I thought my world was coming to an end.

[blackburn_stevie]

This is boring but it may help anybody that gets the same message on screen.

I watch TV and view the computer screen using the same telly. In other words, it's either one or the other. Last night I was watching something on TV and when it finished, I used the TV remote to take me over to the PC channel. After a wait of a few seconds I got a message saying ...... (all wording is inexact but close enough for government work, lol) ...... "Could not connect to the internet".

I was gobsmacked. What do I do now? I can't phone the shop and scream for help so I did what anybody else would do and did a restart on the Mac. After a few beeps and bongs I got the same message. Maybe it was just eBay that was down and other sites were OK. I went to a few other forums and Hotmail etc but they were all broken.

So then I looked at the BT router and saw that all 3 lights on the front were giving off a steady blue glow, meaning that it was all working correctly. I could then assume that the internet connection from the hub to the PC was working just fine and that it was the connection between the hub and the outside world that was a bit iffy.

So my brain told me to do nothing until this morning when I could try again. But before I went back to the TV, I searched through the BT hub App to try to find a phone number. I found a freephone number and wrote it down just in case I couldn't find it again today.

So I rang the number this lunchtime and got through to a guy with a really strong Indian accent who  walked me through every step of the way from broken Internet to fixed Internet. It took about 10 minutes and, if you have a BT hub which goes squiffy, here's what to try.

Do you have 3 blue lights?

No ..... This tutorial isn't for you. Try looking somewhere else.

Yes ..... Press the RESET button on the rear edge of the router.

Did that fix the problem?

Yes ..... Boom, boom. Job done.

No ..... Use a needle or the sharp end of a safety pin to depress the little button below the littlt Reset hole in the rear of the router. This is a HARD reset and the button inside the hole needs to be held down for between 30 and 40 seconds.

When you take the pin out, nothing will happen straight away, however, in maybe 10 seconds or so, the left hand one of the 3 lights on the front of the router will glow a pale orange, then it will start to flash and then it will change to a steady blue. At this stage, another light starts glowing. This carries on until all 3 lights are a steady blue and you are now connected to the interweb.

I hope this helps anyone faced with the same message as shown at the top of this post if it happens to them.

[right-then-petal]

🙂

[tommy.irene]

I dont have a BT router

[stryver-1]

Good advice, Steve. Using the reset button is simple enough. Though I guess some folk with routers don't know about it. 🙂

[electric*mayhem*band]

And guess what ? Seconds after you posted that thread Steve, the ebay site went belly-up.

*cue weird music*

[upthecreekyetagain]

Be VERY careful about which routers you reset - on many holding the reset switch as Stevie describes will reset the router to its factory settings, (not the user settings), and you will lose any network connections - much safer to just remove the power supply, wait 30 seconds or so and plug back in.

[stryver-1]

 much safer to just remove the power supply, wait 30 seconds or so and plug back in.

That doesn't always work with BT routers and I presume other routers. I have used both the reset button and a pin which "resets to default" i.e. the original settings when the router was installed. No probs at all. 😄

Please don't rip moans and complaints about BT routers and resetting them from the net. Unless you know they are factual and not some other problem. 😉

[stryver-1]

Be VERY careful about which routers you reset - on many holding the reset switch as Stevie describes will reset the router to its factory settings, (not the user settings), and you will lose any network connections - much safer to just remove the power supply, wait 30 seconds or so and plug back in.

This is in reply to # 5:

That doesn't always work with BT routers and I presume other routers. I have used both the reset button and a pin which "resets to default" i.e. the original settings when the router was installed. No probs at all. 😄

Please don't rip moans and complaints about BT routers and resetting them from the net. Unless you know they are factual and not some other problem. 😉

[upthecreekyetagain]

I don't believe I mentioned BT routers at all - in fact my actual words were, "Be VERY careful about which routers you reset".

Draytek and Netgear routers, to mention but two both reset to factory default when the reset buttons are held down.

By the way I don't need to search the net to offer such sound advice. 😄

[stryver-1]

I don't believe I mentioned BT routers at all - in fact my actual words were, "Be VERY careful about which routers you reset".

Draytek and Netgear routers, to mention but two both reset to factory default when the reset buttons are held down.

By the way I don't need to search the net to offer such sound advice. 😄

Methinks you are geting confused with the router and the PC. If you reset the router to its factory default setting all you are doing is that nothing more nothing less; you won't lose any stored data - or blow your comp up!

However, I wouldn't recommend setting your PC to its factory default settings. Unless you know what you are doing and have backed up any data you want to keep e.g. files, pics, videos,etc, etc.

HTH.

[upthecreekyetagain]

Methinks you are geting confused with the router and the PC. If you reset the router to its factory default setting all you are doing is that nothing more nothing less; you won't lose any stored data - or blow your comp up!

Indeed you won't - what you will lose however are your ADSL settings, (at least), including username, password, mode, authentication type etc as well as any VPN setups you have created, firewall settings you have installed and NAT addresses you have mapped to real or dynamic IP forwarding servers.

[stryver-1]

Indeed you won't - what you will lose however are your ADSL settings, (at least), including username, password, mode, authentication type etc as well as any VPN setups you have created, firewall settings you have installed and NAT addresses you have mapped to real or dynamic IP forwarding servers.

Last try. :_| If you did lose some "settings" which is highly unlikely, you would get any relevant info from the router's admin.

[upthecreekyetagain]

Whatever you like - if you reset the router to factory settings then you do just that - all changes you have made in the router settings are GONE and have to be reinput.

If routers came from the factory all set up then I'd be out of a job 😉

[blackburn_stevie]

I did say BT routers in the OP.

I also said that it was the one with 3 blue lights on the front.

So if anybody followed my advice on a Netgear router with 24 green lights and a lollipop on the front then more fool them.

As a secondary observation, if there is a person sat at the PC wondering how to fix a router issue with enough nous to go through the routine to reset the router and do other such jobs, then it is probably the person that set the PC and router up so if the advice above DID cause a loss of data, then that person is probably capable of re-installing any missing data.

Methinks some people just like to find fault.

[upthecreekyetagain]

Stevie - I know you were talking about the BT router which has the setup details programmed into the firmware - I was making the point that the reset that works on the BT router doesn't work on all routers and can cause a lot of hassle if done on the wrong router.

You won't lose any data by resetting a router but it can be very inconvenient if you do so and don't have the knowledge or information to re-enter the settings.

As you say there won't be many problems if following the guidance of someone who knows what they are doing.