Cable modem dropping connection hourly and poor "Uncorrected" count

Thank you for reaching out over Xfinity Forums @user_b07269. I am sorry to hear you have recently run into some connection concerns. Our team would be happy to help. It sounds like you have tried some basic troubleshooting (thank you for that). I see you have sent us a direct message. I will be with you shortly in private so that we can check some backend signal levels. Once completed, we can circle back around to the public forum. 

 

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An update: things are working well now. The problems started on Thursday 11/17 (see the cable modem diagnostic page above). By Sunday, 11/20, our speed was mostly restored and the uncorrectable count was very low. We were, however, still seeing dropouts every hour or so (cable modem loses the connection and spends a minute re-acquiring). A technician visited on Wednesday 11/23. He didn't see any problems with our signal levels, but replaced the cable from the pole to our house since it was over 10 years old. Our neighbor across our street, who was having similar problems to us, also had the same thing done a few days before. 

Even after this repair, we were still seeing dropouts, but very rarely (one or two after the repair). Starting Thanksgiving day, 11/24, we no longer see any dropouts at all and this has continued. Our speed is consistently close to 1 Gbps. 

My neighbor and I know that there were area wide problems starting Thursday 11/17. We both talked to a technician who was in our area on Friday 11/18, and he said that the fiber optic line that feeds our neighborhood was having problems and there was a large team working on it. I think this took awhile to resolve and that all finally happened just before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, this degradation did not appear on the status map (though on Friday, when I logged into Xfinity web site there was a banner that said "Work is being performed in your area and may affect your service". But that disappeared later on Friday even though there were still problems). It would have been nice if these issues had shown up on the status page. 

Thanks everyone for your help (especially the Xfinity folks who direct messaged)! 

Well, I wrote too soon! Problems reappeared last night! Huge correctable and uncorrectable counts (millions) (about equal) on all channels and dropouts again now every few minutes. When it is connected, I'm getting speed of around 100 Mbps (I have 1 Gbps service). Sigh.

So now I'm trying to rule out the cable modem as the problem (Motorola MB8611). Last week I purchased an Arris S33. I hooked it up and tried to activate it with the Xfinity App on my phone. After 11 minutes, the activation process says that the modem can't be found. Since it was Thanksgiving and the Motorola was working better, I hooked up the Motorola again didn't worry about it... until this morning. 

Given that the problems are back, I tired again to activate the Arris S33. I unplug the Motorola and plug in the Arris. The modem powers up and after a minute or two says it is fully connected with DOCIS 3.1. I start the activation process  - after 11 minutes the Xfinity app says it still can't find it. 

I dig out my old DLink DCM-301 cable modem that I used before I got Motorola and hook that up to the cable and try to activate it. Xfinity sees it right away and activates it. With that modem, I'm getting 300 Mbps (that's as fast as that little modem will go) and no uncorrectables. So far no drop outs. 

So to summarize, I have...

1) My old DLink DCM-301 that is currently connected and seems to work fine. No correctables/uncorrectables. No dropouts. Getting 300 Mbps which is what I expect from this modem. 

2) The Motorola MB8611, which was working last week and this week until today. Huge correctables/uncorrectables. Frequent dropouts. Slow speed.

3) The Arris S33 that Xfinity says it can't find to activate. 

The DCM-301 is only DOCIS 3.0 and 8 channels as opposed to the Motorola with DOCIS 3.1 and 32 channels. I don't think that makes the DCM more immune to noise. I would think that if my service was having problems, the DCM would be seeing uncorrectables too. Am I right about that? 

So what do you all think? Do I have two bad cable modems (the Motorola and the Arris)? 

Thanks for any advice!!

Another update! Our neighbor across the street is having the same problems as us and a tech is visiting them now. I talked to him. He now thinks there's an amplifier on a pole that is having issues. Xfinity is going to come out on Friday to try to find it. He said that he's seen that DOSCIS 3.1 modems are much more sensitive to amplifier issues than DOCIS 3.0, so that may explain why my old slow modem is seeing no issues. 

So the saga continues, but it looks like Xfinity is realizing that there's a deeper problem!