You are welcome Lord_Digby. I get a similar service interruption when the knot of my string in the paper cup begins to come loose.

Edit: Here is a nice link that shows where the plume debris drifted to. I had viewed a nice animation of the eruption's progress but since the event is over, it seems that has been archived. It had showed that most of the fallout was going to be from Liverpool across to King's Lynn and south to London. This page is from the day before (24th) flights were cancelled (25th) due to the ash.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/aviation/vaac/data/VAG_1306239041.png

Connection has gone dead slow again, I think BT engineers have been mucking around again. Fortunately I wont have this problem much longer as I'm moving to Talk Talk.

From my experience, a massive mistake!

I would agree with Dippo, even though I have little faith in BT, they are infinitely preferable to Talk Talk (imho, of course)

A few years ago, when Talk Talk first started, a friend of mine, who has missionary zeal when it comes to a bargain, persuaded a lot of her friends to switch their phones and internet service to this new provider. I was about the only one who didn't switch - as someone with years of experience in the internet trade I've learned to let other people do the experimenting, install Version 1 of new software, or jump on bandwagons because in general it rarely pays. Heavens, was I glad I didn't switch! The customer service is non-existent, the bandwidth is low, and there are restrictions on how much people can download. One by one those people have left Talk Talk, sometimes with great difficulty in getting services switched over, and the friend who instigated all this is the only one left - and that only because she gets free overseas calls. But like all bargain zealots she ignores the fact that she phones overseas very rarely yet uses the internet for hours every day. Whereas I get five times more bandwidth, unlimited downloads, and free UK phone calls for considerably less than she pays. And I don't have to scream or tear my hair out every time I need technical support. Don't do it, Starlord; if there's still time to wriggle out of the contract, start wriggling!

Flopsy talks a lot of sense (as usual), if you look on the link below, you may get some idea of a few? of the problems people have experienced. (me included)

http://www.broadband-help.com/reviews/uk/fixed/talktalk

I left Talktalk for a more expensive package with BT - I paid more, and got fewer free calls. I'm still extremely glad I did; since I left, I haven't had to hold for about 30 minutes to speak to someone in a call centre in Manila or South Africa with limited English, who can only resolve your problem if it fits with their script. On the same phone line, my download speed has gone from about 4MB to 12MB. When I had to call BT during the changeover, I spoke to people who actually seemed to want to help and resolve problems!

I have to agree with Dippo. Since moving to BT 95% of my UK calls are free, speeds are good (not as good as his but we're in a rural area), drop-outs are virtually unheard of and when I need to talk to someone it is a UK call centre. During the changeover I had the same experience as him, very helpful people who made the whole thing quite painless, and I do find that their engineers and call centre staff are very helpful as well. I havn't once been told - ah well, just wait and it'll probably sort itself out, which I got from my previous provider more than once.

BT aren't perfect - no internet provider is, neither are they the cheapest - but quite often in life you get what you pay for.

The deal I'm getting from Talk Talk is 12 months unlimited broadband at £7.25 after that $14.50 and phone line at £12.60, free router and free connection with unlimited calls(max 60mins then charged at the standard rate) There is also a 30 day trial period.

Your experiences of Talk Talk are similar to mine with BT, more or less everytime I have had a problem it has been with a fault on the server at the exchange, I was offline again this evening precisely because of that problem, for over 4 hours. The previous time was at the weekend. Oh and I've spent many an hour on the phoneline to India speaking to a BT worker, who everytime tries to persuade me that the problem is with my equipment, when I already know there isn't anything wrong at my end.

I'm not suggesting that you go to BT, just that you don't go to Talk Talk!

I actually did renew my contract with BT on the 24th May and asked them to send a new Hub3 out they said it'd be there by Thursday, Saturday came, no hub so I rang them to find out what had happened they replied that the Voyager router was out of stock so they couldn't send one. I explained that I had asked for a Hub3 and they said we'll send one out by express to get to you the next, I knew that wasn't going to happen as it was a Saturday and with a bank holiday on monday the earliest it was going to arrive was Wednesday. Wednesday arrived, no hub and a phone call saying it would arrive on Friday. Can you guess what happened - of course you can, no hub. I rang them up and found out they were out of stock. Basically I've been lied to by several members of BT's Customer Service department and I'm fed up with it, the final straw was when my broadband went down again on Saturday.

If you use twitter, try contacting @BTCare. They seem to take on board issues that are poorly handled by another area of the BT empire.

