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.

[TraderTravel]

@ben_flugel Sadly these are 'Community Forums' which pretty much the entire industry uses to push other users to help themselves rather than 'bother' customer service. Whilst EE will have a few mods that regularly check these forums, I doubt much gets back to where it is really needed.

The reality is that most ISPs are not particularly great for real technical support. Looking at this thread, it is fairly clear there are a few of us who could probably run rings around even the most technically proficient guide, and I don't mean this in a disparaging way.

The short story is that we have found a bug and hopefully the more of us who are a little more technically adept can push a guide to somehow feedback to the firmware development team, the more likely we will have the issue resolved. That however is likely to take months rather than weeks.

The other option is to take the approach @allamavortex has taken and simply get your own more capable kit. The obvious options are to look at something coming out of Asus or Ubiquity. Having said that, be aware that all vendors have a few issues. My last bit of Asus kit took about a year before the firmware was in a reasonable state, and a quick look at the ubiquity forums suggest their Wifi7 kit suffer from a few firmware issues and even overheating. With that in mind, it might be a frying pan into a fryer moment. 🙂

If you have the ability, I would strongly recommend setting up your own DHCP and DNS server. It won't solve the drop outs, but it will make your connection feel significantly snappier. That's pretty much all we can do until EE fix this bug.

[AHarMan2]

I dont understand why people are going on about wifi in this thread. I have a single laptop plugged via ethernet into the back of the EE wifi 7 router and I have this issue.

I wonder if some sort of monitoring / traffic capture is going on. Seems odd this started end of July when new age verification checks were added.

[JimM11]

@AHarMan2 No one wants to go down that rabbit hole at present know what we mean!

[TraderTravel]

@AHarMan2 The issues described in this thread impact all connections, whether wifi or ethernet.

[rainman2871]

Hi Mate

I spoke to EE SUPPORT  last Friday we wont get a firmware fix for at least couple of months but I was told they will definetly do a firmware rollback that is for certain there IT Manager spoke to Andy from EE tech support while I was on the phone to him he said with in a week or 2.

Also I installed my 3rd party router at the weekend so easy to setup and was testing I even gained an extra 50meg downstream testing on speed check nearly 1700gbps vs The stock router from EE smart hub pro which with speed test by 00KLA was 1.645gbps,  the  router I am using is this one 

TP-Link Archer BE550 Tri-Band BE9300 WiFi 7 Router, 6-Stream 9.2Gbps Speed WiFi Router, Full 5x 2.5G WAN/LAN Ports, 6x Internal Antennas Covers Up to 2,000 Sq. Ft., VPN Support, Homeshield

And the main thing no more issues.

There was a firmware update after setup so installed it reboot the router great still working as it should the only thing I cant get to work with is my digital phone service as you know it needs the EE router for it to allow the phones to work there's no way im going back to the EE router, TP-Link far superior Router and the cost is great £179 from amazon with loads of options with it and the built in vpn with wireguard protocol even better.

[rainman2871]

Buddy its software related Dodgy Firmware to blame don't worry EE are going to rollback the firmware to a older working firmware for now with in the next couple of weeks so the issues you getting wont be there until they re-code - and test new firmware before they roll it out to all customers.

[rainman2871]

Hi Buddy

Connected my 3rd party router at the weekend, the TP-Link Archer BE550 Tri-Band BE9300 WiFi 7 Router

Just so easy to setup I have setup several 3rd party routers when I was connected to BT over the years

anybody can do it really as long as they have router home page details to login use the router easy setup guide input the connection type and select  PPPoE, then input  username and password which as you know  its easy to get that info from EE or google search,  Its just a pain I cant use my digital phone service to connect my 2 BT handsets there's no way I'm going back to EE router not for a long time 

[JimM11]

@rainman2871 It's called compromise so EE DV will need to go by the wayside! VOIP and grabbing the number if EE will allow it to be released and ported to VOIP provider would be another route!

[rainman2871]

yes that is one way  I just wished the manufacturers of 3rd party routers could implement the digital phone service in the router software oh well I will have to see what I can do. thanks for the info

[JimM11]

@rainman2871 Not that a few do it hub/router wise, but EE/BT/Sky etc having invested money getting the/there system's all to work are NEVER going to give the detail out so you can connect with ANY third party device!