Discussion:
Diagnosis/conclusion of Skybuck's UBEE cable modem from 2009 (tutorial how to get into it even if corrupted)
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s***@hotmail.com
2018-10-14 23:23:24 UTC
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Hello,

My diagnosis/conclusion concerning my UBEE cable modem is:

Corruption of download signal over COAX is somehow locking the modem out, or it's done by ISP provider, mostly it is caused by signal corruption.
(Could also be a miss configuration by ISP because of upgraded protocol, old modem gets confused by newer protocol, see log below)

This tutorial might help those to diagnose problems and to see menus of UBEE cable modem, the exercise in itself is almost useless it does provide some information about mac addresses and firmware, but logs will be deleted/reset, however this exercise does prove the cable modem is working correctly before it is hooked up to the COAX:

1. Disconnect cable modem from power.

2. Disconnect cable modem from coax/white cable (to splitter).

3. Connect cable modem to power.

4. Press reset button with a tiny screw driver.

5. Have browser open and navigate to 192.168.1.1

Use following links if 192.168.1.1 is not showing default menu:

Basic information is accessible without username/password:

http://192.168.1.1/BasicCmState.asp
http://192.168.1.1/BasicFirmware.asp
http://192.168.1.1/BasicStatus.asp

Advanced information is accessible with authentication:
user: admin
password: password

http://192.168.1.1/AdvMta.asp
http://192.168.1.1/AdvLine.asp
http://192.168.1.1/AdvDhcp.asp
http://192.168.1.1/AdvQos.asp
http://192.168.1.1/AdvProvisioning.asp
http://192.168.1.1/AdvEventLog.asp

The outputs will be htm pages, with red bars and information.

The event log was the most interesting after step 6:

6. Connect cable modem back to coax, I did it by disconnecting power first.

This is what the log showed:

Advanced
Event Log
This page displays the Event Log on the current system.
CM Event Log
Date/Time Event Level Event ID Description
Time Not Established Warning (5) D3.0 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response ;CM-MAC...
Time Not Established Critical (3) R2.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=0c:60:76:49...
Time Not Established Critical (3) T1.0 SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/Q...
Time Not Established Critical (3) T2.0 SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire FEC f...

MTA Event Log
Date/Time Event Level Event ID Description
Endpoint

I now believe that this response says it all:

"Non-critical field invalid in response"

Something strange is being downloaded.

Either it's a misconfiguration/miss communication from the ISP side, confusing this modem which is from 2009 or it is data corruption because of noisy signal.

Hopefully soon new splitter will arive which is supposed to replace old splitter to clear up analog tv signal.

It will be very interesting to see if this fixes the problem.

If not I may phone ISP with my findings to inform them that they might be causing some weird kind of misconfiguration on my modem, probably because of more advanced protocol from their side which may not be incompable with this older modem.

Date: 15/10/2018

Bye,
Skybuck.
s***@hotmail.com
2018-10-14 23:27:28 UTC
Permalink
Little typo corrected, I think I ment to write the last line as follows:

"...probably because of more advanced protocol from their side which may now be incompatible with this older modem."

Bye,
Skybuck.
s***@hotmail.com
2018-10-14 23:28:52 UTC
Permalink
(Modem works fine for internetting, just can't get into the menu, resets connections when attempting too, may be a weird DHCP misconfiguration ?!?)

Bye,
Skybuck.
s***@hotmail.com
2018-10-15 12:09:09 UTC
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I forgot to mention the method of debugging this modem and producing the log:

Being a programmer myself I used the logging functionality of the cable modem as a "debugger" by using the refresh F5 functionality of the webbrowser to get a constant update of the log, and using the back button of the browser as a breakpoint. The webbrowser apperently remembers the last successfull transmission of the cable modem/websites/webservers. Firefox was used for this.

Exact method is as follows:

1. Connect modem as usual.

2. Power on modem.

3. Reset modem

4. Surf to http://192.168.1.1/AdvEventLog.asp

5. Keep pressing F5 until the log disappears/connection reset message.

6. Press back button of browser and examine last good log.

Bye,
Skybuck.
s***@hotmail.com
2018-10-15 20:32:57 UTC
Permalink
Ok I called ziggo a couple of times to try and get to the bottom of this.