When my modem failed, Talktalk promised to despatch a replacement that day, if I renewed my contract. It arrived two weeks later. When I was trying to chase it, all they would tell me was that it normally took 7 to 10 days; their promise was apparently irrelevant.

I think we could all tell horror stories about service, or lack of it, with all of the suppliers available. Sometimes you're just unlucky. I'm with Virgin Media, mainly because I'm in a cabled area, and am generally satisfied with the service. It does crash sometimes and is usually solved by resetting everything. Good luck with Talk Talk, Starlord, and I hope it works out well for you. I don't have any personal experience with them but my parents were with them for a while (although not for broadband) without too many difficulties.

My service has been on and off bad for days now. The only time it seems to work is just after the FT clean up. Then it is back to normal.

I can't see that this is a BT issue, they don't think it is and it is only on this site that it is bad for me. Every other site is fine all the time.

Whatever is causing it it is very annoying and has put me off visiting the site as often as I generally do. The second global challenge session is useless now and every other quiz is so slow it gets boring.

I'd love this to be sorted somehow.

lynn

Lynn

I don't normally take part in the GC but just did so to see what happens and it was fine for me, my ISP is through the UK and not BT.

11. sue943 Channel Islands, UK Younger wrinklies 15 94 1406

94 seconds for me is about right, I am not speedy.

Lynn,
One of the smarter folks (not me) might want to know what browser you are using. That is the first step between you and the location you are aiming to converse with.

I'd think the same if it was a permanant problem and didn't buck up after the FT clean up. It is a bit better at the moment but not brilliant so I'll have to try and play at the optimum time.

Thanks

lynn

Every web page is written by different people speaking different accents of a similar language. The way you read that person's presentation is with your browser, which does some interpretting for you. Your browser may work fine on multiple sites but burp on others because of the language barrier. Fun Trivia does some unique things with coding (which is one of the many reasons why Terry has a copyright) in order to present quizzes, answer pages and ranking tables that other sites do not need to do. But then, if it's the clean up at fault, why do none of the rest of us have the problem?

I hate to go back to the volcano but you were just dusted with a sheet of silicon which has dielectric properties. The atomic size of some of the particles make for easy penetration into transmission system jacks, ports and other coupling devices. Many points may have had the dust washed away while some others have had the washing prove to be a concentrating event which forced capacitive material into places that are intended to be free of mica type elements circuit wise. Your experiencing of the problem at a specific time could be attributable to the thermal expansion due to a couple of hours of sunlight heating a black cable leading to your domicile and bringing the ash into play.

None of this may be effecting you. I've just tried to mention a few things that may be involved and don't understand your reluctance to state what browser you are using. I'm using IE ver 8.0, which, being new, has some hiccups that need to be ironed out (Mostly by me in setting up personal preferences and such)

Well I had serious problems today which resulted in very serious Funtrivia withdrawal symtoms anyway I rang BT and the solution the gave solved the problem.

1. Go to control panel
2. Select Internet Options
3. Delete History
4. Select Advanced tab
5. Press the Reset button.
6. Reset the router
7. Turn off the computer and restart

This will reset Internet Explorer to its initial condition so save your favourites somewhere so you can re-import them.

Thanks---how do I reset the router?

lynn

There is a little hole near the power supply you need to use a pencil or something similar push it into the hole and depress the reset button for 15 seconds, then wait for the lights to come back on.

Or just press the button marked 'reset'!

Or unplug it, if it doesn't have a built in battery back-up.

Lynn,
Another barrier to overcome often is terminology. At 2:00 AM you say the problems are almost gone since the clean-up. FT does it's 'clean-up, sorting and other site maintenance' at 3:00 AM. Do you mean your problem changes around that event or do you mean it changes around the 12:00 AM day resetting of score boards and play counters?

Never push indented microswitches with a pencil tip. The tip of graphite (which contain minute amounts of diamond and Buckminsterfullerenes, the hardest substances known) might break off, for sure some flakes of the material will be left behind and in either case damage the switch. Preferably use a stylus of some sort (needle, safety pin or awl) or a ball point pen tip if need be. Just a cautionary note.

Mehaul's right about the pencils... I've always used an unbent paperclip. All those years of fiddling with the things have finally been given a purpose!

True, I don't use a pencil myself probably a bad example.

Thank you all very much for all the advice.

It appears to have cleared on its own whilst I was thinking about the router---however if it starts to play up again I will give that a go.

It did make me realise how addicted to the site I have become!

lynn