topic Re: Port Forwarding Issue in Broadband & Landline

Port Forwarding Issue

MisterWoody_ — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 17:49:31 GMT

Hi all,

I had port forwarding working fine yesterday, but overnight I think my Smarthub Pro 7 had a firmware update to
r3.8.26-R-1595999-PROD-1
and I can no longer seem to get this working even after removing the rule and re-adding. I have restarted the router to no avail.
Anyone else having a similar issue? It's only day 2 of me having this hub/router and I've just returned my previous smarthub.
Many thanks

p.s. Something that did cross my mind, netgear recommend a factory reset after upgrading firmware, and I had issues with one of their routers when I didn't do this step, but after it was rock solid; so is the lack of a factory reset potentially an issue?

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

JimM11 — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 18:42:28 GMT

@MisterWoody_ Do it if you have nothing to lose, EE Router, new FW so who knows was out over a month ago on the Pro and nothing Forum wise about PF not working!

FW: r3.8.26-R-1595999-PROD-1 and the gui is at App Version is 3.1.3.19 24/12/2025

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

XRaySpeX — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 19:52:50 GMT

There are quite a no. of reports of this issue for a SH 7 Pro, e.g.:

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

MisterWoody_ — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 21:10:02 GMT

Sounds like a plan - as the router was delivered yesterday, it likely had an older firmware version if it was just taken from a stockpile.

Fingers crossed it won't take too long to reconfigure from default settings. Thanks for the details

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

MisterWoody_ — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 21:12:28 GMT

Weird how the firmware installed when delivered from stock worked with no issues.
I'll go with a factory reset and see how that goes.
Will see if I can do a quick backup and restore if such a feature exists.

Thanks

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

JimM11 — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 21:18:38 GMT

@MisterWoody_ You can for sure guarantee that, and it's just best to let the Router update and you are NOW at the latest FW unfortunate the sucker did it Overnight instead of right away for you! So new should not be very painful on the Factory Reset and i really hate saying for it to be done, just don't do it myself and as the EE Router is a no backup/restore facility on it at all even worse advice to give anyone..... Know what i mean.

We were crossing each other over, don't waste you time, NO backup/restore at all, but should i say have a look, been gone from EE nearly a year now you just never know!

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

XRaySpeX — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 21:18:37 GMT

Factory Reset won't reset the f/ware, just the settings back to the defaults.

Backup/ Restore not present!

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

MisterWoody_ — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 21:54:54 GMT

Indeed - I never meant to suggest that it would. As my initial post mentioned this is recommended by Netgear for their routers and after doing that I had a rock solid connection.

So I was looking for best practice.

Unfortunately - after the factory reset it's made zero difference so in this case to the Smart Hub 7 Pro, I assume not applicable.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

JimM11 — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 22:11:13 GMT

@MisterWoody_ There is a lot of PF issues going on with the new EE Router called the 7Plus but NOT the version that you have, and the FW you are posting up for sure is the latest on that EE Pro router, just double and triple check that the IP off the device you are PF to/from has not changed, and in the Advanced Lan section you can go tell the IP to stay fixed to the mac address, all done through the web manager interface, not so sure what you can do with the EE app as most off the time it's a suck and see what works with it! Web manager is normally pretty good but a little slow at times!

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

MisterWoody_ — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 22:26:26 GMT

It's a static IP address assigned on the PC itself, so it's not even using DHCP (or at least it shouldn't be).
I tweaked the range that will get allocated too and this IP isn't in the range.

I may boot into linux tomorrow just to confirm it's not a weird windows issue that has cropped up and eliminate that at least.

Going to call it a night though for now - there's always tomorrow 🙂

Thanks for the suggestions though

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

Ewan15 — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 08:41:43 GMT

@MisterWoody_ The label on the box hints at the Firmware the router come which on mine was 2 49 5. It seems any new Pro Router will update to r3.8.26-R-1595999-PROD-1 (however routers that are on version r3.8.24-R-1531355-PROD-1 will not update to this version).

NB Factory resetting your router will not change the firmware version that has been applied.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

MisterWoody_ — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 09:51:47 GMT

Hi Ewan.

Thanks for the tip about the box label. (I'm aware that the factory reset wouldn't change the firmware version. I mentioned it as it was a Netgear advised instruction if there were router instabilities after a firmware update which in the case I had fixed an issue related to frequent wifi dropouts)

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

MisterWoody_ — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 10:16:10 GMT

OK - so this looks to not be related to port forwarding at all but a windows PC firewall issue I believe.

Booting to linux gives flawless results, so I'll start investigating the windows side.

Thanks for all the suggestions and help

Update - adding incoming rules for port 443 on TCP/UDP has resolved the issue

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

MisterWoody_ — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 19:29:14 GMT

Indeed - I never meant to suggest that it would. As my initial post mentioned this is recommended by Netgear for their routers and after doing that I had a rock solid connection.

So I was looking for best practice.

Unfortunately - after the factory reset it's made zero difference so in this case I assume not applicable.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

Barneyabz — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 12:54:27 GMT

@Ewan15 where have you heard that Pro routers on older firmware update to r3.8.26 but those on r3.8.24 do not update? Is that for real? do you know the reason why?

Also, do you know when a new firmware update is coming to the Pro? At the moment my Pro is in a drawer as it is too unreliable (on r3.8.24). It periodically loses all throughput - devices show as connected to internet but nothing works. Switch router off and on and it starts to work again....until everything freezes again a few hours or a day or two later. Very annoying, especially when you are working from home and need reliability. I'm currently using my old Smart Hub Plus but would love to use the supposedly more powerful Smart Hub Pro as I have an extender with that as well to give me even stronger coverage.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

MisterWoody_ — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 13:13:36 GMT

I believe I have the latest update for the PRO hub and extender, and they're performing pretty well - no disconnects other than a brief hiccough when streaming video on my mobile and it switched from the extender to the hub.

I have done a bunch of factory resets since the update when trying to troubleshoot my port forwarding issue (turned out to be a windows firewall issue in the end that is resolved). If you don't have a huge amount of config infor set up on your PRO then I'd recommend doing the factory reset - and if it's tucked away being unused at preset then I assume there's no real issue in trying that. You'd want to pick a time that it isn't during your workday though if working from home as it will take at least a few minutes to get back up and running.
It would be nice to have a manual option to load the latest firmware, but my understanding is it's a custom OpenWRT firmware and like the BT smart hubs is upgraded remotely during a presumably off peak interval.
My equipment is on r3.8.26-R-1595999-PROD-1
Hope that helps

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

Ewan15 — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 08:08:26 GMT

@Barneyabz My observations are based on my own tests and what other users have posted concerning firmware upgrades.

I have two Pro Routers one which I have had for many months and the other that EE sent me recently.

I could not get my older Pro to upgrade to r3.8.26 from r3.8.24 just as others have observed, however my new router upgraded from it's out of box software version, initially to r3.8.25 then overnight to r3.8.26.

Other users have reported their recently supplied Pro upgraded to r3.8.26.

So I do not know the reason why, but the observations appear consistent.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

bobpullen — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 10:56:08 GMT

@MisterWoody_ wrote:
OK - so this looks to not be related to port forwarding at all but a windows PC firewall issue I believe.
Update - adding incoming rules for port 443 on TCP/UDP has resolved the issue

Are you talking about adding these rules on the Windows machine itself? I wouldn't expect you to have to do this. Have you checked to ensure that your Windows network connection hasn't reverted to 'Public' instead of 'Private' following the firmware update?

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

MisterWoody_ — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 13:06:37 GMT

I'm actually happier that I had to intervene an add this rule to be honest.

You are correct that it appears to have set itself in the 'Public' profile rather than 'Private'.

At some point I'll likely set up something like a mini form factor pc or raspberry pi to handle the site instead.

Thanks for the feedback

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

MisterWoody_ — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 13:08:54 GMT

I wonder if there is something slightly different in the hardware for the two routers? That may prevent a version upgrade potentially - but I think the software is a customised Open WRT firmware image and I've no idea how to check.