Ignoring all dire warnings about not using the firmware from www.speedtouch.co.uk with my Be* provided router, I’ve just bumped it up to 6.2.17.5.
As they don’t provide any change log all I can tell is:
– It fixes the Vista SMB / CIFS / WLAN problem I had previously
– Update: it also fixes the NTLM authentication problem with IE7, so now you can login to the Speedtouch’s web interface using IE.
– It has a new colour scheme:
Hey Alex
I too use the Speedtouch 716WL on Be* and have been having the same issue issue with my new Vista laptop.
It connects wirelessly to the router, can access the internet and can see my other XP Pro (connected by wire) and XP Home (connected wirelessly) PCs on the network.
However, browsing the shared folders on the XP Pro machine works initially but after a few seconds Vista just hangs every time. I can copy a file of size 1KB from XP Pro to Vista consistently, but anything bigger that this just hangs again.
I’ve tried absolutely everything out there, disabling IPv6 and TCP autotuning, checked security a/c’s on all machines, updated owner of all files on XP Pro, and finally I’ve been on the phone to MS support, but had no luck at all. Very, very odd. And what’s weird is that I don’t have the same issue browsing and copying files on the XP Home machine…
But after finally reading this post I suspect I’m suffering from the same thing. My questions are:
1. Have there been any side effects from upgrading the firmware?
2. Why do Be* make sucha fuss about upgrading the firmware yourself? What are the risks?
3. Do you know if Be* have any plans to release an official new firmware upgrade based on this release?
Many thanks!
Mark
The only thing I’ve found is that the router is really unstable when using bittorrent (it reboots once per hour or so). I think I’ve narrowed this down to uPnP, so if you don’t use that then maybe you won’t have so much trouble.
I’ve not seen any problems with a loss of bandwidth or anything with the new version.
Be* really suck when it comes to keeping up-to-date with firmware. The last time I looked, the “official” version was the one that still had the security holes in it!
Upgrading firmware is pretty easy – just take a manual backup of your config first, and do the upgrade from a PC that’s connected by a cable to the router, not over wireless.
For me, getting internal networking for Vista was more important than any of the other “risks”. Perhaps you’re in the same situation, or not :)
Before I upgrade it’s probably worth finding out a bit more about the problems you had. Can you explain a bit more about the symptoms?
Specifically, did you have excatly the same problem I do?
What works
==========
– XP Pro can read and copy from Vista
– XP Pro can copy a 1KB file to Vista
– Vista can browse and copy files of any size from XP Home (also connected via wireless)
What doesn’t work
=================
– XP Pro cannot copy a file larger than 1KB to Vista, explorer will hang
– Vista cannot browse XP Pro successfully, after browsing shared folders for a seconds explorer will hang
– Vista cannot copy from XP Pro, if I can browse quickly enough the copy dialog comes up but explorer hangs again
– XP machines could read/write over SMB/CIFS to any destination (XP, Vista and my NAS)
– Vista PCs could generally browse remote file systems (on Vista, XP, NAS) but couldn’t read or write files to the remote file systems.
– I also has problems using remote desktop from Vista to Vista, but not XP to Vista.
– The problem was restricted to the speedtouch’s wireless only. If I used a cable into the speedtouch, or another WAP, then the problems went away.
FYI I connected the Vista laptop to the router via an ethernet cable and hey presto, it works now. So v likely the same issue.
Can live with using a cable for until Be publish a new official firmware.
Thx for your help
there is an more recent firmware out 6.2.29.2 and 7.2 is being released soon!
hi alex / mark,
I also have exactly the same problem with my vista wireless / xp wired connections. i can ping the xp computer and browse (to a degree) the file system but RDP and opening files causes massive problems.
I have upgraded my BeBox firmware to the Thomson firmware (6.2.17.5) and restored the config backup.
Sadly my problem still persists. Be are useless. All my firewalls are down. The connection works over wires, (only wireless is affected), etc, etc.
I can only guess that after upgrading your firmware alex you did something different to me to get everything working…
Any suggestions?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Daniel
Well, I didn’t really do much more than that. I had a few other very weird issues which I resolved by resetting the router right back to factory defaults (screw the Be* templates) and reconfiguring it from scratch. Going up to 6.2 with whatever cruft Be have had in since 5.x obviously doesn’t play well…
Hi! Thanks for the reply.
I thought you might have wasted the templates… Unfortunately, when i try that i can’t get the router to connect to be.
What did you use for your settings? I read somewhere that the router tries to connect using PPPoA but it should be something else… Just cant seem to change that without the templates :(
Any advice is appreciated and thanks for your time :)
Daniel
I can probably publish my (edited) templates, but try doing a reset and leaving the Be* templates in place first. I seem to remember it was some internal Alcatel features that were unhappy rather than the PPP stuff.
Hi Alex,
Just an update. I resolved the problem by adjusting MTU settings in vista.
1450 does the trick.
I’m sure the problem is actually with the BeBox though.
Version 6.2 didnt work for me because the Be templates would have reset all the MTU stuff anyway.
Just thought i’d let you know :)
Daniel
Excellent post thanks for the MTU tip, worked a treat.