Just been reminded why Virgin "super" hubs aren't ...

[Jethro_uk]

In fact they are shit.

Trust TP Link router finally gave up the ghost - predictably at the most inconvenient moment. Have a replacement due tomorrow.

As a stop gap, I figured I could switch my VM so-called "Super" hub oput of modem mode and use it to replace the WiFi my router was running seamlessly so SWMBO didn't notice.

Only when you do use the POS as a router, it won't allow passwords with spaces in (which my router did). So I had to intervene to set SWMBO up again.

Just in case you were wondering (1) it doesn't tell you you can't use spaces - but that your password needs to be >10 characters (yes), contain

1 upper case (yes) 1 lower case (yes) and one number (yes).

Rant over.

[T i m]

<snip>

I had exactly the same issue with the 123.reg portal login password stating what you should and could use but not what you couldn't, apparently what you couldn't was implied?

You must use a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and one or more of the following special characters !"£$%^& etc (but not (say) # apparently).

Their instant syntax checker allowed it though but it was rejected later as not conforming (but not why)?

It would have been easier to state the characters you *can't* use. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I did not know any router allowed passwords with spaces. Indeed I've never found anything that llows passwords with spaces. Brian

[Andy Burns]

clearly some systems have their own idea of "good" combinations of alpha or numeric or symbols, but if they don't force their own rules, then a space is just another character, in fact I have used passwords that consist entirely of spaces!

[Chris Green]

Standard Unix/Linux login password can have spaces in it, I just tried it! :-)

Now I'll have to change it back again.

[Jethro_uk]

I have never had a router where I couldn't set a password with spaces.

Oh, hang on.

Until now.

[Jethro_uk]

Trailing spaces :) ?

It's a little like email addresses *can* have a single quote character in them. paddyo' [e-mail] is a 100% valid address. However I would strongly advise against doing it, as there are any number of non-RFC compliant homebrew validation routines that reject it.

[John Rumm]

Loads of things allow passwords with spaces - its one of the reasons you have to be careful doing a copy'n'paste on passwords since its easy to pick up an extra space. Not all web forms etc will trim the leading and trailing spaces.

[John Rumm]

add to that gmail addresses that an have dots in them, but they are ignored on gmail, so fred.blogs@ is the same as fredblogs as f.r.e.d.b.l.o.g.s@ etc.

[Fredxx]

Are you suggesting these hubs have been used and so spoiled goods?

[Jethro_uk]

Just a follow up that the replacement router - a "Victure" that was well starred on Amazon may as well be a VM "Super" hub :(

1- weird refusal to allow spaces in passwords

but more shit

2 - not great implementation of DHCP. No reserved addresses and no ability to set DNS servers. Looks like I'll have to switch that on in my rPi.

Bummer.

[Steve Walker]

It may not be so bad. I couldn't believe that they'd miss out such basic features and just took a look at reviews and found comments that there was no way to set up port forwarding, but that it didn't matter, because you could not reserve DHCP addresses. However, I also saw "My Victure router on arrival did not have port forwarding. Tech Support emailed me step by step photos how to set it up but one thing overlooked- make sure you update your firmware, this brought the port forwarding option tab with it"

Maybe a firmware update will help you.

[jkn]

Yeah, I use multiple email addresses, incorporating a '+' and a following field, so that I can sort them by originator and tell where spam comes from etc. The '+' is perfectly valid but many systems don't accept it, which is tedious. Now and again a company will fix it on request, but not often.

I would change this to use '_' instead, but I no longer have easy access to the part of my email delivery system (erm, the MDA?) that has the rule to allow all such destination addresses through, sigh...

[Jethro_uk]

Possibly - worth a try.

I see there is a way to set the DNS settings for the WAN *if* you switch from "auto" to "manual" and start specifying your WAN IP address. Which isn't really a good idea with Virgin.

I'm more irritated by the password problem, TBH. It meant it was impossible to just drop this in as a straight replacement with no work. And you'd be amazed how many devices you've set up to use WiFi at one point or another.

[Steve Walker]

Yes, I can understand that, but luckily I've never used spaces.

I too use the Virgin hub as a modem, but with a Draytek 2862 series router - bought (before we moved to Virgin) - specifically because our previous (static) ip address started being targetted from various locations, but mainly China, trying to get into our home server and our existing router could not cope with rejecting the volume and slowed our access to a crawl.

This was also the reason we moved to Virgin (whose IPs are "effectively" static and good enough for us), as PlusNet kept asking for more information, despite a full explanation and a full router log, and failed to move us to another address after a full four months!

A router costing almost £250 pounds is probably not on most people's shopping list though, although it did have the muscle to deal with the problems and kept me working and the kids learning.

[Chris Green]

Silly really when you think about it, that's probably only 6 months or so of the cost of a typical ADSL/VDSL connection.

[Steve Walker]

The cost is not the only barrier, although it is a big chunk to pay out in one go, especially as most people will never need its abilities. I'm sure that most consumers would be put off by the 900+ page manual! Although much of it is repetition for every configuration option.

[John Rumm]

They would have to find the manual first (the one in the box is at best a few pages to get you started)

[John Rumm]

Ironically the first time I was bitten by a "disallowed character in a password problem" it was with a 2862 (or possibly a 2860).

The 2860 range can manage a network of wireless access points. That allows one set of settings to be automatically "pushed out" not only to their internal wifi AP, but also any external APs that you have enabled management of.

I was attempting to use this at a site with the router plus 2 APs, and for some reason it was just not working properly. In the end I had to give up and configure the APs manually. It turns out the problem was with the wifi password in use that was in the form of something&something@somthing. Somewhere in the system it was truncating the password after the &. I only found this out 2 years later when a more recent firmware upgrade on the router cause it to actually generated an error when specifying that password for wifi.

[Steve Walker]

True, but I always try to look at manuals online before I choose to buy.