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Port forward not working with EE smart hub

freddy2004
Contributor
Contributor

I just installed the EE smart hub. I'm having lots of problems when I copied port forward rules from the previous router. Most rules were not working. I could not figure out the be pattern. e.g. 9480-9499  udp/tcp worked fine while 5190-5199 udp did not.

Has anyone worked out what definitely works what doesn't?

Has EE got any firmware upgrade plan to fix the bug?  

25 REPLIES 25
Mustrum
EE Community Star
EE Community Star

@freddy2004   what was your previous router? And which model do you now have Smart Hub is just a generic name, the model number is more helpful.

Did you use a seperate line for each port number, rather than try and use the block of port numbers?

Why not use the old router?

aviator56
Contributor
Contributor

Well I’m relieved I’m not the only new Smart Hub Pro user with this same problem.

SH Pro installed 7 days ago, replacing a BR Smart Hub 2 on which I had some 15 or so port forwarding rules running without a hitch, a couple assigned by UpNp, the majority manually.

The new SH Pro does not list any UpNp assigned port forwarding at all, only those I have entered manually.

I run a Western Digital cloud server at home, which assigns IP and ports via UpNp, it is working fine, is accessible from the web remotely, therefore the correct ports must be open and forwarded - the WD device nor its ports are listed in the “Firewall” section.

The issue is complicated by the fact that the majority of devices connected to my network are only listed in the “My Network” tab of the SH Pro if I select the “Not Connected” option, despite them having been assigned IPs and functioning correctly on the network - bizarre!

In fact, I’ve discovered that those devices the router thinks are “disconnected”, which are actually connected, and have manually entered port forwarding or should have UpNp assigned port do NOT work when probed from the Web.

To be clear, the SH Pro is not opening ports for devices it thinks are disconnected, yet have correctly assigned IPs AND are pingable and functioning on my network.

Sorry for long post, but I’ve spent a week assigning ports, re-booting the router etc without resolving the problem. I’m reluctant to do a factory reset on the SH Pro to see if that resolves the issue, because it’ll take me a full day to set everything up again, a day I can’t afford atm.

I had BT home hub 3 for a few years, which worked fine. EE sent me this Smart Hub Plus, product code SH31B, a few weeks ago after a new contract was signed. 

Tried a single port number as a separate rule seemed to work.

I was a hard work to pin down the problem was due to port forwarding on the new hub. 

freddy2004
Contributor
Contributor

I have been using port forwarding on the 20+ different routers for about 20 years without any problems, I'm shocked to experience this with EE Smart Hub Plus.

It seemed to that the attached devices have to use IPs within the DHCP range and reserve them in the address table. I could not port forward a device with static IP outside the DHCP range ( i.e. 192.168.1.64 - 253).

Ewan15
Skilled Contributor
Skilled Contributor

@freddy2004 This is the same on the Smart Hub Pro so it looks like this is EE policy.

Maybe the addresses that sit outside the range are for use with WIFI Hot Spots that we all contribute to.

bobpullen
Scholarly Contributor
Scholarly Contributor

@freddy2004 - what firmware version is your Smart Hub Plus running? Some have been upgraded to a newer 2.x build recently and it would be interesting to know if forwarding a range of ports is still problematic? It's an issue that has been flagged by others round these parts in the past.

@aviator56 - There are a few other threads about UPnP too however, I think the Hub Pro is already running version 2.x firmware so potentially still waiting on a fix there? Things not showing as connected when they are is an odd one; is there any commonality between the devices that are doing this? Anything non-orthodox about your network configuration/other settings? e.g. additional access points, servers etc?


@freddy2004 wrote:

It seemed to that the attached devices have to use IPs within the DHCP range and reserve them in the address table. I could not port forward a device with static IP outside the DHCP range ( i.e. 192.168.1.64 - 253).


Very curious. There's definitely not a complete dependency on the hub's DHCP server because I have that switched off entirely and my port forwards are working fine. That said, my client devices are still within the hub's default DHCP range. Might try temporarily setting something up with an IP < 192.168.1.64 and see if I observe the same...

Ewan15
Skilled Contributor
Skilled Contributor

@bobpullen Did you succeed in setting an IP address outside of the DHCP range? I suspect IP < 192.168.1.64 are reserved.

bobpullen
Scholarly Contributor
Scholarly Contributor

@Ewan15 - haven't had the chance to try yet; doubt the opportunity will arise until after the Xmas festivities but I'll be sure to report back.

Just a thought though for @freddy2004 - When you say there needs to be a DHCP reservation, how are you selecting the target device for the port forwarding rule? There are two ways to do this: you can select from a list of client devices (which I assume uses the DHCP table) or you can click the 'Show IP address' button in the column header (which allows you to input a specific LAN IP address). If you enter an IP outside of the DHCP range using the latter method, then what happens?