Access to Train Movements product on RDM

[Александр Цыплаков]

Good day all!

I have just run into a strange problem: 
- I've subscribed to the NWR Train Movement product and setup the listner code to record messages. Last time it worked and saved messages was this morning around 6 am
- This evening same code just straight up fails to connect to the server, returning the following error

//Connection setup timed out in state SSL_HANDSHAKE (after 30195ms in state SSL_HANDSHAKE, 1 identical error(s) suppressed)

My question: is it possible that I has been "switched off" from the product  by its provider for some reason? 
I am lost in regards to what else could be causing this: my code is exactly the same as this morning, same computer, and the Network Rail outage dashboard shows no current outages of TRUST (as far as I could read it).

Best regards,
Alexander


 

[Peter Hicks]

Hi Alexander

If your connection is timing out after 30 seconds, it sounds like you're unable to reach the Kafka service.  If it were a problem with an SSL certificate, or invalid credentials, I'd expect it to fail rather more quickly.

One possible issue is that your IP address is being blocked from accessing Kafka.  A quick thing to try is connecting from a different host - preferably in a different geographical location if you can.  I have a feeling you may have ended up having your IP address incorrectly geolocated to a territory not permitted to access the service - this happened to somebody else, whose IP address ended up being geolocated to Russia, but was clearly Germany.

Peter

[Александр Цыплаков]

Thank you, Peter. I will try to do that.
I've also written an email to Open Data Team at NR - I know they are on Christmas break, but maybe it would help.

I have a small theory on the cause: when I was trying to understand the structure of data for the messages, I was running the script from my corp. laptop - which is in London. 
However, later I tried running the script from a corporate virtual machine, that is on our US server
(this was the sollution our tech. people suggested for running a listener 24/7)
That try didn't work - connection timed out in exactly the same way.

And now connection times out what I am trying to run it from my corp laptop again.
I can't imagine that US would be one of the "restricted countries" - but maybe my account was flagged for using IP addresses from 2 different countries (and continents, for that matter).  

Regards,
Alex

понедельник, 29 декабря 2025 г. в 10:23:03 UTC, Peter Hicks:

[Peter Hicks]

On Monday, 29 December 2025 at 10:48, Александр Цыплаков <deli...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've also written an email to Open Data Team at NR - I know they are on Christmas break, but maybe it would help.

Likely the NR team would forward you on to the RDM team at RDG - who are operating a limited service due to annual leave at the moment.

I have a small theory on the cause: when I was trying to understand the structure of data for the messages, I was running the script from my corp. laptop - which is in London.
However, later I tried running the script from a corporate virtual machine, that is on our US server
(this was the sollution our tech. people suggested for running a listener 24/7)
That try didn't work - connection timed out in exactly the same way.

And now connection times out what I am trying to run it from my corp laptop again.
I can't imagine that US would be one of the "restricted countries" - but maybe my account was flagged for using IP addresses from 2 different countries (and continents, for that matter).

If your account was flagged as suspicious for connecting from two different addresses from two different continents, I'd expect something to be done to your account, rather than both IP addresses to be blocked.  To take a real-life example - yesterday, one of my Microsoft 365 accounts was blocked for suspicious activity when I logged on from a train.  Had Microsoft blocked all access from that IP address, they would have impacted many more users than just me.  Instead, that account was prevented from logging in until the problem was resolved, so I knew it was an account issue.

Trying a connection with your client from an IP address you've not used before - if that's possible with your setup (e.g. your laptop may have an 'always on' VPN such as ZScaler which will always tunnel traffic save for any captive portals) - will rule out an issue with your software itself.  Unfortunately, corporate networking and security restrictions can often get in the way of software development and you might even find that running the software from your corporate laptop, even not going through corporate infrastructure, might fail due to a locally-enforced firewall.

Peter

[Александр Цыплаков]

Peter, thank you for your recommendation - it worked!

I've moved my script to my personal laptop - that is 5 meters away from my corporate laptop - and now it runs smoothly.
It must have been something in the ZScaller settings, that was/still is tripping up the Kafka server. 

Regards,
Alex

понедельник, 29 декабря 2025 г. в 11:48:49 UTC, Peter Hicks: