Virgin Media UK SuperHub Still Afflicted by Corrupted Downloads Bug

Customers of cable operator Virgin Media are continuing to complain of problems with the ISPs SuperHub wireless router / modem kit, which is shipped alongside their superfast broadband packages. Thankfully a new firmware is on the way and this one might just fix the device for good; but we did say “might“.

Sadly some customers appear to have suffered no end of problems with the SuperHub since it was first released almost two years ago. Since then owners of the device have experienced all sorts of problems from slow speeds (here) to unstable wireless connectivity, random rebooting and most recently corrupted internet downloads.

In fairness Virgin Media, which hasn’t always been as quick as it should to admit to such problems (example), has been busy testing and releasing various firmware updates. However it’s widely believed that the latest issue with corrupted downloads sprang up around July 2012 (here), after the latest R36 firmware was released.

Virgin Medias Statement (The Register)

We have been working at the highest priority to develop new firmware to help address the issues reported by some of our customers when using the SuperHub.

So far we have released two updated test versions which have been tested by trial customers and internal teams and are imminently due to release another test firmware this week which we hope to resolve remaining issues.

Following successful testing, we will aim to release this as soon as possible. We are keeping customers updated through our forums and any customers wishing to apply to test the new firmware before general release should register their interest in the forum threads. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Meanwhile those affected by the issue can only resolve the problem by using a different router and switching the SuperHub itself into modem-only mode. We suspect they’d rather such a measure wasn’t necessary in the first place.

It should be said that hardware rarely works perfectly and a proportion will always need to be returned or replaced due to common defects or other issues that can crop up during the manufacturing process. Still we hope that Virgin Media do finally get to grips with this one before something akin to SuperFailHub becomes a new trend on Twitter.