BT Home hub wireless IP address problem

tomstickland

I went round to try and sort out a network problem at my parent's house tonight. They can't access the internet from a laptop. It stopped working last week.

It appears that the problem is the hub will not assign an IP address to the laptop. The laptop recognises and connects to the hub. The hub lists the laptop is being connected to it.

I've tried loads of things including manually setting the DNS server and IP addresses, running ipconfig and pretty much every combination of configurations and software.

At one point the error was "cannot clear DNS cache".

Generally the error messages are "the connection may not work" "there is limited connectivity"
detail view shows up "cannot assign IP address"

I'm a bit stuck as to what to do next. I'm starting to think that the hub might have a problem.

tomstickland

I found this via google

As something in the Home Hub has been screwed up, I suggest you do a 'factory reset'. On the back of the HH is a Button marked Wireless Association. Press and hold it for 15 seconds. The HH will reset to factory settings and reboot. Then you will be able to get at it with 192.168.1.254

tomsolomon

Loads of people are having this exact same problem. Me being one of them. This is the third post tonight. I have scoured the internet for a solution but as yet have not found one, everyone seems to have an opinion, and some have found fixes, but the general consensus is that nobody at present realy knows what the cause is...

tomstickland

From what I've read it looks like home hub automatically receives firmware updates. If so, could this be why it's suddenly stopped working?


I did find this though via Google:

Yesterday I spent a wonderful 3 hours using the BT Broadband help to
"chat" to BT Broadband support.

What a waste of time they were.

Problem was my wireless laptop was not getting an IP address from the
BT HomeHub.
Immediately before turning on the HomeHub, the laptop was working fine
on a netgear wireless router and I had another PC connected over
ethernet to the BT hub that was working fine.

Would they read and understand what I was telling them - would they
hell.

I must have "chatted" to 5 or 6 different people, starting from scratch
each time. At the end all they could suggest was to phone the BT
Broadband 0845 support number.

After another half-hour talking to a real person it turns out the Hub
doesn't work if you aren't using the Windows zero-config software to
drive the wireless adaptor. Is this a piece of crap or what!

Agree totally about the lack of technical information. Before I ordered
the hub I phoned the support guys to ask whether you could change the
SSID & WEP key and if you could setup an ACL based on MAC addresses and
was told that it was all possible as this was a "top router".
Yes these things can be done but there doesn't seem to be any
documentation and the interface seems anything but intuitive.

All-in-all not very impressed especially with the support.

I intend to lodge an official complaint but I don't expect to get
anything other than a meely-mouthed apology.

albertross_2

have you tried pairing it again, and re-entering the encryption key?

tomstickland

Also found this:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/networking-forum/cabling-network-cards/166616-unable-assign-network-address-bt-home-hub.html

Re: unable to assign network address on bt home hub?
Turn off the computer and the hub.

Turn on the hub, wait for a steady connect light.

Turn on the computer.

If you're still not connected, please do this repair.

TCP/IP stack repair options for use with Windows XP with SP2.

For these commands, Start, Run, CMD to open a command prompt.

Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: netsh winsock reset catalog

Reset TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. netsh int ip reset reset.log

Reboot the machine.



I'd then like to see this:

Start, Run, CMD to open a command prompt:

Type the following command:

IPCONFIG /ALL

Part of the problem I've discovered is that there are 3 parallel software options for configuring the network connection.
But the answer must be to use "wireless zero config".

tomstickland

albertross wrote: »

have you tried pairing it again, and re-entering the encryption key?

I've entered the encryption about 100 times tonight.

What do you mean by "pairing"?

tomstickland

Looks like the problem is hub related:

Hi All,

I have a BT Home Hub and similar to many other users, I am finding that
since a BT delivered firmware upgrade, my work laptop (A Toshiba Tablet
running XP Pro) fails to connect wirelessly - it's ok if I hard wire.

Another PC in the house with a Belkin wireless card does not have the same
problem and has coped with the firmware upgrade without difficulty.

A fix is that I reset the home hub, but that involves reconfiguring etc, as
nearly all the configuration is lost and it can't saved previously. Yeh, I
know, crap isn't it!

I can't help but think that this is something that I should be able to
resolve at the laptop, but can't spot it.

Any ideas?

Cheers.
Bill.

As I mentioned some upgrade/update can by a pain in the!!!, compatibility,
buggy or a corrupt upgrade can occur. So, your best option is to uninstall
the Software and then run a scan for malware, viruses to make sure nothing
interfering, then run disk clean and try the installation from the original
Set Up CD.
If you don't have it you can call BT to send you order it from them.

albertross_2

See page 17, wireless association button.. (not sure if this is just for the phone, or the laptop!)

http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/homehub.html

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumer/consumerProducts/pdf/support/userguides/Guide_BT_Home_Hub.pdf

tomstickland

OK, also found this:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=368927

I agree , I run the home hub here without any of the bundled software,do configuration via wireless connection

to make sure that it has the latest firmware on the hub go here

http://www.btopenworld.com/drivers

this one

BT Home Hub firmware recovery tool


it updates to the latest version , guide on how to do it here

http://www.davidmillington.net/news/...s_update_guide

used it myself to repair a spare "dead" one that they replaced

tomstickland

albertross wrote: »

See page 17, wireless association button.. (not sure if this is just for the phone, or the laptop!)



http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumer/consumerProducts/pdf/support/userguides/Guide_BT_Home_Hub.pdf

That'll be the restart button then.

Plenty of ideas are emerging.
Am I correct in thinking that the problem is a hub problem, possibly caused by an automatic update?