V2 SS won't connect

[stevehunt100]

SS s/no 40110908536 is registered with my account now but won't connect.  Red light steady but two white lights just keep flashing.  I have reset SS and waited over 24 hours but no change.  My firewall has all the necessary ports open and addresses allowed.

Tracert:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601] Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>tracert 212.183.133.177

Tracing route to cluster4.vap.vodafone.co.uk [212.183.133.177] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.0.100  

2     *        *        *     Request timed out.  

3    72 ms    82 ms    62 ms  ip-89-200-132-110.ov.easynet.net [89.200.132.110 ]  

4    98 ms    61 ms    94 ms  te0-6-0-2.er10.thlon.ov.easynet.net [89.200.134. 213]  

5    69 ms    77 ms    82 ms  195.50.122.113  

6   107 ms    89 ms    98 ms  195.50.122.66  

7   107 ms     *      107 ms  85.205.116.14  

8     *        *        *     Request timed out.  

9     *        *        *     Request timed out.  

10     *        *        *     Request timed out.  

11     *        *        *     Request timed out.  

12     *        *        *     Request timed out.  13     *        *        *     Request timed out.  14     *        *        *     Request timed out.  15     *        *        *     Request timed out.  16     *        *        *     Request timed out.  17     *        *        *     Request timed out.  18     *        *        *     Request timed out.  19     *        *        *     Request timed out.  20     *        *        *     Request timed out.  21     *        *        *     Request timed out.  22     *        *        *     Request timed out.  23     *        *        *     Request timed out.  24     *        *        *     Request timed out.  25     *        *        *     Request timed out.  26     *        *        *     Request timed out.  27     *        *        *     Request timed out.  28     *        *        *     Request timed out.  29     *        *        *     Request timed out.  30     *        *        *     Request timed out.

Trace complete.

C:\Windows\system32>

[stevehunt100]

HELLO?

[Retired-Lee]

Hi stevehunt100,

Thanks for your posts.

I just thought I'd let you know we work posts in time order

I've checked serial number 40110908544 and it's not connected to our servers since December last year.

The IP address, although dynamic, is on the whitelist.

40110908536 connected to our servers this morning at about half past two.

I can see you're still saying they're both not working.

Is it possible you could maybe try them on another connection such as a friend, relative or neighbours house?

In the meantime, I've forced a resync on both units.

Please factory reset them and let me know if you need anything else.

Cheers,

LeeH

[stevehunt100]

I have reset 40110908536 last night and it is still flashing after over 12 hours.  (I held in the reset button for 30 seconds until the lights flashed quickly then removed power with reset button still held, re-applied power, and released restet button after the lights had flashed again).

I don't want to take it to a friend's house because I will have to spend several hours playing with ports and addresses in their firewall and I don't have any friends who are tolerant enough.

I CAN'T RESET 40110908544 .  That's the problem - please read my posts.

[stevehunt100]

ps my ip is now 176.250.129.194

[stevehunt100]

with 40110908544, I can't even see it's MAC in my router's DHCP table.  I've tried different ethernet cables and (physical) router ports.  Just red power light and the two white lights flash once after power on.  Bin?

Other SS still flahing away./....

[Retired-Dave]

Hi stevehunt100,

In most cases, the ports, Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) and so on are automatically picked up and sorted. Trying on a friend’s connection should just involve plugging it in. 

It's when it doesn't work out of the box as it normal that we start by checking on these. Your posts suggest you've tried most of the tests un-prompted, so there aren't that many left to try.

The new IP address is again fine, so there's no worries there.

You've mentioned setting the ports, so it sounds like you've already ensured that ports 8, 50, 123, 500, 1723 and 4500 are open for forwarding.

Can you also check the router settings to make sure that the MTU is set to 1500 for me? If it won't go that high, just set it to the highest available. It's like a letterbox in that data packets too big won't fit through it.

For the box that won't reset, I'd suggest a repair. If these last checks, including trying on another connection, don't help with the other then I'd suggest sending that one too.

Dave

[stevehunt100]

I will try it at a friend's house.

The MTU is set to 1492 which is the maximum that it can be set to in Draytek Vigor routers.  I can't believe that this is the problem as I have had these SSs working fine for several months last year with the same router and ISP.

I have opened the following ports:

500 UDP

4500 UDP

50 TCP

123 UDP

8 TCP

1723 TCP

37908 UDP

and these address ranges:

212.183.133.177-179

212.183.133.181-182

212.183.131.128-191

88.82.13.177-179

88.82.13.169-171

[Retired-Andy]

Hi stevehunt100,

Thanks for the update, everything looks fine with the ports and IP ranges.

Let me know how you go on when you try the Sure Signal at a friend's house.

Cheers,

Andrew

[stevehunt100]

i HAVE TRIED IT IN TWO FRIEND'S HOUSES AND IT WORKS FINE IN BOTH. Sorry, caps lock...   Still just flashing both white lights in my house though, afetr being connected here for over 12 hours.  It is connected directly to my Vigor 2820 router through the same cable that worked in my friend's houses.  What's wrong?

[stevehunt100 · Accepted solution]

I've finally got it to work but have had to go to ridiculous lengths.

1. the above list of ip address isn't enough.  Your server at 88.82.13.183 was being blocked.  That's not on the list.  Have you got servers you don't know about?

2. I've had to set an extra firewall rule that allows the vodafone servers to connect to my router's external ip.  This shouldn't be necessary - at most I should only have to allow your servers to connect to my internal address - the SS device itself.  NAT should handle this but it clearly isn't so I had to allow your sites to connect to my router.  Very odd.

3. Then it worked for a few minutes and I tracked it down to my dynamic ip address changing so I had to change the rule to cover my new external ip address.  I WILL HAVE TO DO THIS EVERY FEW DAYS WHENEVER MY ip CHANGES.

4. Then it worked for a few minutes and then stopped.  Everything on my network stopped.  This was caused by the router seeing incoming traffic (88.82.13.183 again) as a DOS attack as it was hitting me with more than 150 requests per second.  WHY????  Relaxing the DOS threshold to 300 fixes this.

5. What a crock.