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.

[ryajohnst]

It was when I actually connected to the network instead of the main SSID that I noticed the problem going away. Did you remain connected to the main SSID?

[tnj]

Seeing comments about being connected to the main SSID I thought I would disable all wireless to see if the router worked as it should on LAN only. Oddly enough with my Pro router now saying all wireless is disabled I can still connect to the Internet via WiFi and the Pro Extenders which I find very odd.

[TraderTravel]

@ryajohnst : I’m a little confused at your response. Hoping we can get on same page as in very curious now.

I have a guest WiFi network enabled. I don’t personally use it myself. Other people do when at my house (eg our cleaner).

I tend to leave this network on 24/7/365. It’s useful for other people to access.

[ryajohnst]

It was when I was actually using the network instead of the main SSID that I didn't notice the problem.

[TraderTravel]

I've just had the router fall over a moment ago and this is a great example of the behaviour:

[bobpullen]

Exactly the symptoms seen in @ryajohnst's script output, i.e: -

• Ping/ICMP traffic is successful to either the hub itself or an external IP address (although there's evidence to suggest that the response times are a little slower than expected)
• DNS resolution using either the hub IP or direct to an external server fails. Likewise, trying to ping a host name will fail because the initial DNS lookup never completes
• Evidence that the 'lock up' isn't specific to DNS traffic because there's a report that it was not possible to connect to an external SSH server via its IP address during the failure window

Update from me: I've had the aforementioned script running all afternoon across two machines. This time with the Guest WiFi feature disabled just in case it was having any beneficial bearing on things. Same results as before - I'm not seeing any DNS failures and it's only the Wi-Fi connection that shows (expected?) ping response variance 🤔

[JimM11]

@TraderTravel Would also be good if you where to list all the DNS server's that are being pointed to at the time!

[rainman2871]

Hi Guys, 

I have the same issues you guys are experiencing slow pages to load or freezing, and DNS server issues anyway been reading all your replies for this issue, so today I have finally phoned support stating the issue myself spoke to Andy from  EE support very helpful asked me to do a test  disconnecting the EE hub and directly connecting to one device  to the ONT modem only bypassing the EE smart hub pro by connecting this way temporarily to see if I get the same issue and the test shows no issues so yes I agree with you guys EE pro hub is at fault its either a dodgy batch of routers they have in stock ,  I suggested  the firmware is at fault caused by corrupted software this only happens on 1.6Gbps service not the 900 GB package customers don't get the same issues, I also mentioned if he could pass this on to there higher tech team that deal with the internal router hardware settings and firmware software, and I also asked could they add option to edit DNS settings so we can input are own DNS settings would make life a lot easier for everybody the EE tech adviser as stated they are looking into this and that it could be temporary for now for the next firmware rollout until they fix the main issue he did say its a bit embarrassing if customers buy there own 3rd party router to sort this and really he mentioned they want customers to use there equipment  (smart hub pro) he told me he sending another replacement router so when I return the old one he said they will look into the software and hardware to see if they find the issue, thought I would let you Guys know. And finally EE Tech adviser did agree with me as he did say he had a few other customers stating the same issue and he said the more customers to report this the quicker we will get this fixed. he mentioned it could take 1 - 2 months to sort lets hope they fix it.

Rainman287

[ryajohnst]

If it did take 1 to 2 months to fix, this is completely unacceptable. Particularly as this never used to be a problem, and presumably they could fix it by simply rolling back to the last known good version of firmware.

I've done more testing this afternoon and can confirm the issue exists across every SSID (Guest, Main and Compatible) with every combination of settings. I haven't tested connecting directly to the router with an ethernet cable in case the issue lies within the Wi-Fi part of the software.

What I have noticed during testing, is latency is much higher when using Wi-Fi 7 than Wi-Fi 6 (compatible SSID) on the order of around 50%.

Anyway, I've bit the bullet tonight as I'm now into 3-weeks of this and purchased an Ubiquiti Dream Router 7 (https://uk.store.ui.com/uk/en/products/udr7) for £264.00. I will certainly be expecting some compensation from EE to put towards the loss of service and for me having to purchase third party equipment in order to use the service I'm paying over the odds for anyway.

[allamavortex]

The replacement router they sent me came with a different firmware (older) and I watched it progressively update to a newer firmware, through about 4/5 different versions. During the older versions I didn't seem to have any issues, but to be honest, it wasn't like it stayed on each update very long so it's not exactly giving me much time/data to go off.