Internet keeps dropping & xfinity has no idea how to fix this

You need to get the techs involved again until the issue is fixed properly. Something intermittent is going on with the line / connection quality. There may be spurious noise ingress into the line(s) / return path somewhere.

Bear in mind that if the premises facing techs can not find or fix a problem at your home, it is they who are responsible for escalating it to their line / network / maintenance dept. techs. The problem may lie beyond your home in the local neighborhood infrastructure somewhere but it is their S.O.P. to start at the home. And if the problem is found to be on their side of the demarcation point, there will not be any charge.

Good luck !

@user_toby2020

We'd love to help with scheduling a tech to your home to have this resolved.

Please send me a private message with your name and address to get started. 

To send a Private Message, please click on the chat icon in the top-right corner of the screen, next to the bell icon, and then type or select "Xfinity Support" to initiate a live chat.

The tech did come out this morning and removed a special splitter that the previous tech who had come out said would fix the upstream channel power problem. This tech claimed the last tech didn't do a great job and its possible that the main line situation has changed. His supervisor has raised a ticket for someone to come look at the main line on my street. Meanwhile, the removal of the special splitter has done nothing to resolve the problem. The internet has dropped 5 times since the tech came out this morning. Fwiw, this is exactly how the last tech support visit played out. He added a splitter but said the problem is in the main line which is run by a separate department and they would come fix the problem.

@XfinitySheila let me know if there's more you can do. At this point, I plan to keep updating this thread with the number of times the internet has dropped. I am ready to help in whatever way I can to resolve this problem. I just wish Xfinity would break protocol and actually do something to figure out what the root cause is.

In my last post, I said I would post the number of times my internet drops in a day. I was hoping to post tomorrow but Xfinity went above and beyond and dropped my internet 3 times in the last 3 hours. I pay around $256/month for internet/cable/voice.

@XfinityDannyB break the protocol. This issue is not going to be resolved by you following the script.

Internet dropped 8 times today.

7 times today. But the good news is that its clear that the Xfinity support team thats monitoring this forum is a lot more technical than the techs who show up in person. They have identified timeouts and have asked the tech who is coming out tomorrow to specifically figure out why the T3/T4 timeouts are happening.

My family has asked me to drop service with Xfinity and switch to AT&T. My partner works from home permanently and has had their internet dropped at the worst possible moments. If the internet problem isn't resolved by tomorrow, I will be forced to get my partner a hotspot or switch to AT&T. Our work demands a stable internet at home and we can no longer make excuses.

Just for the record - I'm fully willing to pay if its a problem in my home or a bad modem. All I'm asking for is help figuring out where the problem is. I have hope that the Xfinity techs who are monitoring this forums are a lot more knowledgeable than the ones that show up to my home.

Try a different modem if you can. When i first got xfinity a couple years ago i bought the Arris sb6183 and was having the same issues you are, constant drops. it would drop at least once an hour. Upon further research, there is an issue with the arris sb6183 chipset that causes the issue. swapped it out for a netgear CM600 and no more drops.  Id hate for it to be an issue with your MB8611, cause thats the modem i was just looking at to upgrade my cm600. 

I used to use an older Arris SVG2482AC which also had problems (though nowhere as severe as right now) and i upgraded to the MB8611 and actually enjoyed a period of relatively no issues. But yes - if the tech cant find the issue then we will try to use the xfinity provided modem to see if there's something broken with mine. 

You need to find that rare technician that actually knows what he/she is doing, and also cares about fixing your problem. Reliability is important enough to me that I actually have two service providers, Xfinity and ATT.  Xfinity is the primary because they have the speed I desire, ATT has the reliability, but not the speed, at least in my area. The ATT is actually old DSL level technology but it is solid.  I guess I have a third if I consider hot spot from my Verizon phone.

I have the Motorola MB8611 and have never had, or heard of an issue with them.

Looking at your last set of Upstream levels, I have to question why one of the techs put in an amplifier, they are a bit too high already. 

Good luck with finding the right resolution for you.

Update from the tech visit this morning:

Incredibly, neither of the last 2 techs who came checked the comcast junction box. This tech - a 23 year old veteran of Comcast - opened the box and discovered that the screw that goes into the box plate had punctured the cable and was essentially sitting in the middle of the cable right next to the core - likely causing shorts. I'm not sure why it was intermittent and didnt show line issues when previous techs checked the cables.

I was ecstatic to find out that we may have discovered the cause of the problem. He also mentioned that the last tech who came out was a Comcast contractor and likely not as incentivized as him to dig into the problem.

This tech actually spent time checking everything and he showed me that everything looked good and now that we had a potential problem source, I felt reasonably confident.

Unfortunately, the disconnects have continued even after fixing the cable. So perhaps even if the cable was clearly damaged, it wasn't causing problems ? Since he left we've had about 5 disconnects. Thankfully the online support folks here have been in touch with me constantly. My next step is to get a cable modem from xfinity today and hook that up and see if it helps.

So you refer several times a that the Mb8611 is a router, it’s just a modem, I have one, excellent modem at that, is it possible that it’s connected to a separate router? 

After finding the issue at the interface box did the tech also test in the house at the actual modem location?  

@jlavaseur sorry - its a modem thats connected to a Orbi AX6000 that provides wifi and wired connection throught the house.

@justam yeah - he came in and checked the line at the modem location and showed me that the line looked good.

I got a new modem today from the local xfinity center and installed it. Now to wait and see if the internet still drops. 

New modem installed and guess what -- the internet still dropped!!

I have a theory -- isn't the TV not connected to the modem ? I.e., the drop from the pole splits to my modem and to the cable box. Which means the internet (enabled by the modem) and the TV (enabled by the TV box) aren't related. However, when the internet drops, so does the TV. The current channel keeps playing but I cant switch channels or use the guide. That implies the problem isn't with the modem but on the line. If it was my modem, the TV would keep working and only my internet would drop. The fact that my TV also drops clearly indicates there's an issue with the line. 

The mystery continues. MB8611 users should be happy - as of today, the problem doesn't appear to related to the modem.

My Mb 8611 has been up for months without a drop, so can you connect to a hotspot  and not your home Wi-Fi? In fact just unplug your modem for this test, if you can connect to a xfinity hotspot, it would be on possibly a neighbors line and router, bypassing yours, if it works without disconnecting, it’s probably in your line etc, if it still Is disconnecting, I would take a close look at your equipment, the speeds will be slower etc, it’s just a short test, just a thought