I'll give a little background first. Last Wednesday there was lightning storms around where I lived, my power went out. When it came back on I discovered my livebox was...broken.
Firstly I tried each of the following things twice, turning it off and on again, and a factory reset. Neither worked. So I phoned up the tech support people. The guy I spoke too asked me what the lights were doing on the box, I told him (Fast forward light was constant for a minute, then it went off and the warning light started to flash for a minute. After that @ light would flash with the warning light for a minute. Then the fast forward light would flash intermitently, the big flashing W would go off on its own, and then all the lights came on sequencially and stay on starting with the warning light and ending with the telephone light within the space of a second and go off. Then the fast forward light came on again solid and the whole sequence would happen again. This was accompinied on the telephone line with an audible pair of clicks and a squelshy bleep.
The guy on the other end of the line heard the bleep, said he thought it was a firmware issue as a factory reset did nothing and sent me out a recovery cd.
The CD arrived sometime on Saturday with the rest of our post. As soon as I got home I tried using it, I followed the instructions to the letter and it didn't work. The box was still doing the same as before. I tried this twice. The recovery program itself worked perfectly, just nothing changed on the box. When this didn't work a second time I phoned back the tech support people and said about my problem with the recovery cd, the person I talked to immediatly put me through to something called the Firmware escillation team. Here I was advised to connect my livebox via a USB cable (thankfully I had one on hand).
After moving my computer downstairs (I needed to be by the phone for this and we don't have a cordeless phone) and setting it up I rephoned the tech support people. The first person I talked to on the Firmware team was in the Leeds call center, however when I rang back I got the other one (Rotheram I think) so the extension number I was given didn't work. I was advised that if I wanted to talk to the same person in the firmware team I would need to phone back and hope I was lucky. I did this twice.
Each time I got the other call center, but twice I got the same person. On the second time she forwared me to the firmware team at her call center. Once I got through, this time to a guy called Micheal, I quickly explained my situation as well as what I had been advised by the other operative and we got to work.
While he was extremly helpful, the method that he helped me work through (restoring using a usb cable) didn't work. He said he had never heard of a livebox not restoring via the restore program before (I guess I'm just lucky ) and he ordered a replacement one. After some typing on his end, and the taking of the serial number I was issued a replacement box which should arrive by at least this Wednesday.
I have had good support as well. When my first Livebox went wrong(I turned it off when it was updating) they sent me a new one, which arrived within a week.
I havent had a bad experience with them since I joined freeserve in august 2002.
Sorting out firmware problems is down to a fine art now. Thats one area I can safely say has imporved a hell of a lot! The USB process is usually pretty damn good, if the CD fails USB often can fix it.
Sounds like the lightning scrambled the livebox somewhat, the new box should sort all that out for you.
Site AdminJoined: 07 Apr 2006Posts: 784Location: United Kingdom
Lightning is a problem - friends of mine in Glasgow, where there was also a terrific thunderstorm recently, had their modem knocked out by the lightning... Well, pretty sure it was lightning as it just didn't work after a big flash of lightning!
They're yet to call Wanadoo - who I am sure will replace the modem (after some initial tests of course!). Fortunately, they had a spare modem to use!
Sigh I knew somewhere deep down it was too good to be true. Firstly the guy in firmware support did order a replacement livebox for me, I heard him typing away for a good while and he took the serial number from the box. But for some reason the box didn't arrive, I phoned them on thursday to ask where it was and they said "I'm sorry due to an administrative error your box wasn't ordered but it says in your notes one was". The person took down my details again, and sent a form off to their team leader.
I phoned back yesterday just to make sure that the order went through, this time it did and heres the big but. But it's now going to take 10 days for it to arrive.
I'm wondering how you can go from five days to ten days, and this is a realy bad time of year too, myself, my brother and my sister all have exams in the next month and we need the box back so we can do revision and the like. It gets very hetic around the one computer if you all need to revise on different sites
Sounds like you were unlucky as most of the time replacement parts do get sent first time.
Chances are the replacement replacement Livebox should arrive in less than 5 days as most company's tend say it will take longer to cover there backs in case it does take longer.
I also had a Livebox problem where i unplugged it during i live update thinking it had crashed.
The recovery CD was sent and worked first time.
If only other company's would design hardware that can be recovered after a bad flash. IE power failure or using a update not designed for the hardware.
other company's keep going on about how you keep the hardware updated but do not provided a work around if all goes wrong apart from sending back to the company at cost or do not provide any help at all and declare the warranty void.
I'm wondering how it goes from being a confirmed five working day period (twas what the origonal guy told me) to ten days. About to go an phone them now to make sure it realy has gone through.
*edit*
Just off the telephone now. The replacement will arrive within 5 to 10 working days, and I was able to switch from the old option Three account (the 30gb one) to the new unlimited one which is the same price only I no longer need to pay the 4 pound extra for the livebox.
I realy hope it arrives soon, my brother is complaining about it every now and then
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) and he ordered a replacement one. After some typing on his end, and the taking of the serial number I was issued a replacement box which should arrive by at least this Wednesday.
