Has anyone had broadband failure like this?

[user16]

I cannot connect to certain websites or I have limited access. Several websites just give me a ring of death. Others will give me text but no pictures. Some websites just give a blank screen.  On the other hand, Amazon works fine, Netflix works fine. I telephoned EE support and after several days of phone calls and an EE engineer visit I have been told my line is fine, my router is fine but needed a  factory reset. This seemed to correct the problem and I could connect to my banking app and see the BBC in glorious colour!

The following day after the engineer left, the same problem comes back. I have an internet connection but I cannot connect to my bank and websites like the BBC have gone back to text only.

My connection speed is fine (6Mbs/0.5Mbs which is good for us),

I can ping google.com with no packet loss and a round trip time of 35ms (again, good for our location). Same with BBC.co.uk but, alas, no pictures. I have gone through all the usual checks of turning off virus checkers, add blockers etc and tested on several devices on several operating systems. 

However, if I do a factory reset on the router again, everything is normal !! The only thing that has changed is my router ip address.

With problems: ip is on 31.127.##.##

Without problems: ip is on 46.69.##.##

EE seems to reset the ports at night so this will probably change again tomorrow. 

Has anyone else had this sort of problem? The last time I came across this was with Pipex back in the 1990s. After a month of support calls and testing, Pipex finally admitted that they had changed a server and not told us.

C 

[XRaySpeX]

As far as I can tell 1 of those IPs is BT Retail, the other EE. Who are you with? Which BB product do you have? Which router do you have?

[user16]

Hello XRaySpeX. Good to see you are still helping people on this site. 10/10 for stamina.

You are right. The ip that works is Orange (alias EE, alias Hutchison Whampoa). This is the one that works when you do a factory reset. The other, which does not and it seems to revert to over 24 hours, is BT.

I will check again in another 24 hours.

To answer your questions:

I am with EE.

Product plan is "Standard Broadband with landline"

The router is a Bright Box 1

[XRaySpeX]

To try to get round this issue switch the DNS in the router away from EE's ones to Manual with 1 of these public DNS pairs:

OpenDNS   :	208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220
Google DNS:	8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4 
Cloudflare DNS	1.1.1.1 & 1.0.0.1  

[user16]

Thanks. I have tried that but I shall try it again when the ip reverts back to a BT server, probably overnight.

For the moment, I have done another factory reset - the wife could not do her online shopping, otherwise - and everything is working.

Just out of interest, the DNS's don't seem to change overnight and both seem to be EE.

[XRaySpeX]

I wouldn't expect the DNS to change. They are issued by the EE network regardless of your public IP.

[ckevin]

Hi C

I have the exact same issue since 10 Jul, and yes, my IP is 31.127.##.##.

I have EE tech and Openreach tech came but failed to resolve the issue, EE customer service said she did not receive other reports of similar issue and she did not escalate the issue any further. The only thing she agreed is to allow me leaving the contract without paying early termination fee. It's a shame because other than that, I'm happy with EE so far. BT has similar issue and so definitely won't be switching to there! 

I have done some research, it is not a bad IP issue but really down to EE router setting at exchange level but EE just did not investigate and admit. Good luck!

[Mustrum]

@ckevin  sorry to hear you have being having issues.

In order to help though a bit more info and detail would help.

EE being part of the BT Group use an IP address from other parts of the group that are no longer in use - BT Americas one example. The next three digits would help.

As for the engineers, EE do not have any that visit customers, but have access to QUBE engineers if they suspect customer equipment issues, and Openreach engineers if they suspect line problems.

In theory one of them should have spotted the change of IP address, alas ........ and if it is working when they test it is easy to move on.

If any ISP can't solve an issue within a certain time, they often take the easy option, let you leave, give someone else the problem. Often, the problem follows.

The more info you can provide, the easier it can be to help.

[XRaySpeX]

@Mustrum : FYI : Here follows the next 3 digits of the IP & even more!

---

IP Location	United Kingdom Rushmere St Andrew British Telecommunications Plc
ASN	AS12576 EE Ltd, GB (registered Jul 30, 1999)

inetnum:        31.126.0.0 - 31.127.255.255
netname:        BT-Retail
descr:          BT Retail
country:        GB
org:            ORG-BPIS1-RIPE
admin-c:        FLS15-RIPE
tech-c:         BS1474-RIPE
status:         ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by:         BTNET-INFRA-MNT
created:        2022-05-03T12:05:01Z
last-modified:  2022-05-03T12:05:01Z
source:         RIPE

organisation:   ORG-BPIS1-RIPE
org-name:       British Telecommunications PLC
country:        GB
org-type:       LIR
address:        PP1, Floor1, Orion, Adastral Park, Martlesham Heath
address:        IP5 3RE
address:        Ipswich
address:        UNITED KINGDOM

---

[ckevin]

Thanks Mustrum and XRaySpeX, my IP was 31.127.74.x.

Although I have already moved on to other ISP, I do hope this kind of router level issue can be resolved as I know it is quite common in BT/EE. (try searching 'can't access certain websites' with 'bt' or 'ee'!)