Suddenly unable to access my work website to work from home.

[dale0592]

Hi, 

As the title suggests I cannot access my work website for my remote login since last night. Everything seemed fine an dandy last night but this morning there was a perceptible delay on my usual sequence of websites but put it down to congestion until my work website just wouldn't connect. 

Initially thought the work website is down but no one else seemed to have the issue so went to double check the line on the BQM monitor, IP address changed overnight. This is the only thing that has changed. 

Started digging into the details, went to do a speed test on Ookla and it doesn't even recognize I'm on Vodafone anymore and take ages just to find a server but the test speed-wise is acceptable. Interesting to note, picking a server local to me causes the test to fail. 

Things I've confirmed;

• Its not the router, I use my own and swapping back to the Vodafone one on factory settings produces the same result. 
• Mobile internet on phone works fine for the same website. 
• DNS addresses make no different (1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8, Vf's default one)
• Its not the device as anything that uses the same connection, wired or wireless, has the same issue. 
• Power cycling the ONT makes no difference. 
• Power cycling the router/ont to refresh the IP address has made no difference.
• It now thinks I'm down south of London somewhere where previously it used to flick between Manchester or Sheffield on Ookla (Probably not a good reference but a change from normal is still a change)
• Websites loading behaviour is all over the place, some slow, some as normal, some hang completely only to be fine a short while after.
• Trace route to the affected website gives up pretty early. 

I've spoken to the wifi 'xperts' and whilst I can't really pick any fault with the customer service all they really did the same as what I had already done. They had me do a log via the VF router to send to them. 

I've looked round the forums and seen the one or two topics with a similar situation but they seemed to be resolved by different things. I've got the ticket in with the tech support anyway but thought I would give the forums a stab, its rather irritating to go from rock solid service to not working for no apparent reason and losing a days work and presumably tomorrow too. 

Anyone able to shed any light on what is actually going on?

Edit: VPN solves the problem entirely it seems, bad IP address then. 

[etiolated]

@dale0592 "I'm pretty confident the issue is the dynamic IP address and some issue in network routing hardware, previously they were all in the 84.xx.xx.xx range but currently they are all in the 81.xx.xx.xx range and seem borked."

Identical symptoms here. Looking at my Ookla history, I originally had an IP 84.xx.xx.xx, Ookla recognised it as Vodafone and located it in my vicinity.

Now I have an IP address 81.xx.xx.xx, the ISP field is blank in Ookla, and it's moved me to Lambeth (which is not even close).

So I'm thinking it is not so much whether you have a dynamic or static IP address so much as which range your address falls within, and maybe giving you a (static) address outside the affected range is a quick workaround until they fix the root cause?

What did you need to do / speak to / to get the static IP address please? I get the feeling they are only fixing the squeaky wheels.

[dale0592]

@etiolated It would seem so, to confirm I am now back on an 84.xx.xx.xx number.

I don't understand enough about networking to claim anything but I presume I just got lucky on the IP address lottery when it rebooted so yeah like you said. The static hasn't come through yet by email so I reckon that is more coincidence than anything. 

Just requested one via live chat, and then I presume whatever set up is required on the router.  If you tell Tobi to put you through to an adviser enough times it actually does, in my experience anyway.

[Jayach]

@etiolated

You should be able to get a static address via live chat, https://www.vodafone.co.uk/bbservcd/

I don't have the problems others are reporting, and my (dynamic) address is in the 84.x.x.x. range, so maybe you are on to something, lets see is some others with the problems can let us know what they have. 

You should be able to get a new IP address by going to Status & Support in the router and doing a Reconnect, perhaps try it a few times and see if you can get one in a different range.

[etiolated]

Thanks. I tried RECONNECT a couple of times, got new IP addresses, but both times in the 81.xx.xx.xx range. And the problems all remain unchanged.

The chat guy said he'd put me on a static IP, takes 24 hours he says. I'll report back with results.

EDIT -

YAY! Text arrived this morning:

"Hello, as you requested we have added our Static IP feature to your Vodafone Broadband service, you will now see this on your bill. We hope you enjoy this additional feature..."

OK, not so happy about the bill, but I see that is dealt with in an earlier post.

I checked the flaky addresses before doing a reconnect, failed exactly as before, and Ookla showed my IP address was as before too 81.xx.xx.xx.

Then did a reconnect, saw that I now got a new IP 90.xx.xx.xx

Rechecked the problem addresses, straight through! Problem fixed.

Just one difference to other posters, Ookla still does not see my ISP and still thinks I'm in Lambeth, just as earlier. So that symptom is unchanged.

[Anthony_s2000]

My static ip has within the last 10 minute had a brief outage of what seems to be the exact same problem but currently working again at moment.

[Anthony_s2000]

And now gone again. Static IP not able to connect to my work vpn

[Anthony_s2000]

And working again. Presumably this means they’re looking at the root problem but it would be nice if they could do it without breaking it for us moved onto static IPs.

[etiolated]

Sorry to hear that. I guess that bears out what I suspected, that getting a static IP works not because it's static so much as because it changes your IP to one outside the affected range, until the problem spreads.

How do we get the assurance that this issue is being looked at overall, rather than just as a series of unlinked isolated cases handled individually and without reference to the overall problem?

[dale0592]

My static was allocated overnight and has been rock solid since half 6 this morning. 

@etiolated Yeah its not really a solution, just moving people away from it but I'll take working internet rather than playing the the address lottery.

I doubt there will be any acknowledgement of the issue and if there was it wouldn't until be after they've fixed it anyway. There is a reason why most of the customer service people work from a template and always seem a bit out of touch with the situation. Pretty sure the response by them to this thread would be 'Glad the static IP has fixed the issue' with not a mention of anything else. 😅

[etiolated]

I have exactly the same problem as the OP. Reading the web/forum, this is not an uncommon problem with Vodafone.

In my case the sites I can not reach are:

www.peppermintmag.com (a sewing patterns site) Tracert times out at: ae17-xcr1.ltw.cw.net [195.2.28.150]

findit.bham.ac.uk (Birmingham University library) Tracert times out at: ae17-xcr1.ltw.cw.net [195.2.28.150]

So these are not edgy sites likely to legitimately be filtered, and anyway I have no filtering set.

Tracert for both times out at servers owned by Vodafone.

However a friend who also has Vodafone home broadband CAN access these sites.

I contacted Vf by phone, they tried various things to satisfy themselves that they could not fix the problem, said they would escalate it.

EDIT - add to the above (which do not load at all), the following sites come and go, sometimes fail to load, images fail to load, sometimes work fine:

www.bbc.co.uk/news

www.gooutdoors.co.uk

www.lidl.co.uk

nationwide banking (via browser/website and via android app)

probably some more I've forgotten