1.6Gbit connection new smart hub (white, small box) sporadic issues? DNS MITM?

[allamavortex]

Hello all,

So I recently changed my service from 900mbit to 1.6Gbit and that involved a change of router and obviously the OR ONT on the wall.

Ever since having it installed there seems to be an issue with (most likely DNS issues). Whatever is loaded/playing/game continue to work, but I have spells where NO further DNS requests seem to make it through.

I totally forgot to nslookup during one of these issues, but I will the next time it happens (it's pretty frequent and annoying). I can ping 8.8.8.8 (google) whilst being unable to load any webpages on any device/browser. Thus removing the possibility of it being localised to a single machine/device as some were using the router, some were set to DNS over HTTPS and some were using Google's 8.8.8.8 etc. 

It is very much like the router is playing the MITM and intercepting the requests and then slowly, or failing to process these requests at all for a period of time which ranges up to about 45 seconds.

As I said, cached requests, or those already in process are fine, but even something as trivial as trying to watch a YT video is met with 45 seconds of nothing, totally unable to look up ANY address, but established connections and new connections not requiring DNS all work fine.

I'm not really one for conspiracies but I really feel like this new router is intercepting (MITM), attempting to do something with, and failing the DNS requests. This behaviour is only been present since getting the new Smart Hub (the tall, thing white one).

I did a quick google and it seems I'm not alone with this - is anyone else noticing this type of behavior?

Mixture of wired and wireless devices, same behaviour.

[rainman2871]

The Fix didn't really achieve anything as customers next day tried it again and the issues were still there again. You can choose what you want to do but for me I will carry on with the 3rd party router I have no issues at all and performance of the TP-LINK is far superior to the supplied EE hub pro yes the downside is you have to pay for it but you pay for the quality not quantity as they say, If I was EE I would be looking into new manufacturer for replacement Routers I have a lot of concerns with there Hub and there firmware rollouts it will be a constant issue, also I noticed when you use there smart Hub for a long period it really overheats vs 

The TP-Link Archer BE9300 (also known as the Archer GE550 or BE550) does have features designed for better ventilation and cooling to maintain stable performance, especially during intense use like gaming. It incorporates a specially designed vent and both upper and lower heat sinks to facilitate efficient heat dissipation and with the TP-Link you can back up the system just  incase of any issues like firmware updates and rollback to your last saved system config file and you are in more control and loads of custom settings which is great

overall The TP-Link is just a better quality Router specially for the 1.6gb or if any new fibre broadband companies that install speeds up to 2.5gb it will serve the purpose  so you understand where I'm coming from.

[JimM11]

@nice_chap It's looking like EE are trying to pin it down with what is going on and applying some Temp fixes to Router's but that will only be to those that they have the information about, so if you are unknown to them you may not get, believe EE are monitoring the thread but will be a lot going on, think that there was an explanation earlier in the post if you did see it!

[TraderTravel]

<rant>

Just to clarify with everyone reading this thread what the actual situation is as there is a lot of misinformation going around.

Based on some testing I did with the mods behind the scenes the other day, this is not strictly a firmware issue as such (although I am sure a new firmware might be part of a longer-term fix). The issue causing the dropped and delayed packets appears to be related to EE's wifi optimisation routines that EE have on people's accounts using their management software (which users can alter using the EE app). By completely disabling the wifi optimisation, EE's mods seem to have resolved the issue. I think what EE did the other night was to try and disable these wifi optimisations as many accounts as they could, but clearly it feels like they were unable to get everyone's account.

Firstly I don't know how the code which manages these optimisations runs. It might be partially server side (on EE's management servers) and partially on our hubs. A new firmware might or might not help. Without actually seeing the code and knowing their setup, I don't have a view on this. Personally I suspect it is a bit of both as we know that EE have some quite sophisticated software to be able to look into our home networks to try and resolve issues.

In my case, since EE turned this the wifi optimisations off manually on their end, I have seen no delayed or dropped packets in all of my testing that I have run over the past few days. I have re-run the my test script as well as made a whole bunch of changes to test various other timings and I have been effectively pain free for the last few days. I will caveat this and state that I am still running my own DHCP and DNS server (using dnsmasq and unbound on a Raspberry Pi). This might impact results, but I have attempted to test things also via the EE hub and I have seen that queries sent via the EE Hub have been successful.

