Can no longer access London Underground Wifi with O2 PAYG

[G_]

I looked this up before posting but can't quite find anything similar...

I've always used the London Underground wifi previously as a Virgin Media customer, then later through O2 PAYG, but I haven't been able to access it for nearly 3 months now.

It's not the first time it's stopped working but all previous times, it's been resolved after a few (but sadly not one) calls with the O2 Wifi customer services team.

When I get that login page for the LU wifi, I select O2, type in my number and then get the most useless error message: "Sorry, we've encountered an error and you have not been signed in".

A bit of context and what I've already tried, if it helps anyone:

- Device: HTC One M7 that I bought tagged as "sim free" but was in fact unlocked from EE.

- O2 PAYG - Always topped up on the same day of the month/same method, right before my anniversary date.

- I've had the same number for years and used the LU wifi successfully with this number and device.

- Double, triple and quadruple-checked my phone number each time I tried to log in.

- Every time the issue occurred in the past, it was always right after a top up and/or coincidentally after a system update.

- Things that worked on previous occasions when calling O2 Wifi:

 -- My top-up had somehow not been taken into consideration so the person "linked" it again. It didn't work this time round.

 -- Deleting and re-setting my O2 Wifi account from scratch. Didn't work either this time.

- My O2 Wifi works correctly (both before and after the reset).

- I can't seem to connect to that new Wifi Extra either.

It's been ongoing for 3 months and it's a pain, and although all those I've spoken to in that O2 Wifi team in Glasgow* are super nice and sound helpful, nothing worked, and obviously it's not as if I can check straight away if it's back on like other services as I can't call when the problem *is* occurring (i.e. from underground).

Plus I don't take the Tube regularly these days so I can't check if it's working, but when I do, I'd really like to be able to use it, especially since it used to work.

Has this happened to anyone? Any ideas of something I haven't thought of? Thanks.

(*) unlike the general O2 Customer Services...

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

There is a possible fix here that has worked for some http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Other-Products-Services/O2-Wifi-At-London-Underground-Not-able-to-conne...

[Toby]

HI @G_,

I'm Toby, the community manager. Please see if the fix linked by @MI5 works (thanks mate) and report back if it does not

[G_]

Thanks both, I'll give it a try, though I haven't changed numbers or devices in the meantime.

Another not too useful thing for me is that all the O2 hotspots seem to have disappeared from the areas I usually go to (work, home, places I hang around, etc) so it takes me days between each attempt.

[G_]

Hello,

Sorry for the extremely slow reply; I didn't want to not give an update but this didn't let me log in for weeks... I also found it somehow difficult to access an O2 hotspot around me, and the new map on the O2 Wifi website doesn't tell the actual O2 wifi spots from the Wifi Extra ones but the latter wasn't useful.

So I tried that fix... which didn't work for me. It basically did exactly the same thing as when the guy from the O2 Wifi team reset my wifi access, i.e. nothing.

I then took the underground over the following days, and still nothing. Still the same error message. I did my monthly top-up in the meantime, still nothing for weeks. I also tried to delete the Virgin wifi from my phone many times, but still no change.

And then for absolutely no reason (no change to my O2 account, no phone updates, nothing), apart from maybe a Christmas miracle, my phone mysteriously connected me again to the Virgin Underground wifi. It didn't work at the first station, then all of a sudden, in the middle of my tube journey, I was back on...

So this seems to be sorted at the moment (not sure for how long), but it doesn't seem to be thanks to any of those fixes...