vmg8924-B10A and ZTE MF823 4G dongle

arbitrary

My voodoofone VDSL service died and I'm trying to use a ZTE MF823 4G dongle until they can be bothered to get OpenReach out and get the phone line and VDSL service working again. My router was running 1.00(AAKL.18)C0 firmware and v1.16 of the 3G firmware. I updated to 1.00(AAKL.28)C0 and v1.18 and plugged in my dongle and it works sporadically. The issue is that Wifi devices now periodically lose their connections and when I go to manually reconnect them the SSID of the router isn't even visible. A few minutes later it is visible again and I can reconnect. For the moment I have disabled the 5GHz channel. The 2.4GHx channel is set to auto and is on channel 8.

I'm thinking that either the firmware upgrade caused the problem or that the dongle is creating interference.

Any advice or similar experiences would be appreciated.


#SP_Jun_2019

arbitrary

A bit more info - the next time this happened I checked the router's lights. The power light was flashing and the LAN light was flickering. No other lights illuminated. Eventually the power light came on solid and the internet access light came on. Looks as though the router is spontaneously rebooting.

Hikari

Hi arbitrary 

I saw your description and has some quesitons wants to know the checkpoint:

1. May I ask your help if you can try a factory reset? It would force the router to load AAKL28 config. It has more than one year between AAKL18C0 and AAKL28, wants to make sure AAKL28 FW is OK or not.

2. When does the strange symptom start to happen? Happened directly when AAKL18C0 + ZTE dongle? or happened after FW upgrade to AAKL28C0 + ZTE dongle? 

3. If there's no dongle on a USB port, will LAN or Wi-Fi function working OK? 

arbitrary

Thanks for your post. Answers to your questions are as follows:

1. I have since done a factory reset using the button on the back of the unit and I have also reverted back to AAKL18C0 firmware; the problem seems unchanged.

2. Unfortunately when my VDSL service died I never tried the 3G dongle with the 18C0 firmware; I updated the firmware and installed the dongle at the same time.

3. I can remove the dongle but the vast majority of my use of my home LAN is for internet access so without the dongle the LAN is of limited value. But will try it.

arbitrary

Pretty sure the unit is now dead. I can no longer connect to it via wifi and when I perform a hard reset the power light goes to solid red which indicates a fault. I can power it off and then back on and the power light goes to green but still doesn't work on wifi.

Will try to connect via a cable but not holding out much hope.

Hikari

Hi arbitrary 

One more question, the sporadically Wi-Fi issue only happened when using 5G SSID?

If yes, please help to find a LAN cable and access CPE inform us which Wi-Fi channel VMG8924 was in using when issue happening. 

When performing the reset action, it needs to long click the reset button until the power LED blinking RED, then CPE will reboot it again. Then please help to login device GUI with the default setting.

Note: Tese 3 - remove dongle, used to check if symptom "spontaneously rebooting" you mentioned would still happen if yes, means only FW running would cause the problem, if no, means it is something from outside triggered the symptom happens. 

arbitrary

I generally use the 2.4 GHz channel.

i have held the reset button down for as long as 30 seconds and the power light just stays solid red. The reset function no longer works as it used to.

Hikari

Hi arbitrary

No longer works as it used to means??  
Does the device still can boot up and running now? if yes, we can continue to see LAN cable connection status. If the device always keeps in Power LED light up as RED, may need your help to connect with local ISP to change another device back.