internet protocols have continued when using HughesNet. I successfully migrated Internet access to a local LTE service and am seeing 4X greater download speed than was possible with HughesNet and greater reliability with no ftp or other issues. Consequently, after being a HughesNet customer for nearly seven years, I will be leaving HughesNet. The first five years HughesNet was a good service for my purposes, so I thank HughesNet for being available in 2013 when I needed it to get off the slow DSL here (0.8 Mbps). I will be contacting HughesNet soon to cancel the service.   Many thanks to everyone on the Forum who offered troubleshooting tips and recommendations.   Stay safe everyone. Mike ... View more

Sometimes it seems as if some things have improved.  But today it seems worse again with iCloud activity (mail, calendar).  Several days ago I disabled Web Acceleration to see if that made any long term difference.  As of now, hard to say what will work and how long it work...  ftp is still hit-n-miss as well. ... View more

We can thank the HughesNet installer for that.  The DirecTV dish was installed in 2009 by DirecTV.  The HughesNet dish in 2013.  HughesNet service was upgraded to Gen5 when that became available, whatever year that was.  The first Gen5 modem suffered from a faulty Wi-Fi radio, like many of the earlier ones.  Of course, the problems did not start until December 2018. ... View more

Just to prove my point about there being no obstructions to the dish line-of-sight to the satellite, I have posted a fisheye lens photo of the HughesNet and DirecTV dishes and the sky.  North is at the bottom and the southern horizon is just out of the frame at the top.   ... View more

About a month after I began reporting the issue in Dec 2018, HughesNet did send a technician to check things out.  He replaced the modem AND the dish electronics since he was seeing errors on the connection.  With the new equipment he said there were no errors and the connection worked as it should.  A few minutes after he left the issue returned.  But that is the way it was before he replaced the equipment and after the replacements.  Sometimes everything works fine and other times everything fails.  Mostly fails, actually.   For those who might be wondering, there are no trees, branches, or any obstructions beside or above the dish.  The dish has a clear line-of-sight to the satellite.  I'm at latitude 32 degrees North. ... View more

I have done that several times over the past 15 months.  I have a hard time believing that the problem is local. But I will throw out one other thought.  I am not an RF engineer so I don't know how likely or not this could be.  The HughesNet installer in 2013 put the dish right next to the DirecTV dish.  I doubt there is any RF interference as the problem didn't start until December 2018.  But... ... View more

The problems I have been seeing seemed to have started with modem firmware update in December 2018.  So I suspect the root of the problem lies at the core of the HughesNet system and not at my location or with my computers and devices.  With the complete failure of ftp this morning I wonder if the most recent HughesNet update had ftp capabilities deleted.  I know of some coders who when faced with a bug they can't fix they delete the feature experiencing the bug.  I'm not saying that HughesNet did that but it does make one wonder.  I only suggest that a knowledgeable tech from HughesNet come to my location (post COVID-19) to log everything that is happening with my connection.  I suppose they could do that remotely but we would have to coordinate that activity and protect my private data (accounts, passwords, etc.). ... View more

The saga situation deteriorates even further.  Last night I wanted to update my Apple Watch to the latest OS.  The iPhone could not see the Watch on the HughesNet Wi-Fi network yet both were connected to Wi-Fi.  iPhone on 5G Wi-Fi and Watch on 2G Wi-Fi.  Never had a problem before doing updates with them on separate Wi-Fi networks.  Switched the iPhone to 2G and the Watch update proceeded.  Early this morning I decided to power cycle the HughesNet modem.  BIG MISTAKE!  Now none of my security cameras will connect to my ftp server to upload a 30 KB image file every 15 minutes.  I can see the cameras on the local network so they are connected to Ethernet or Wi-Fi 2G as they always have been.  I restarted the cameras.  They still can not connect.  I started the macOS update.  It failed after downloading about 100 MB.  I restarted the update download and it failed again.  I was finally able to complete the download and update to the latest macOS using the AT&T LTE hotspot.  I rebooted the HughesNet modem but the cameras still can not connect.  Maybe that HughesNet update that was mentioned a few weeks ago was finally applied on my modem and it permanently broke ftp and more.   Once the COVID-19 situation gets resolved we will be replacing HughesNet, unless it dramatically improves in the interim.  Many thanks to all the people who tried to help over the past 15 months since the HughesNet problems started.  I wish their efforts had been successful.   Be safe everyone.   Mike ... View more

It has been many years since I'd changed the notifications so I assumed that HughesNet Notifications would be for HughesNet notifications.  Silly me.   Thanks for the tip.  Done. ... View more

