topic Re: Port Forwarding Issue in Broadband & Landline

Port Forwarding Issue

IIIIIIIIIIIIIII — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:25:17 GMT

Hi,

Apologies for the long post however I've tried to give as much detail as possible.

My daughter has a Minecraft server which has been setup for years using port forwarding for the server and also for voice chat. We moved from BT to EE and set the relevant forwarding up for the server and the voice chat however whilst the server has no issues we're unable to get the voice chat to work.

We have tried changing the port however no matter what we select our testing returns that the port must be closed. This is despite everything on the router looking as it should. Whilst I'm fine setting up the forwarding etc I don't know as much as my daughter therefore I've had her send me (see below text) info regarding what she's done and how she has determined that it's the router/port that's the issue:

Hello I am currently having difficulty forwarding a port. I run a Minecraft server which is accessible to people outside my network on an ubuntu machine, however, recently I have been trying to get simple voice chat working which requires another separate open port. I tried to open the needed port from my router but it is still not open.

You may wonder how I know it is the port and not something I am doing. To determine this I went onto my ubuntu machine and did a tcpdump for the port I knew was open, and then used my phone on 4g to send udp packets to the public IP. This worked fine and I could see the packets coming in. I then tried the same with the port I didn't know if was open and I could not receive any packets.

I also did another test where instead of connecting to my minecraft server from the public ip with ddns, I connected with the private ip, when I did this voice chat was working. As well as obviously I could see packets through tcpdump. It's just external users that can't use voice chat. I'm not really sure what to do now since I've added the rule on my router but it's clearly not open.

In addition we have also tried following the relevant steps of turning off upnp and adding the port range back in. Have also tried different number ranges rather than the default 24454/udp.

Not sure if this is relevant/helpful. I had also read elsewhere that there's a brief handshake with tcp before routing voice over 24454/udp. As such I tried setting up the port over udp/tcp rather than just udp however when putting the range into internal the external port range turned red. From what I understand this occurs when there's an overlap however there's no other port forwarding with this range (or close to it).

Smart Hub 7 Pro - Version 3.14.5

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

JimM11 — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:43:26 GMT

@IIIIIIIIIIIIIII You need to post a capture up first off your Port forwarding rules, in the meantime there is just plenty on the Forum regarding the why/why not the Pro is just not playing ball now. The link below will get you started.

Port forwarding not working - The EE Community

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

IIIIIIIIIIIIIII — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:06:16 GMT

Thanks. Hopefully this helps. Will have a look at the link you posted

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

JimM11 — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:10:46 GMT

@IIIIIIIIIIIIIII Will check once your picture get's cleared for general viewing, remember to use the link within the other post as well, hopefully there is no need to go down the Factory reset for your 7 Pro hub, more an issue now with the uPnP that was introduced with the latest FW up dates that EE have applied, bit off a follow on from the 7 Plus bug that was NEVER in the Pro version but is possibly now.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

IIIIIIIIIIIIIII — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:48:19 GMT

If I have to factory reset then so be it.

On reading various posts I noticed something was said about port ranges being zero. Not sure if this highlights an issue however there's 3 devices port forwarding that the end for the external ports are zero. The internal start/end match with the start for the external but the end just for the external is zero. These are also greyed out.

Might be nothing but thought I'd mention it

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

XRaySpeX — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:57:42 GMT

Try disabling uPnP in the Firewall to get rid of those 4 faulty auto uPnP rules. May need a reboot.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

JimM11 — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:00:37 GMT

@IIIIIIIIIIIIIII Picture cleared and if it is the uPnP causing the issue then the one you have is port 26189 on the machine with the IP ending 136. Only suggestion is turn those 3 systems off, and see if the uPnP disappears from view, or is stuck there forever.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

XRaySpeX — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:23:37 GMT

@JimM11 wrote:
if it is the uPnP causing the issue then the one you have is port 26189 on the machine with the IP ending 136.

