# General > Technical Support >  Livebox connection drops out

## lazarte

I have had an Orange Livebox since last August, and it worked perfectly until mid-December when the connection started dropping out. The Internet connections (LAN and 1394 connection 2) were shown as connected. During the many  mostly daily  calls to Technical Support (at 4p per minute!) the Livebox has been reconnected - but the problem persists.

Although the techie people were very helpful and the history of this was recorded in their notes, nobody took it any further, although one man suggested that the Livebox may need replacing "if the problem persists", but subsequent technicians merely went through the procedure as before.

The strange thing now is that occasionally it resets itself after an hour or two -  in one instance a couple of days ago the LAN was disconnected and did not respond to "repair", A but magically cleared itself after an hour or so.

A friend who told me that he has never had a problem rang me last evening to say that his had dropped out!

Does anyone else have this problem, and if so, what do they do about it?

For the record my Livebox is connected to the PC with the Ethernet cable; I have not yet arranged to connect wirelessly to my other PC. 

Lazarte

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## octane

*Plenty people in the same boat mate, try this link down below, different views on how they got sorted as well as having a knightmare!!

Hope its of use


Livebox Issues?*

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## Stumurf

I have the livebox also... i have never used the LAN connection, i have always ran it wirelessly, and too had some major problems with it towards the end of december, around the time of the LivePrinter Update.

Sorry to say this... but i am glad its not just me, as i knew i had everything correctly setup...

I Never bothered going through the rigmarole of customer services as i eventually got the whole thing working again but using a lower form of security, WEP instead of WPA but i believe this shouldn't trouble you on the LAN connection.

On the orange help site, there are 3 ways to reset the system, it was only after i did these did i eventually got some stability on it. 
This should factory reset the livebox.

http://help.orange.co.uk/resultDispl...e=5002#Goto154

If you decide to order a new livebox it can only be done by phone, sorry i cant help you further..

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## Stumurf

Thanks octane... i did some searching when i had my issue's but strangely never found that site...

Many Thanks...

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## octane

The livebox is Oranges answer to BT's phone hub and for me they are just an eyesore, unreliable and slow. Im with bt but just ditched the home hub and im using a decent router instead, livebox users can do this as well.

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## lazarte

> *Plenty people in the same boat mate, try this link down below, different views on how they got sorted as well as having a knightmare!!
> 
> Hope its of use
> 
> 
> Livebox Issues?*


Thanks Octane - have had a look at this Orange site and have bookmarked same.  I will give a thorough inspection later (providing the unprintable orange box allows me to get on line!)

Lazarte.

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## blueivy

> The livebox is Oranges answer to BT's phone hub and for me they are just an eyesore, unreliable and slow. Im with bt but just ditched the home hub and im using a decent router instead, livebox users can do this as well.


If you have the ability to use another router, I'd use it. Don't let a a third party simply update your router at random with patches, new firmware or new configurations and expect it to work 100% of the time for everybody. They will be adding new services, options and perhaps patches but they have their own agenda.

When Windows Update went 'live' there were numerous problems with patches causing problems. The solution to that was Microsoft's new service where they release patches once per month after extensive testing, but the problems still exist, although not to the same extent. Microsoft can't hope to know what software is running on your machine and what interactions that software it's making with the operating system, hardware or even other applications.

While a Livebox is a more enclosed environment you can't expect Orange to be able to update the firmware of your router and get everything to still work as they have no idea how what's behind the router. However this is still Orange's problem and not yours! If they can't get it to work reliably with everybody then there should be other options open to you: maybe a facility to downgrade to the last working firmware, the option to update or not update etc. etc. Some of this may already be there - not being an Orange customer I couldn't say.

The only solution is to get another router/modem and stop allowing a third party to update it. If you want to update the firmware on your router you can do this yourself and then you are in complete control of it. However I'm a big fan of if it ain't broke, don't fix it! If you don't want a new service that is being supplied by the firmware, you won't upgrade!

Just my two pence worth aimed at Orange and BT and not at you guys!

For the record you can pick up a new modem for about £10.00 to £30.00 and a router for anything between £40.00 and £100.00. Bear in mind that even if you don't use wireless, routers without this facility are now getting thin on the ground. Just turn if off if you don't need it.

As a 3Com Partner I'd recommend 3Com equipment as it's excellent. Never had any problems with any 3Com kit I've installed. However I've also used Netgears in the past and they are pretty good. Firmware updates were a little hairy in the early days but they seem to have that sorted now. I've also seen a lot of recommendations for DLink in here.

If you're going to go down this road and unsure, post in here.

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## lazarte

> I have the livebox also... i have never used the LAN connection, i have always ran it wirelessly, and too had some major problems with it towards the end of december, around the time of the LivePrinter Update.
> 
> Sorry to say this... but i am glad its not just me, as i knew i had everything correctly setup...
> 
> I Never bothered going through the rigmarole of customer services as i eventually got the whole thing working again but using a lower form of security, WEP instead of WPA but i believe this shouldn't trouble you on the LAN connection.
> 
> On the orange help site, there are 3 ways to reset the system, it was only after i did these did i eventually got some stability on it. 
> This should factory reset the livebox.
> 
> ...


Thank you for this link Stumurf - I have printed this article out, ready for the next bout of misbehaviour from the orange box!  And thanks all for comments and advice on this page.

Lazarte.

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