My suggestion would be to wait for the Mods to come back to us with a permanent fix. Clearly we have a temp fix (where it has been successfully manually applied to an account), but this is clearly not a permanent fix. Sadly this might take a few days, but again remember that I am just a customer like yourselves and not someone who works in their Service Desk. 🙂

If you need a permanent fix now, going down the path of purchasing your own kit can resolve the issue, but as I have said on multiple occasions, looking at the forums for the other vendors, its a bit of a frying pan - fryer moment. Wifi 7 kit clearly still has a bit of a way to reach maturity. Also as this kit is primarily going out to just 1.6gbps customers, clearly we are not a huge populations of users compared to the rest of EE's user base. I don't know if this issue also impacts other customers who might be spending the extra money to 'upgrade' to the Smart Hub Pro and Smart Wifi Pro. That said, I suspect that userbase is extremely small (most people are cheap!).

</rant over>

[spacedyemeerkat]

Spoke with 1.6 CS again a few minutes ago after the last person I spoke to (Ethan) on Saturday promised to update me with a call on Monday and didn't. They sent me a text message instead saying no resolution and replies to the number were turned off. They then closed the complaint. Quite incredible customer service. Went through it all again this morning, another complaint raised. Was told no ETA on fix.

It's astonishing there's not been some sort of communication sent to those affected (*at least* to those who've raised issues), saying, "hey, we hear you. It's not a good look for us, we know, and we're working on it. We're genuinely sorry. From this point we're going to update you every Wednesday." There is nothing worse as a customer than feeling like you're just shouting at passing clouds over a genuine service issue and yet this is exactly how they're making (at least some of) us feel.

[rainman2871]

I would advise you buy a 3rd party router if you have the funds go for it there will be constant issues with there supplied hardware/firmware and my concern is the supplied hub is cheap and hardware is not great either and there firmware / software updates  is completely useless, plus it over heats and the ventilation is not great Good luck which route you take

[spacedyemeerkat]

Interesting update, thank you.

You mentioned dropped packets on WiFi but we're seeing the same issues over ethernet - is it related?

[TraderTravel]

@spacedyemeerkat The issue impacts packets regardless of whether they are related to Wifi or ethernet connections.

@rainman2871 I actually disagree. Since EE manually switched off wifi optimisations on my account, I have had no further recurrence of the problem, and I test regularly for it. I don't know if EE have done anything to your account in the first place so I would not jump the gun and suggest that the issue has come back, as likely nothing was changed on your account. As you are clearly using a 3rd party router, clearly this issue no longer impacts you. I would just enjoy the new kit you have as it will likely be better than anything supplied by an ISP. Just go and enjoy your new kit.

[rainman2871]

I'm sorry but I disagree with you as well, everyone at there own decision the embarrassing thing is its taken a long time to get a temporary fix as you say  which is not a fix  by disabling the WIFI optimization I cant see how that would affect  or even fix as a solution if customers are using hard wired ethernet connections you bypass WIFI connection settings, (there were 2- 3 customers on this forum site reporting there connections seemed a bit better but when they went back on next day the issues appeared again),   I phoned last week to there tech support and they were not aware of any  issues until I told them to read the forum link I sent them, Andy from tech support when spoken to there IT manager had a joke he said do you want a job at EE that made me laugh,  but  now by reporting the issues with other customers who also phoned last week which probably started the investigation after a long period of problems after problems, are now looking deeper into the ongoing poor service but anyway this is not great from a customer point of view, and yes I am enjoying my new kit are you jealous (lol) no issues and very stable service what more do you want. 

 I think it would be good  if EE would offer a fair gesture of compensation for widespread service problems offering  compensation to all affected customers

[rainman2871]

And yes I am on the list for testing with EE support engineers but that's no good as my wife works from home and needs stable connection  to Citrix server for her  to log in and uses Teams for meetings I couldn't swap the router back to there smart hub pro to get the update as my wife doesn't finish until 6pm and the EE team go home before that which to me you need EE engineers to stay later to investigate the urgency for a fix to get this sorted with customers.

I got a private Message from Alex H yesterday asking me if I could change back to there smart hub and again I told him the same thing they need to get a couple of  EE engineers to stay on later for a bit longer to roll out any fixes as some customers don't get home from work until after 5pm to apply this due to some of them have a 3rd party router like me  that needs changing over to get the upgrade.

[Ali_A]

Afternoon all - thanks again for bearing with us.

Some changes were made overnight that should have reduced response times, and fixed the intermittent timeout issues being reported. 

If you continue to experience the problem could you try rebooting your hub to see if that helps- just a simple power off/on, no need to factory reset. 

If this doesn't help please let us know.

Thanks!

Ali