StrikeAwe

Comcast Modem Strangeness

Posted Feb. 25, 2009 by Gabriel Hurley

I just had my internet die on me suddenly and inexplicably. Everything seemed fine, except I couldn't access any web pages.

After checking all the usual suspects, I noticed that even though the modem was assigning an IP address from Comcast, no packets were being received. None of the resets helped.

Finally I hopped on Comcast's live chat, and an "Analyst" jumped in within 10 seconds. Though his responses were pretty clipped and cryptic, he ran a few tests, had me try two things (none of which were the usual waste-of-time "did you follow the instructions" type) and on the third try it was up and running again. Apparently the modem was "misconfigured" and he sent it a remote command that fixed that.

Once I hopped on their support, the whole thing took maybe 15 minutes, and most of that was either waiting for a diagnostic to run or for the modem to power cycle.

Not bad, Comcast, not bad. I don't know why your hardware is freaking out, but nicely resolved.

Edit: the worst part was that it died on me in the middle of editing a live website. GREAT.