@ecosse206 

Virgin Media Hub is cable Internet (coax), right? I have cable Internet and had similar issue with my Deco mesh. In my case, after substantial troubleshooting and adamant ISP denial of any problem, it were found that the issue is with coax cable coming to my house. The insulation on that cable cracked and when signal noise goes above acceptable level at random times, my cable modem/router does "internal reboot" causing 2-3 minutes outage. "Internal reboot" is the term ISP Tech Support used when they finally found the problem.

No change in lights status on cable modem/router during "internal reboot" process. Very confusing.

Does your Virgin Media Hub have status page with Internet connectivity report? My cable router has very rudimental info that only tells when last time Internet link was interrupted. That wasn't enough to understand the frequency of issue and that it is happening at random times day and night. Not enough to convince ISP Tech Support to look into it.

Still, if you haven't given a call to Virgin Tech Support, you should. Ask them check remotely signal noise on coaxial cable(s) coming to Virgin Media Hub, or send a technician to perform these checks at your place.

It is possible, if you call them and tell your Deco goes red, they dismiss you with "third party hardware/software issue, not our problem, nobody else in your area complains." Like they did with me.

If they deny problem is on their side and unwilling to troubleshoot, you may need to run tests on your side to prove (or eliminate) the issue with Internet connectivity.

For that, you will need your Virgin Media hub in its default router configuration. What I ended doing is connected PC directly to my cable router with Ethernet cable, and ran script that pings reliable Internet web site for 24 hours, collecting data on when it failed. Then, on my next call to ISP Support I presented them with that data and they had to admit the issue is on their end.

If you have Windows PC/ laptop with Ethernet port and want to run this Internet ping test I did, I can share more details.

-----------------------------

PS. If you think about Main Deco as a device that runs periodic health checks of Internet connectivity and alerts you when these checks fail, that may help you to look at the problem from different angle. Not from "my Deco has a problem" angle, but from "my Deco Internet health check device reports a problem with Internet connectivity."

  @Alexandre. Sorry for a late reply, Festivities and further trouble shooting have been going on!

Virgin Media Hub is cable Internet (coax), right? - Yes you are right.

The issue is with coax cable coming to my house - I loved your theory on this. We have only been in our property 6 months and the cable is brand new. What if there was an issue here - Further thoughts. Whilst the Deco's were red and reporting no internet I found that the internet light on the Virgin Hub was reporting internet connectivity. This would ring true as other wifi devices were connecting directly to the Smart Hub and not the Deco and providing internet.

I'd love input on the script however I am running MacOS...

So with that I then pondered if the Deco P9 and Smart Hub 3 were both set up as Modems. They were. Perhaps they were fighting/conflicting with each other causing the outage? I did some more tests

1) Set the Deco to be access point only and left the Smart Hub in normal router mode. - Result still periodic drop outs of 15 minutes or more and would automatically rectify itself. I achieved 250 Mbs a second from my 300 Mbs  connection beside the router.

2) Switched the Virgin Hub to be in modem only mode and switched the 3 Decos to be in WiFi Router mode. We need to test the reliability of the connection but we have dropped from peak performance of 250 Mbs (c) to a max of around 100 Mbs

So does anyone know how to get my 150 Mbs back and whether I am best sticking with set up 1 or 2. If I revert to 1 how can I improve my reliability?

Thanks in advance :)