Panic in the DrP household yesterday morning as the router was repeatedly cycling through reboot/connect/reboot/connect…
Heating wasn’t on (NEST thought it was midnight in march) and worst of all…no “Hey Dougie” on the iPad…..

Oh well, back to, like, the dark ages for us for a day. Cold beans, writing on some white ‘paper like’ substance….
I submitted a query on teh plusnet forum, and a few others had had it. Well, it turned out it was the latest Chromecast audio update that now causes the One Hub router to cycle through this process, never actually working.
I’ve unplugged the Chromecasts and all is fine, but now I’m a bit peeved as I’ve 4 chromecasts that have been updated with a bug specific for my router. However, it seems other routers are affected too..

Anyone else had this issue?

I’m not sure what to do – might trial another router, but it seems you can’t ‘retrograde’ teh firmware on chromecasts..
Hmm…

DrP

I hadn’t but my Plusnet has just gone down and I’ve got a Chromecast so I’ll go and pull the plug on the Chromecast and see what happens…

Interesting. I am rather surprised a device like a Chromecast can force the router to reboot, slave/master surely ?

I was surprised too..
But it IS the case.. see here on Google forums.

Not really sure what the next stage is. Some seem to have had teh CCs replaced.

DrP

Boom, the wifi’s back on!

I’ll give it a day or two then cancel the Plusnet engineer call-out.

Coolio…

But now we’re all stuck with chromecast shaped coasters…

DrP

hmmmm, our BT Infinity one went down yesterday AM and after too long on the phone to their call centre they are sending a new router, as ours is cycling through all the colours and not connecting. We have Chromecast audio…

Will try disconnecting the Chromecast tonight

Sounds like a bit of a big problem with your router that a connceted device can bugger it up…

update : mrsiainc was at home so has unplugged the Chromecast Audio from the mains and the hifi….lo and behold, the router goes blue and works perfectly.
Our is a 2 yr old BT Infinity one. We have a new one on the way anyway, so will see if that is any different. Otherwise not sure how to solve if we want to use the chromecast audio, which we use a lot, with Spotify through a nice Denon DAB mini thing…

Isn’t “turn it off and turn back on again” the standard in IT and modern technology??

#IANATechGeek!!

Interesting. Seems to be Sagemcom-derived routers and a particular version of code on the CC’s.

I wonder if its a multicast issue? These are unusual in that they’re set up for BT Sport, and do mcast over dsl to support this. And I am pretty sure that the CCs want to run mcast on the inside too.

curses… MODS – can I rename this thread “DrP will remotely fix your router for £9.99”??

I’ve been chatting to Plusnet -they are trying to replicate the error too to see if they can find the reason.

“Good afternoon, I’m Bradley. How can I help?

hi

since google chromecasts audio updated their firmware yesterday, my router is now going through a constant reboot-shutdown-reboot cycle.

i’ve unplugged the chromecasts and it’s working OK now, but this is a big fault that a wifi coonnected device can crash teh one hub router so easily.

presumably you have had others complain of this recently? What are plusnet planning on doing?
:
Yes this is an issue we have become aware of and have reached out for comment on

i had raised a comment on the forum – that’s how i found out about unplugging the chromecasts.

Yeah we’re trying to replicate it internally with a chromecast and a hub one to find out what it’s requesting from the router that’s crashing it out

It’s like the old USB webcam hack that could shut peoples computers down a few years ago. Basically having to comb through everything that’s changed and try to get the router to just reject whatever is being requested

Or wait for a response from google on them correcting the bad request

i’ve reported it to google – i’ve also orgdered a new chromecast (which I won’t update!) to see if that will work again.

I’m sorry that we don’t currently have a workaround

do you think the answer will come from your side then? if it is an issue in the router, will a new firmware be released?

It depends if we can patch the firmware before google release a patch (assuming they take responsibility and don’t push it back on an issue with our router)

ok..so just a case of wait and see (in silence….no music you see…)

cheers
:
Unfortunately so but we are working on it to locate the issue and will push an update to all hubs once it’s been resolved”

Hmmmm

DrP

I rang back to cancel my service visit, the guy on the helpdesk had never heard of a Chromecast so I said they could have the fix on me.

I’m leaving my new BT router on delivery, as current one is 2 yrs old anyway, and it isn’t costing me anything.

What I can’t work out, is that even if google push out an update for the Chromecast audio, how is mine ever going to get updated as I can’t connect it without the router, and hence house internet, going down 🙁

Just to check….for everyone using a BT HH/Plusnet routers to do this, have you added in a separate 5Ghz SSID?

