Usually/often after I lose Orange internet, the Livebox will find connection on resumption of service from Orange. All automatic and behind the scenes.
Sometimes though, after a failure, the Livebox will not do its job to find the resumed service and just sits there despite the internet actually being there. Question: Is there any way in this situation that one can remotely reset the Livebox?
The situation is this: My gite, 60 metres down the road, backs off the main Livebox. Normally as good as gold, however this weekend I am 2000 kms away, the house is locked and alarmed. My keyholder is also away. Visitors have no internet! I am sure the internet is there, but I cannot reset the box!
The only way that I can think of for the future is to have the Livebox on a power switch that can be operated remotely, BUT, I would need the internet for this Before I start re-routing the power to the router with a external switch on the side of the house, does anyone maybe know a better way??
Good point. Which I had obviously thought of before I posted my crass answer .
From personal experience, I used to have a security camera and fileserver attached to our Livebox. One day, I was in the UK and couldn’t access them so fired up the app and selected reboot. When I tried again 20 minutes later the server and webcam were both accessible. Of course, it could be a coincidence, but perhaps the app does something server side as well as in the Livebox?
That would suggest that they have some kind of “out of band” management capability e.g. the box can be administered over the wire even if it hasn’t successfully logged on to the consumer service.
I had a long chat with Orange this morning. I asked the question why sometimes after an internet failure, the Livebox popped back into life when it detects the internet, yet other times it does not…
Simple answer he said - if the internet failure is small or just routine maintenance and no parameters of the internet connect has changed, then the Livebox will recognise the resumption as what it had and marry itself up. However if the internet failure is catastrophic and Orange have to make changes, eg redistribute speed or IP addresses in the network, the Livebox will not recognise such changes and just sit there until it is told to marry up - ie being rebooted.
OK, it all makes sense. But to the question of being able to remotely reboot without internet connected to the Livebox, the answer is no. The four solutions he advised is
per Mat’s suggestion above, fit a power recycler, such as a timer that is set to regularly switch off and on power a few times a day regardless of whether internet is present or not. Allegedly no damage is done to the Livebox if continually switched on and off.
Fit a remote cycler that is switched by a signal to a SIM card, such as the little devices used by terrorists.
as I originally thought, a switch on the outside of the house that someone in a Dependance can switch off and on without disturbing the house alarm.
have the Livebox in the Gite, with the main house backing off the Gite so that visitors can reboot as necessary. This though is a nuisance if no one is in the gite when the router needs rebooting…
I have loads of timer switches, so when I get back, first job is to put one on the Livebox socket
I reckon that I could slip in a few other resets - maybe 6am, 11am, 3pm and 02am. I timed my friend’s router that took 2mins20secs to powerup from switch off, but it was marrying a known connection. Maybe a changed network might take longer - 3 mins or so? I doubt anyone on holiday would notice the internet down for three minutes at 11 and again at 3…
Your Livebox might have been damaged by an electrical storm - there have been many across France recently. Have you run the on line diagnostic for your line? It will report if the Livebox is faulty, or if the line is disabled for some reason (although it tends to blame a possible client side fault for that, even when it isn’t).
Clearly it’s going to be better to have a keyholder (or keysafe) available on hand at all times that you have a letting. What if the power had tripped out? There’s no remote reset for that.
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