Well, that went well...

My shiny new fibre optic Livebox is blinking a white light. This is not good.

It happened after a brownout. I restarted it, same thing.

So I called the customer service and got to speak to somebody who had me reset it, but that didn’t help. And I’m thinking that it claims to save it’s configuration “in the cloud” but there seems to be no obvious way to manually save or restore that. Will I need to set everything up again?

Anyway, the exchange thinks everything is okay, the Livebox thinks the fibre cable is unplugged (it isn’t).

Eventually the man says that they recently pushed out an update and it seems as if some boxes don’t come back on a reboot. That’s bad for me as brownouts are common (why d’you think my previous box was hooked to a little UPS?), and guys, testing? Hello?

I’ll pick up a replacement on Thursday afternoon.

<sigh>

(I’m standing outside in the rain to write this on 4G)

If it’s just a “white light” (no text?) then it sounds like the equivalent of “something went wrong”.

Mine looks like this, and normally has “power”, “optical” and “LAN1” lit.

The text says “the fibre cable isn’t plugged in” (it is, it hasn’t been changed since when it was working).

Annoyingly as far as I’m aware there’s no way to tell if the Livebox is duff or the connection is duff. In the ADSL days you could hook a multimeter to the line and if -48V wasn’t there you’d know it was the line (and external), but what are you to do with a tiny dot of non-visible laser?

I hope that changing the box fixes it, but I can’t help but think we’re running through a generic checklist…

In the ADSL days you could hook a multimeter to the line and if -48V wasn’t there you’d know it was the line (and external), but what are you to do with a tiny dot of non-visible laser?

Well, if it was one of my¹ dark fibre lines across site I’d stick a loop on one end and then check that a TDR: works and “see’s” double the normal distance (497 metres from one DC to the other² for example)
I suppose the ISP could supply little loopback connectors, but ham-fisted customers might break the fibre on a fly lead or get dust/dirt into a socket on a panel.

¹ My plan to run them in, my plan to install 4 times the number people thought we needed (and we used all within 24 months) and well, it’s just “mine” all mine, mine, precious…

The text says “the fibre cable isn’t plugged in” (it is, it hasn’t been changed since when it was working).

Probably it’s way of saying “help, someone turned out the light”

I know there was some magical way the exchange could ping signals down twisted pair to estimate roughly where a line was broken.
Is such a thing possible with fibre? If my Livebox is physically connected, there ought to be some sort of reflection? Or doesn’t it work like that?

Unfortunately the automatic diagnosis said either my Livebox is broken or it isn’t plugged in. There’s a difference, especially when it is plugged in.

Yes, there are optical TDRs too. fun is, working out where the break is. Once had a break in the copper overhead – OpenReach engineer with TDR at the house end goes “do you know where 930m down the line is, exactly?”

OpenReach engineer with TDR at the house end goes “do you know where 930m down the line is, exactly?”

Follow the overheads, or duct run and pace out. There’s a margin of error in the pacing, and also in the TDR.
Worst case scenario, your pacing out gives a point very near an access pit or a pole and therefore the break could be either side, and therefore you have two spans to check.
Did that with a fibre run where a measuring wheel “pacing” it out and down a floor identified that it was extremely likely that the fire stopping contractors had damaged one fibre in a 16 core cable that was part of a super bundle of 30+

Choice: Cut all fibres either side of the expected break point and splice in new for all of them – on a live fibre set, in a hospital; or say sod this for a game of soldiers and get a quote for a new 16 core and pass the cost to the fire stopping contractors.

Unfortunately the automatic diagnosis said either my Livebox is broken or it isn’t plugged in

Or option 3 the continuous fibre strand from the last powered optical transmitter to your premise is now discontinuous.
Or option 4 the transmit component at their end has failed, and they don’t have built in diagnostics in that model of transceiver.

I have a shiny new Livebox that looks just like the previous one. Only this time it is made by Sagemcom rather than Sercomm (and apparently both are full of Broadcom, so I’m guessing ARM?).

And… it is blinking the little white light and telling me the cable isn’t plugged it. It is, I clicked it in place. And again just to be sure.

And just as a possible maybe, I tried looking at the output of the wall box with the selfie camera of an old phone and nothing showed up. Even if it wasn’t possible to “see” the light (though selfie cameras tend to have less IR filtering), you’d have thought a light source like that might have some effect, even if it’s blowing a few pixels.

So there’s an engineer coming on Saturday afternoon to take a look. Luckily the call was being recorded as he said ignore the message about paying for the visit, it is free.

Well, there’s maybe a vide grenier un the morning if the weather holds out, then this in the afternoon.

Speaking of weather, the département of Mayenne is on RED alert right now (thunderstorms, torrential rain). Mayenne is just a little way over there and I can hear the sky rumbling so hard it’s as if the air is shaking. Here we go again…

Oh, and I was planning on getting up early to watch the solstice sunrise. Technically the solstice happens today at 10.50pm, but I’d watch the sunrise tomorrow (as it’s the closest). But, yeah, if I’m into the whole wetlook thing and risk of being electrocuted, great. But I think I’ll just stay in. Not going to be good this year.

As for the endless thunderstorms and flooding (see my most recent YouTube upload), I think it’s because there’s a high altitude depression with cold air that’s messing with things. And thanks to us breaking the weather, such events seem to be more intense.

So, yeah. Rewind, replay, repeat… :(

Erm… just remembering my own stupidity… did you try another cable?

One cable comes with the box. The previous one was returned when I picked up the replacement.

