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Brian Gregory

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Sep 28, 2021, 4:55:03 PM9/28/21
to
For most of today I have been unable to view the BBC website at
www.bbc.co.uk from the Zen FTTC connection.

Is anyone else having problems?

I already know many others that aren't using Zen have had no problem.

--
Brian Gregory (in England).

Brian Gregory

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Sep 28, 2021, 4:56:11 PM9/28/21
to
On 28/09/2021 21:55, Brian Gregory wrote:
> For most of today I have been unable to view the BBC website at
> www.bbc.co.uk from the Zen FTTC connection.

I mean from MY Zen FTTC connection. Must try and get more sleep :(

Java Jive

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Sep 28, 2021, 5:14:06 PM9/28/21
to
On 28/09/2021 21:56, Brian Gregory wrote:
> On 28/09/2021 21:55, Brian Gregory wrote:
>> For most of today I have been unable to view the BBC website at
>> www.bbc.co.uk from the Zen FTTC connection.
>
> I mean from MY Zen FTTC connection. Must try and get more sleep :(

AFAIAA the BBC news website has been up all day. Certainly I've
accessed it without problem at various times during the day.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

Graham J

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Sep 29, 2021, 3:32:38 AM9/29/21
to
Brian Gregory wrote:
> On 28/09/2021 21:55, Brian Gregory wrote:
>> For most of today I have been unable to view the BBC website at
>> www.bbc.co.uk from the Zen FTTC connection.
>
> I mean from MY Zen FTTC connection. Must try and get more sleep :(
>

No problem here with my Zen FTTC connection.

Did you try:

1. ping by name?

2. ping by IP address?

3. browse by IP address?

4. reboot router/modem combo?

5. reboot computer?

6. use a different computer?


--
Graham J

Jeff Layman

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Sep 29, 2021, 3:44:14 AM9/29/21
to
On 28/09/2021 21:55, Brian Gregory wrote:
> For most of today I have been unable to view the BBC website at
> www.bbc.co.uk from the Zen FTTC connection.
>
> Is anyone else having problems?
>
> I already know many others that aren't using Zen have had no problem.

Don't think I checked yesterday, but no problem this morning via Zen.

--

Jeff

grinch

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Sep 29, 2021, 4:34:15 AM9/29/21
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Worked for me yesterday and this morning

Ken

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Sep 29, 2021, 5:28:25 AM9/29/21
to
On Tue, 28 Sep 2021 21:55:01 +0100, Brian Gregory
<void-invalid...@email.invalid> wrote:

>For most of today I have been unable to view the BBC website at
>www.bbc.co.uk from the Zen FTTC connection.
>
>Is anyone else having problems?
>
>I already know many others that aren't using Zen have had no problem.

My 'Internet radio' receiving BBC R4 over Zen has dropped out several
times this morning.

Mark Carver

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Sep 29, 2021, 5:38:08 AM9/29/21
to
On 28/09/2021 21:55, Brian Gregory wrote:
> For most of today I have been unable to view the BBC website at
> www.bbc.co.uk from the Zen FTTC connection.
>
> Is anyone else having problems?
>
>
>
Is this using Zen's DNS servers, or someone elses ?

Tony Mountifield

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Sep 29, 2021, 6:20:34 AM9/29/21
to
In article <irhdp5...@mid.individual.net>,
Brian Gregory <void-invalid...@email.invalid> wrote:
> For most of today I have been unable to view the BBC website at
> www.bbc.co.uk from the Zen FTTC connection.
>
> Is anyone else having problems?
>
> I already know many others that aren't using Zen have had no problem.

https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ can be useful in this situation.

Cheers
Tony
--
Tony Mountifield
Work: to...@softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: to...@mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org

Brian Gregory

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Sep 29, 2021, 7:08:40 AM9/29/21
to
Thanks everyone.

It's been up and down for me at various intervals.

I think what may be happening is that they're experimenting with
temporarily banning IP addresses which they detect using get-iplayer
( https://github.com/get-iplayer )
to download their media.

Java Jive

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Sep 29, 2021, 7:42:22 AM9/29/21
to
On 29/09/2021 12:08, Brian Gregory wrote:
>
> I think what may be happening is that they're experimenting with
> temporarily banning IP addresses which they detect using get-iplayer
> ( https://github.com/get-iplayer )
> to download their media.