If not, I’d try this, and bond the CC to it.

Might help.

BT instructions:

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/56419/~/how-do-i-split-my-bt-hubs-ssid-(wireless-network-name)%3F

Plusnet instructions:

https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/Making-5-GHz-have-separate-SSID-with-the-Hub-One/td-p/1349553

Thanks so much! Cancels engineer….

codybrennan – that looks beyond my IT abilities for my BT hub !

explains a lot, thanks drp

Iain….we have mutual friends in common and you’re an uncommonly smart man….no it isn’t beyond you 😉

Bet you can do it.

In saying that, I can’t say for sure that it would work. So- I dunno.

^^^^^ 🙂

here are some instructions I found on the google chromecast help forum. Will try later :

I’ve just done the same as others here – hot-spotted and changed to Preview firmware. I worked. Here’s some comments on the process I used.

1. set my phone up as a wireless hotspot
2. reset my CCA (held down button till LED stopped flashing and turned solid)
3. ran Home app to set-up CCA from a tablet, connected it to the phone hotspot
4. in the CCA settings in Home app on the tablet, opted into the Preview
5. waited 30mins for firmware to download to CCA
6. re-booted CCA from the settings menu inside Home app (still on tablet)
7. checked that firmware had been updated from within settings of CCA (from tablet) (broken: 1.21.74816, preview (working): 1.22.77272)
8. from the CCA’s settings menu in the Home app on the tablet told the CCA to factory reset
9. switched tablet back from being connected to the phone hotspot to using HH5 network
10. re-ran the setup to connect CCA to HH5 network

Hope this helps!

BT HH dead since 3am yesterday. If this fixes it (which sounds like it will) I’ll owe you a beer Dr P!

But I loved the chromecasts!

^^^ my HH is fine now after disconnecting the chromecast. Part way through the fix I pasted above to get the chromecast working again with the BT HH (at step 5…)

Sorry to hijack but I’m really uninpressed by the chromecast audio it is so bloomin slow to pickup song changes and sometimes doesn’t even want to connect… have I got a duffer or are they just a bit average?

I haven’t been overly impressed, put it like this I won’t be bothering to fix it using the above instructions so anyone wants one let me know!

UPDATE ^^^ I followed the instructions I pasted up, was quite simple. I am now listening to ChromecastAudio as normal and connected to BT Infinity Home hub, all sorted 🙂

great post, thanks DrP and others !

I’ll take it off your hands Ivan, email in profile!

hmmmm 🙁 Ended up unplugging the ‘fixed’ chromecast last night as the wifi seemed to be unstable. Blue light was staying solid on the BT Infinity router, but tablet and chromebook were losing connectivity on and off. Will try again when new router comes tomorrow, but not convinced that the ‘solution’ works..

I’ve not managed to update my audios yet, but the regular scrren based chromecast seems ok even with the reportedly dodgy firmware on it, so it may be connected to multicast, if you can connect and disable that it may help.

Update…
I ordered another cc audio (5 now…) and unboxed it and plugged it in..
It just worked, no crashing…
I joined the preview programme on that, and rebooted to the 772ish firmware, abx it still worked.

So…I just plugged in one of the old ones….it still worked.
Via the current router/Wifi I updated that, and it’s still working…hmm….

I wonder what’s changed??

DrP

Update pt 2…

I plugged in another old firmware cc and it crashed again..maybe only a few of them updated, and they are the affected ones.
I probably just plugged in a non affected one.

Will try the update method with hot spots etc, as the new firmware seems stable..

DrP

I had the same issue on Tuesday when the update was pushed out apparently. Plusnet had for evenings of over 30 minute hold queues and we’re none the wiser. Eventually the plusnet forum held the same solution above, not from a moderator but by another user. I find incredible that their call centre and customer services aren’t fully aware of this and mentioning it on any faults this week.

Bt and plusnet hubs appear to have exactly the same hardware, so affected in the same way.

If you’ve not got another network, unplug CC, change your Wi-Fi codes, use a phone to create a hotspot, then apply the update to the CC on that, to avoid taking down the router.

plusnet forum link

My Plusnet crashed Tuesday – am in work so have just got the Mrs to unplug my chrome cast – will be interested to see what happens now ! Plusnet have been clueless and unhelpful though – they’ve made Sky look OK!

Looks like it’s working again! I just need to sort out the Chromecast now!

Legend! Just disconnected the new router I bought and set up last night, reconnected the HomeHub 5 and disconnected the CC audios we have…..

all working again!