Since I can not get my Hughes.net email reliably I decided I had better change the Community Forum email address used for notifications to a non-Hughesnet address.  When I log into MyHughesNet and click Account: Notifications I get the " Something went wrong. Please try again, or contact customer care if you receive this message again." error.  Sheesh, I can't even change notifications.  Such is life for me on HughesNet.     I have to wonder why I'm paying a premium price for the top-tier service when I have been getting less than premium service since December 2018... ... View more

In my efforts to troubleshooting the HughesNet connection issues, I decided to try the Microsoft Outlook email client.  I entered the email settings from the HughesNet Knowledge Base (http://customer.kb.hughesnet.com/Pages/7014.aspx).  Outlook connected once, retrieved and sent email OK.  The second time I tried it failed to connect.  Now like other Internet protocols, sometimes it works and sometimes it fails.   I then logged into my.hughesnet.com to check my account.  When I click on the Account Information tab it says " Something went wrong. Please try again, or contact customer care if you receive this message again."  at the top.  The Billing Detail Information does show my correct billing information.  Now I wonder if my HughesNet account has somehow become corrupted AT HUGHESNET.  I have been seeing this same error over the past few days when trying to troubleshoot the connection issues but rarely checked it over the past 6+ years so I don't know when this account information error began.   The saga that began in December 2018 continues... ... View more

I have no idea if any grease was used during the original installation in 2013 or when another installer came out after Gen5 was available.  At my age I'm not about to climb up onto the roof to check. ... View more

The computers (two, Ethernet connected) and handheld Wi-FI devices that have been experiencing unreliability with HughesNet Internet access since December 2018 (yes, 2018) have been restarted multiple times.  The modem has been frequently restarted.  I last manually restarted the modem in early February 2020 to see if that would help some severe connection issues that had started happening; it did not.  I have been waiting to see if the modem automatically restarts for a firmware update, which may or may not appear, although an upgrade was mentioned in this thread sometime back.  The modem and dish electronics were replaced in early 2019.  The same devices connect reliably to the Internet when using AT&T LTE instead of HughesNet.  There are no obstructions to the satellite line-of-sight.  I live in a rural area on 3 acres of land.  There are no trees near the house where the dish is on the roof.     The problem is NOT on my end.  And it can not be blamed on Internet overloading due to increased Internet demand resulting from COVID-19 since the issues began over a year ago.   I can see one possible cause of the problem at my location. When the system was installed in 2013 the installer did not place the coax cable in a weather protected conduit.  So the dish connection and the cable are exposed to the elements.  I will allow an experienced HughesNet engineer to visit my location as long as that engineer comes prepared to fully troubleshoot the problem, correct any original installation errors, and perhaps point the dish at a different satellite if one is visible from here. ... View more

Earlier today I successfully changed the password for one of my HughesNet email accounts.  The Mac Mail app was able to log in with the new password several times over a period of a few hours.  But then just a few minutes ago the app could not log into that account, nor any of the HughesNet email accounts.  Such is our life on the Internet using HughesNet. ... View more

Logging into HughesNet web mail is sluggish but it does work.  I suspect the client app is timing out due to the login delay.  And the same thing happens when logging into my ftp server; it times out more often than it is successful.  But that's not the only issue with the ftp server.  Usually when it fails it is because the domain name can not be resolved, which sounds like the routing issue on the Internet.  I guess if that times out, domain resolution will fail.  So if some routing server on the Internet is expecting low latency, it will fail more often with geosync satellites. ... View more

I don't know how or even if  this issue is related to all the other issues, but in the last few days logging into my HughesNet hosted email accounts has been problematic from my Mac using the macOS 10.15.3 Mail program.  Even getting logged in via a web browser is sluggish.  All will work well with HughesNet email but then the password stops working.  I re-enter the passwords for these accounts and they may or may not be rejected.  Once they work they will work for hours or minutes before failing again.   If I believed in conspiracy theories I would start to think that some routing server on the Internet doesn't like HughesNet (or geosynchronous satellites in general).  But seriously, I do wonder whether routing servers updates since Dec 2018 have assumed that latency is well under that experienced with geosync satellites.  I know one developer who made that assumption several years ago until I pointed out the error in his thinking.  If this is the case it will lend more support for the LEO megaconstellations like SpaceX Starlink. As an astronomer I am not thrilled with Starlink right now, but it may become the only viable solution for Internet connectivity in many parts of the world, including the USA. ... View more

Thanks again Liz.  I had already done that test and it didn't make any difference.  So unless there has been a specific change to address the issues with various protocols (ftp, IMAP, etc) there won't be much point to repeating the test unless they want to screen share with me to see the issues in action.  Of course, for a real valid test I invite the engineering team to come to my location with both a Mac and Windows computer to do their own testing. ... View more

