Im wasting so much time trying to set my time machine up with my router its unbelievable
Do you mean Time Machine or Time Capsule??
Virgin media hub into modem mode so that the TM can do all the wifi and networking work.
Virgin might not give you the info required to bridge their routers. Some suppliers are very difficult in the UK.. and it does seem particularly a UK problem.
I doubt we can help you much.. the virgin hub and what is possible with it cannot be answered easily here.. where we are trying to help with TC issues.
However if the modem mode is available the TC (never TM.. backup software in the computer remember).. the ISP must support PPPOE.. and you setup TC wan to do PPPOE.. this is the only possible configuration with most adsl, vdsl and fibre .. for cable you tend to use dhcp as it uses the Modem itself as authentication. I presume you are on VDSL of some sort?? Please confirm.. also confirm you are using PPPOE for authentication.
The bad news.. just to lighten up your day.. is that PPPOE is not reliable in the Apple Routers.. they have hidden all the settings.. so important things like PAP or CHAP which are crucial to PPPOE are unavailable for setting.. Apple routers are simple.. far too simple at times.. They hide important settings from the ignorant to prevent them messing things up.. they have no advanced for the experienced to get around major obstacles in the way of using their routers..
I have tested this multiple times.. on my adsl connection.. PPPOE in the TC or AE is downright useless. As such the TC can never be used as the main router.
Apple sometimes forget the rest of the world is not on US cable.. !!
Australia like UK is a problem. Cable is not much used.. although here at least we use PPPOE.. In UK authentication is often PPPOA at least for adsl and you cannot easily bridge it at all.. Even where we do use PPPOE apple routers are poor. They really are limited to dhcp .. and that works fine if you only use it bridged to a modem router.
The other question is why is it so important for the TC to be the router.. in bridge it can do both wireless and Time Machine backups.. as a router it is nothing wonderful anyway. Even when it is working correctly.. it has no access to anything now.. logs are gone, SNMP is gone, no route tables, no firewall, no QoS.
You can use static IP instead of bridge.. please see the details here.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5981989?answerId=25135547022#25135547022&ac_cid=tw123456#
I use it but I would not advise people to use it over bridge unless they clearly need it.
