overnight change 12/07- EE appear to be blocking UDP port 1194 - mobile to FTTP?

[bigbloke]

Hi Guys

I host my own OpenVPN server at home.  with a number of remote clients
10PM last night, all my remote EE mobile devices were working.
There have been no changes to my systems settings in the interim period.

From the mobile client end,  I can see that the domain name service resolves the hostname correctly
the host is pingable.

If I log into my external router from home and tcpdump traffic coming in from the WAN port for UDP
protocol on port 1194 nothing arrives . 

if I connect directly to the router LAN the VPN initialises instantly - sub once second - so the fault is definitely
either in the EE mobile or FTTP network, and a change has occurred overnight that is causing this issue for
multiple devices. It impacts both 4 and 5G access.

I rang Customer service on the mobile side who clearly didnt understand the issue but helpfully put me through
to the Home broadband team.

The Home broadband team said "its literally like your router isnt there"
Im not using the EE router" I replied "The physical fibre connection is fine. Your router its rubbish
and not fit for purpose  so I use my own router" 

The customer support member subsequently hung up on me and has not returned my call
(Sorry, but you got a zero for that James) 
rather than use the "old boy" network  (ex Orange employee here) , what is the correct route into EE to get a
network layer 3/4 fault addressed please ?

Regards 

BB

[Leanne_T]

Morning @bigbloke 

Thanks for coming to the community. 

Has there been an update for the VPN since this happened do you know? 

Can you connect any other devices or other network SIM cards? 

Leanne. 

[wenklaw]

A too run an openvpn server on port 1194 UDP on my BT FTTP connection at home

I have started to experience  a pretty much unusable vpn connection from my EE mobile (contract) I can connect using the openvpn ios client but data is extremely slow all of a sudden, if at all.  This has happened recently but cant put an exact day on it.

If I connect using a different mobile providers sim in the same phone and same app, config etc all the same it connects fine via 4g/5g and i get 50+ Mbps (my upload server side is 100Mbps).  Likewise if i am away and connect via wifi the openvpn connection on the same phone works fine. So this is not an issue with either my openvpn server or clients config, simple.

Something has happened at EE's end thats for sure  

Ive changed the openvpn port to use TCP and its working fine over EE once again.  Seems its a UDP and openvpn thing over EE as QVPN works fine over UDP on port 443

[iStuart]

Same issue here - OpenVPN hosted at home (VirginMedia), OpenVPN app on IOS has been working for years, but suddenly no traffic received when stating VPN.

Have changed the port to something else than UDP1194 and connection works immediately. EE clearly started blocking this port.

Any ideas on how to speak to someone sensible to get this resolved?