How do you work out that it's that particular rule out of all 4 rules that is behind the issue?

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

IIIIIIIIIIIIIII — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:46:08 GMT

Apologies as this is where I show just how little I know!

When you say 'see if the uPnP disappears from view'. Where would I see that and what would it look like?

Also I still have uPnP turned off at the moment. Also, of the 3 devices, one is a laptop but the other 2 I have no idea what they are. I checked under devices connected to the network and these 2 devices show no upload or download traffic at all.

Edited: I have found what 136 is. It's an old Nas server which I can turn off. Just leaves 1 device unaccounted for.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

JimM11 — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:33:23 GMT

@XRaySpeX See the link below, have NO EE hub currently but would take me 30minutes to work it out!

Port Forwarding Issues - SMARTHUB SH32B - The EE Community

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

JimM11 — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:39:02 GMT

@IIIIIIIIIIIIIII The norm in a good working uPnP hub, is when the device is turned off where you captured that picture posting the device disappears from view and is NO longer functional. but EE may be doing the Grey it out and then who knows what is going on, does that trip it all up, the sure fire way to get it all gone is linked earlier in this post if you read that... Will link it separate, give me a second. Treat the Pro as the Plus currently until future conformation.

Solved: Smart Hub 7 plus - Port Forwarding horror. - The EE Community

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

IIIIIIIIIIIIIII — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:55:02 GMT

Thanks will look at this and see where it takes me.

I have found what all 3 devices are and can turn them all off, if this still helps?

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

JimM11 — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:03:53 GMT

@IIIIIIIIIIIIIII The link is going to take you down the Factory Reset to get it all working if as @XRaySpeX has put disable the uPnP feature on one off the screens, if they stay Greyed out then the only way to rid them from the Hub quickly is a Full Reset but before you do that sit and think what heartache it is going to cause you if any, there is NO backup/recover for the Hub, but the do now say the DV side for landline contacts is working for Backup/restore if you are indeed using a landline.

Other way just stick your BT Equipment all back on the connection, working before good chance it is all still working, especially if it is a BT Smarthub2 version that supports the DV function.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

IIIIIIIIIIIIIII — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:06:04 GMT

Apologies I missed your response as I was jumping in and out of other pages with similar issues re PF.

Yesterday I deleted the one which wasn't port forwarding, turned off uPnP, rebooted the router, added it back in. Currently it's turned off however are you saying I should delete the 4 greyed out rules?

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

JimM11 — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:12:04 GMT

@IIIIIIIIIIIIIII If you can then yes, go for it and see what happens. You can easily create them again from scratch just do not stick the zero value in, match the first entry to the second.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

XRaySpeX — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:12:46 GMT

I was hoping that by disabling uPnP then the router couldn't possibly create any uPnP generated rules. Possibly after a reboot.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

IIIIIIIIIIIIIII — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:13:28 GMT

Thanks again.

Yeah so the greyed out PF should've vanished (they didn't) as the picture was taken with uPnP turned off. I have read the link a few times now. When researching this yesterday I found those posts however I did read them again when you posted them.

Unfortunately the routers were sent back to BT so I no longer have them.

It'll be a bit of a headache factory resetting however if I have to do it then so be it. Only thing I would ask is that I have a landline also. Is there anything to worry about there?

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

JimM11 — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:14:45 GMT

@XRaySpeX Plug and Pray is the other explanation at the best off times, did think you were going that way though.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

XRaySpeX — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:16:59 GMT

@JimM11 : Dunno what you are talking about. What way am I to go? I've already talked about uPnP.

Re: Port Forwarding Issue

IIIIIIIIIIIIIII — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:19:10 GMT

In looking for those 3 devices that were part of the greyed out PF. One of them was a Playstation and the on PF I've ever done for that was for a game my son had issues with. That was when we were with BT and around 10yrs ago! Not sure why it would be showing up on this router.