Thanks Liz.  My ftp server is not a public one.  It is hosted by Network Solutions.  However, while the ftp issues were the first to appear (mid-December 2018), it was only the beginning of issues that possibly resulted from the modem firmware update that was applied about that same time.  In 2019 the issues began hitting various iCloud.com services (which Apple Inc. controls, not me).  If Engineering would like to do a screen sharing session with me (like Apple has done) we can schedule a time to do that.  Of course, since the problems are hit-n-miss a screen sharing session may or may not demonstrate the issues. ... View more

Liz, so far no improvement in IMAP email (still can take several minutes for a simple text-only email message to download) and no improvement in ftp (which still fails to connect when I try to reach my ftp server or dies in the middle of an ftp download or upload after getting a successful connection).  Haven't yet seen any automatic restart of the modem due to a firmware update. ... View more

Thanks Liz.  And thanks to the Engineering Team for working it.  I will let you know if I see any improvements.  As yet my modem is not showing any " Rebooted due to software upgrade" this month.  Does this firmware update need to have the modem rebooted? ... View more

When HughesNet is not working reliably to get ftp, email, or calendar connections we do connect our iPhones to use their LTE Hotspot connections.  So we know that works well and much faster than HughesNet (sorry, HughesNet).  AT&T is rolling out some new Unlimited plans that include Mobile Hotspot data and they have a device that supposedly can provide network connections to both Wi-Fi and Ethernet connected devices. ... View more

Some moderately good news, but some really bad news as well. ftp connections have become somewhat more reliable in the past two weeks, however, they are still a long ways from the 100% reliable that they were prior to 15 December 2018 (yes, ftp has been unreliable for over a year). The bad news is that IMAP mac.com simple, short, text only email messages can take minutes to download on Ethernet connected computers and Wi-Fi connected handheld devices. Even HughesNet POP email is unreliable with frequent re-login requests (that can fail). And iCloud.com calendar access has now become hit-n-miss. After over a year of frustrations with the deteriorating services the wife is seriously considering dropping HughesNet as we do not see the same problems when using our local cell LTE service. Mike ... View more

Liz, thanks again for trying to get the HughesNet issues resolved.  For about a 24 hour period last Wednesday (13 Nov) and Thursday (14 Nov) it looked like things had been fixed.  ftp connections worked, and email and web sites page loading seemed more reliable.  But then things became hit-n-miss again. ftp was mostly a fail. The good news is that downloading the MacOS Catalina update (8 GB) this morning worked well.  The file downloaded in 30 minutes and the install went OK.  That compares to the previous attempt back in October where the download stalled and then continued.  The file was apparently corrupted and killed the computer that was being updated.  I had to restore the hard disk using a full backup.  Not fun.  So, we are not yet there where everything is reliable.  Again, I have to point out that these problems seem to have begun in mid-December 2018 when there was a modem update. ... View more

Liz,   Thanks for hanging in there for me! Good to hear that maybe the issues have been resolved.  Will see how it goes from my end.  I'll let you know.   Mike ... View more

GabeU, good catch. I did misread that. However, one of the handheld 5G devices is generally within 10 feet of the modem with a strong signal and it still experiences the same problems as the wired devices. Liz, thanks for wanting more info. Have power cycled the modem and devices. No change. Any web URL can suffer the delays/stalls. Any software download site can experience the delays/stalls/fails whether via a web browser or the in-app downloads. Have tried disabling Web Acceleration; no difference. Happens in Safari and Firefox (always the latest versions) on multiple devices. Clearing the cache never made any difference. These issues are frequent, but there are times when there are no issues. And in case you're wondering, there are no line-of-sight obstructions between the dish and the satellite (unless some other satellite is in the way). Mike ... View more

Liz, thanks for the troubleshooting diagnostic. Unfortunately, it is in error. The West and North devices are NOT 5G capable and so are connected via 2.4G. Perhaps that's an indicator of something wrong with the modem. Of course, this is the second modem since I first reported the December 2018 problem so it doesn't seem likely that the modem is at fault (although its firmware might be). If you want to concentrate on a specific device use "Mike's iMac". It is on a wired connection (Cat-6 cable). It is the main computer that experiences the ftp issue and other frequent issues. It doesn't matter whether it is wired or on the Wi-Fi 5G network. Mike ... View more

Degradation continues. Can not even stream the audio from Apple's earnings broadcast today. Too many frequent stalls. Outgoing emails delayed by up to an hour, incoming emails slow to load. Seems odd for the top-tier HughesNet service. ... View more