4G Broadband not connecting to Netflix and other services from certain devices

[JamesGrant88]

Hi,

I am at my wits end with an issue that has cropped up. I come from an IT background so know a lot how to troubleshoot etc.

In a nutshell, we have EE mobile broadband (a 4g SIM inserted into a Huwaei B525s) connected via an external antenna. We get 4 bars of signal and hit around 70-90mbps DL depending on the time of day, That all works brilliantly. 

However, for some reason I can't connect to some services on some devices but they work on other devices, for example.

1. I can't connect to Netflix or Youtube on my FireTV stick but I can connect to Prime Video. Netflix works fine on phone/iPad/laptop.

2. My xbox won't connect to any video services but will connect to Live for downloads. Xbox live chat does not work.

3. One of my Amazon echo devices connects fine, the other does not.

As soon as I put my Three SIM in, everything works absolutely fine. The trouble is the network is much slower.

I have obviously reset everything, tried everything vanilla, disconnected devices etc but nothing fixes it. This can't be an issue with my setup because as I say, as soon as a Three SIM is put in with a much poorer connection, everything just works.

I can't seem to change APN settings on the router to just IPV4 as another thread suggested.

I have changed content lock to strict then to open.

I have been on to the EE Tech Gurus who were not able to help at all. I have seen some other people have very similar issues to this and it was never solved, so I thought i'd create a new thread to shine some light on it. The gurus were trying to say I had too many devices connected, affecting the QoS to my FireTV etc but with nothing else using it I was still having issues and again, a different network provider worked fine. 

My last solution would be to cancel the SIM as it is out of contract and order a new one in case there is something wrong with the setup on my account.

If anyone else can help. please let me know!

[mikeliuk]

Hi @JamesGrant88 ,

I would recommend two separate tests:

1. Change Huawei B525s DNS to https://www.quad9.net/; and
2. Put EE SIM into unlocked mobile to check the hotspot behaviour, whether the same is seen.

[JamesGrant88]

Thank you. 

I got a small router (mifi) device and low and behold it works. 

changing the DNS settings on the B525 did nothing. I’ve reset the B525 back to default and tried that also and it didn’t work. 

this is very strange behaviour?

[mikeliuk]

Perhaps a factory reset of the Huawei (maybe your reset to default was already this) and then look for a firmware update after trying that first?

[JamesGrant88]

So I have found a solution which hopefully will help a lot of people in the future.

The issue does seem to relate to the APN settings being both IPV4 & IPV6. I believe the other router I tried was less advanced, only IPV4 hence it working straight away. 

The trouble is the Huwaei B525 (and other similar models) do not seem to have the ability to change the IP modes in the APN settings when creating a new profile. 

After about 20 different rabbit holes and many forums browsed (a lot of people having similar issues) I finally found out how to change the IPV settings.

You must do this in Google Chrome.

Go to your router > Dial Up > Profile Management > Add Profile

At this point press CTRL + F12

In the command box at the bottom of the new tab opened on the right enter: 

$('#ip_type').show();

This should give you the option to choose IPV4 only.

[Jon_K]

Thanks for sharing this, @JamesGrant88.

Hopefully other users can benefit from your experience.

Jon

[Josh_jdr]

Thank you so much! I couldn't figure out how to work the command bar with f12 properly but disabling ipv6 in my router settings did the trick. I just went straight to the router address and created a new profile with ipv4 only. Before this, facetime, call of duty and Netflix wouldn't work amongst other things. You're literally a life saver! haha. Not even EE tech support knew what was wrong, so this was my only hope. No better feeling than fixing a problem at 2am in the morning!

[itretail1]

Thanks again for sharing this, my router was different but the principle of removing IPV6 worked a treat.

[Mel3008]

Brilliant… thank you ever so much this has been doing my head in for the last 12 months. I ended up buying a new modem. I can now use my old modem and get faster speeds. 

[Bud303]

Thank you so much for sharing this fix! This was driving me absolutely mad and calling Netflix and we was of no use. You are a legend!