At least the television section of ziggo was usefull, they will send a network engineer to try and diagnose the problem when it comes to noisy signal.

The internet section/service/support of ziggo was a bit less helpfull, but they try.

Questions asked by me:

1. Is a custom modem allowed, can I buy a custom mode:

Answer: no not allowed, it is "allowed" to have old cable modem :)

2. Is a screenshot from their settings on their end possible to be send to me ?

Answer: no not allowed.

3. Are they willing to perform some tests with me, with my own software, to test if the cable modem and internet is working properly, port-wise and such.

Answer: I'll ask, and eventually no not allowed, to much risk to their systems.

I did suggest installing a virtual machine, they girl on the phone thought that was neat.

Later I guess a superior/supervisor guy came on the phone claiming to be a programmer himself, futher questions asked to these people and girls and such:


4. Does ziggo have a testing facility where they test all of their combinations and such ?

Girl wasn't entirely sure, but yes such a division exists but nameless or she didn't know.

5. Later I asked the guy do they test combinations of new gear with old gear.

Not really. They do claim they have this old ubee cable modem in stock, I kinda doubt that a little bit but ok.

6. Does my cable modem upload settings to their servers ?

No, it does not, but yes they can see settings.

7. Is it technically possible for them to set back an older firmware version ?

No, not possible.

8. Is it possible for them to provide me with URLs of configuration screen, perhaps I can access it that ? No this was not possible.

9. Finally the girl tried to reset the modem, by setting back default factory settings. This disconnected the phone, unfortunately this did not help.

It did seem like the graphics of the button slightly changed, but this could be a "stored htm" vs "loaded/active htm" not sure why Firefox would render it differently.

At this point I called back just to inform them this did not help.

10. Have other customers reported not being able to access this cable modem menu ?

Answer: No, most people don't do this or won't notice it, or have newer cable modems.

11. Does ziggo have cable modems available without ventilators ?

Guy found this funny. I told him because of dust reasons, this could cause overheat and noise.

12. Guy starts to tell me about wi-fi capabilities of new modems, this was a reason for ziggo to allow "upgrades" of new modems... to replace them.

I listened to his story. I did find this funny and told him I find WI-FI a security risk because of hackers and denial of service attacks/cyber attacks.

Funny enough he disagreed with this and said: "THIS IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN"

At this point I started lolling on the inside. I hope he is right, but I don't think he is LOL.

Someday the Russians gonna roll in and NUKE everybody's WI-FI LOL.

Anyway at this point we got disconnected, maybe he slapped the phone on the hook or it was because it was 22:00 and service time is up.

Didn't mind that much though, I got what I wanted in answers.

He also went on about "hackers" would never attack me cause I would need to be somebody important ?! Wow... wtf ?! LOL. So he kinda assuming that I am not somebody important ?! LOL. This may be interpreted as a slight insult perhaps maybe not... but it's funny none-the-less ;)

He also told me a wrong IP of my modem according to him it's 192.168.178.1... I said let me try that right now.. me re-configuring my PC.. and nope didn't work... he started mubling about DHCP crap/reconfigs and so forth... he kinda new this was all bullshit etc... I told him I scanned my network pretty sure modem is at 192.168.1.1

I am even thinking of causing a IP conflict on purpose or using ms-dos and ethernet packets just to do ARP manually and so forth.

Anyway I pulled out all the stops in trying to get this configuration menu to work on my side, but nope.

They have their own special software to see modem settings.

I did suggest they try and connect up their ubee cable modem evm320b if they actually still have one and try and connect to it via a webbrowser like I am doing...

Also reported this strange DHCP error message, they had no idea about this... maybe they'll forward it to the "test" department if they have such a thing ;)

I find it very interesting how this company will behave in the future, say 10 or 20 years from now ?!

What if their products become incompatible with older hardware. They might even face the justice court if some lives are lost because of phones not working.

For now this is not the case and all is working except modem configuration issue.

I did ask girl what "network access: denied" ment... but she didn't see that setting in her screen... which is kinda weird. For now I will assume this later changes to allowed when the modem boots up. So this probably means "access to ISP network".

I hope that any ISP boss that reads this understand that as new gear is introduced their budget for the "testing department" will have to go up because of the number of combinations that rises.

The number of combinations probably rises almost quadratic or for each new device, every old device/combination has to be tested.

The girl did ask why I would want into this menu. To see error reports and see if anything is wrongly configured.

The girl also noticed many drop packets.

Today was the first time in 20+ years or so that I was thinking that I may have to switch internet providers if this situation degrades.

For now everything is basically fine, except tv signal. It's most other computers on the internet behind NAT and such that is causing testing problems.

One idea might be to use port 80 tcp/http port to see if this might get through to my PC from these Wi-Fi hotspots, by running some webserver or so on my PC.

All this NAT out there is making it very hard to diagnose connection problems.
Now I am still not sure what the cause is of connection failures.

Team viewer found a way around this, I think they may be connecting computers via their own servers.

This means Team Viewer may be spying on people's desktop activity ! ;)

They may be using their services for "rendevouz/NAT port discovery and trying to connect PCs directly without them in between or they may actually be spieing.

Guy also suggest a network sniffer, also said I thought of doing this and did do this somewhat on my PC not on the laptop.

But for this too work traffic must ofcourse reach my computer otherwise it won't be that helpfull.

Conversations were nice, the end was a bit abrupt.

Interesting times ahead.

It will keep testing until I figure out the cause of these failed connections and failed udp communication.

If needed everything will be masked as tcp/htpp/port 80 possibly encrypted as well, as a big middle finger to NAT crap.

Bye for now,
Skybuck.
s***@hotmail.com
2018-10-17 16:38:13 UTC
Permalink
Today I performed some more tests, from wi-fi hotspot to somewhere else/cable modem.

From these test I learned that windows security center and windows firewall must be running (with that the services I mean)

If windows firewall is off (with this I mean the windows firewall is stopped) then inbound connections udp and tcp apperently don't work.

Why this is I will have too look into, perhaps this is some windows security feature or architectural thing.

So far everything is working as normal, which is good news.

(At least when marvel adapter is used).

Bye,
Skybuck.
s***@hotmail.com
2018-10-21 20:25:21 UTC
Permalink
Network engineer visitted my place and replaced a wall socket where the green tv/coax cable comes in.

Also new splitter attached.

He had a funny little usefull amazing trick though.

Instead of connecting the coax cable to the splitter, he directly connected it to the television.

Mysteriously enough this removed the noise from the cable.

Exact cause of noise remains unclear. We were too busy talking about other computer tech. I kinda regret this a little bit but the guy was so enthousiastic lol.

The wall socket was replaced, he commented: "boy this one is old"... and took a photo of it with his phone or something... he also had a "rugged-laptop" or something pretty cool.

I still don't understand why replacing the wall socket fixed the noise signal.

Perhaps the green cable wasn't properly attached not sure.

He snipped some parts of... probably shortened the cable a little bit.

Maybe his "chatting about other tech" was a diversion tactic so that I would not bug him with question about his work ! LOL. So funny.

Anyway... tv noise is gone... except one channel still has stutter... time-wise... like youtube video going back and forth in time.

He agreed that this was not cased inside my home but outside/somewhere else.

Anyway... if this "fix" will make my cable modem work better is hard to tell ;)
Maybe speed/latency will be a bit better.. not sure.

Just glad I can now watch tv films a little bit better, until analog signal stops... television company will go "full digital" soon... in a few months or so... hope they don't though :)

I will try to enter my cable modem via 192.168.1.1.

"
The connection was reset

The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.

The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer’s network connection.
If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.
"

From public ip did not connect, it should connect though cause modem just scans for it. I could try local IP, but I don't think it will work. I would be surprised if it did.

Just for kicks I will try it after posting this message.

If I dont report back then consider it still a problem.

Now that I think about it... I should have let him take a look at it instead of talking about computer tech ! LOL.

There were other funny things... but I won't tell cause it may be embarrasing for him lol... which is funny... but you may guess lol.

I did found it slightly frustrating cause I kinda wanted to talk the shit out of him about these tech issues... but oh well..

Nice diversion ! Nice diversion ! Well done ! ;) =D

Bye,
Skybuck :)

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