Plus, it doesn’t explain why it was working and then it wasn’t. My pet theory is that the brownout messed with something at the exchange.

The “ensure the cable is plugged in” diagnostic isn’t terribly helpful as it appears that it doesn’t say much else other than that. Maybe the exchange isn’t responding because it has ‘forgotten’ the ONT reference? Maybe the laser got toasted? Maybe too many sparrows were sitting on the line at that exact moment? Maybe it wasn’t a brownout but a localised singularity in which my universe is ever so slightly off from everybody else’s? ¹

I guess I’ll know more (and hopefully have a functioning service) on Saturday.

It just seems strange, to me, that this seemed to coincide exactly with the brownout. I can say exactly with confidence as I was watching a YouTube video on Betelgeuse’s odd behaviour.

¹ Arguably no change there…

Holy What The Actual…

Thunderstorm passed. Epic rain. And I don’t mean that as hyperbole. I think half the neighbour’s field has washed into his other field.
It’s pouring over the access lane by the pond, literally up to the tops of my wellies.

There’s a bit of water in the cave as that’s the lowest part of the building (it’s a dark dank room with a beaten earth floor, if John is reading I’ll let him explain what it is for).

My access lane? A good chunk of it is underwater. There’s a river there and it sometimes overflows in wet winters, but I’ve never in all the time I’ve been here seen that. If it’s still like that tomorrow I’m not going to work.
The road at the top of the access lane? Water pouring over it. There’s an ancient stone bridge underneath, I hope it holds. I’ve never seen that either.
Looking the other way, a sizeable chunk of my neighbour’s wheat crop is now a raging torrent. Thankfully lower than I am.

So a bit of water in the cave? No big deal. I mean, imagine where all that water came from (it’s not like it’s that hilly around here) and what poor bastard it’s gone to next. I think I got off lightly.

So, yeah, when Météo France says the département next door (a stone’s throw away) is on red alert for flooding, they weren’t joking.

Got no broadband (as this topic is about) but did get pictures and some video. I’ll blogify it, just not sure when or when I’ll be able to….

….okay, I’m standing up against the door to try to get 4G and a wren just crashed into the window, cheeped at me a few times and flew off. I have a horrible suspicion that it’s nest may have suffered an unfortunate mishap….

….upload it.

But, yeah, today, it fully earned it’s WTaF rating.

I’m hungry.

Once had a wren nest in the side of a hanging basket.

Anne checked with RSPB that it was still OK to water!

Bloody hell!

So a guy came out to unblock the drain around back. Unfortunately the driveway around it is higher than the floor of the cave, so it needed to be unblocked so it would drain properly.

He rigged up a Karcher and a little spray attachment and shoved that down the pipe for a while. It did the job, more or less. Water now does out. Looks like it was leaves and stuff that blocked it up.

He then handed me a bill for €1430. So much for coming out, so much for doing it, double because it was the evening, and tax.

Bloody hell. If I had known it just needed one of those shoved down it, I could have done it myself.

So, I guess then, new mower next year.

Lesson learned – have more confidence in myself, try more options before giving up and getting “a professional” to do the job.

This month, getting stuff done, has dented my savings by 2K (between that and the tree work). The sad thing? Poor tree guy only got €600 and it would have taken hours. This guy took about half an hour (but charging was per hour). What I just paid is pretty much my monthly salary. I guess I should’ve been a plumber…

Perhaps you should blame Brexic for the high price :-))

I’m not sure what relevance Brexit has to this…?

I know it’s a big issue in the UK and the main parties are refusing to mention the politically explosive topic, it’s only the Putin apologist that is trying to claim that it would have worked if he’d been PM…

…but over on this side of The Channel / Le Manche it’s a non entity. Sure, everybody was shocked that the UK actually went ahead when it, and it was troubling, but it’s done and you’ve gone and life moves on and… the UK is only mentioned when they’re talking about the Royal Family (who seem quite popular over here, quite ironic given what the Frenchies did with theirs).

So the fact that I was charged an arm and a leg and both kidneys to have a guy come and do something I could have done myself? Nothing to do with Brexit…

It seems that people in Ukraine are sort of split between tiffing their cap to Russia or to the EU :-(

It seems that people in Ukraine are sort of split

Choices, choices.
Go with the group that offers easy trade in the direction the goods have been going for years, free movement of people, basic human rights
or
Go with the megalomaniac whose dissenters come over all sick with strange chemicals or fall out of windows.

Difficult one that.

Harder choice is whether to fight for what you believe is right, or try to survive.

‘Go with the megalomaniac’

Didn’t think the EU was that bad :-((

It seems that people in the Ukraine are sort of split between tiffing their cap to Russia or to the EU :-(

There. Fixed that for you.

Context: Listened to the radio news this morning. The LibDem guy thinks well rejoin the single market ¹ and Putin-apologist Farage was gloating about how he predicted this war ages ago, and it’s our fault because the expansion of the EU was threatening Russia’s manhood.

¹ First huge hurdle – while Brexit is a big thing in the UK to the point where the two main parties try to avoid acknowledging it – it’s pretty much a non issue here. You voted to leave, you left, the end. Returning will be a long and complex process and, well, given past behaviour I don’t imagine anybody this side will be in any hurry…

…well, given past behaviour I don’t imagine anybody this side will be in any hurry…

Unless the UK manages to disunite, when all the bits except England would probably be very welcome. Various anybodies have already said so.

The Scots seem to want to milk the EU cow :-/

Better than the disinterested English milking the Scots, no?