Don't think so, GetIPlayer was working for me yesterday.

Abandoned_Trolley

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Sep 29, 2021, 9:10:03 AM9/29/21
to
On 29/09/2021 12:08, Brian Gregory wrote:
> Thanks everyone.
>
> It's been up and down for me at various intervals.
>
> I think what may be happening is that they're experimenting with
> temporarily banning IP addresses which they detect using get-iplayer
> ( https://github.com/get-iplayer )
> to download their media.
>
That would be a bit of a scattergun approach if the addresses are DHCP
allocated by the ISP ?

If people want to copy the content they can just catch it as it comes
out of a HDMI jack on one of those Roku boxes

--
random signature text inserted here

Brian Gregory

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Sep 29, 2021, 1:06:41 PM9/29/21
to
On 29/09/2021 12:42, Java Jive wrote:
> On 29/09/2021 12:08, Brian Gregory wrote:
>>
>> I think what may be happening is that they're experimenting with
>> temporarily banning IP addresses which they detect using get-iplayer
>> ( https://github.com/get-iplayer )
>> to download their media.
>
> Don't think so, GetIPlayer was working for me yesterday.
>

Yesterday I definitely lost access to the BBC twice during running
get_iplayer.

But it seems fine this afternoon.

Banning could work if they quite quickly just ban you for a few minutes
before you can download much. It'd stop anyone downloading a whole
series of programs.

The long outage I had first thing yesterday could have been due to me
running get_iplayer on schedule at around 5AM every 3 days to look for
new episodes of a number of different programs. Being run automatically
without me present I wasn't there to stop it once it got an error so it
just kept retrying something (not sure what) over and over for several
hours.

Brian Gregory

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Oct 28, 2021, 9:27:09 AM10/28/21
to
I'm getting the same thing again late last night and so far today,
As soon as I use get_iplayer it fails and I lose all connectivity to BBC
websites even from web browsers for some time!

grinch

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Oct 28, 2021, 9:57:54 AM10/28/21
to
On 28/10/2021 14:27, Brian Gregory wrote:

>>
>
> I'm getting the same thing again late last night and so far today,
> As soon as I use get_iplayer it fails and I lose all connectivity to BBC
> websites even from web browsers for some time!


Sounds a lot like an active blocking system based on your IP address
,are you being blacklisted for downloading with get_iplayer ?


Try tethering to a mobile so you get a different IP address when you
cant get to the BBC from your normal IP address. As we are on the same
ISP I can confirm its not their problem


Tweed

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Oct 28, 2021, 10:04:31 AM10/28/21
to
It could just be a problem with the CDN (content delivery network) that
your ISP is using.

Java Jive

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Oct 28, 2021, 12:29:06 PM10/28/21
to
GetIPlayer was working for me late into last night and early this morning.

Brian Gregory

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Oct 29, 2021, 9:52:35 PM10/29/21
to
On 28/10/2021 17:29, Java Jive wrote:
> On 28/10/2021 15:04, Tweed wrote:
>>
>> grinch <gri...@somewhere.com> wrote:
>>> >> On 28/10/2021 14:27, Brian Gregory wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'm getting the same thing again late last night and so far today,
>>>> As soon as I use get_iplayer it fails and I lose all connectivity to
>>>> BBC
>>>> websites even from web browsers for some time!
>>>
>>> Sounds a lot like an active blocking system based on your IP address
>>> ,are you being blacklisted for downloading with get_iplayer ?
>>>
>>> Try tethering to a mobile so you get a different IP address when you
>>> cant get to the BBC from your normal IP address. As we are on the same
>>> ISP I can confirm its not their problem
>>
>> It could just be a problem with the CDN (content delivery network) that
>> your ISP is using.
>>
>
> GetIPlayer was working for me late into last night and early this morning.
>

Maybe I'm exceeding some kind of monthly quota per IP address.

Java Jive

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Oct 30, 2021, 5:07:47 PM10/30/21
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For me, BBC webpages have been slow over the last couple of days or so,
and now GiP is not working either tonight, repeated messages for all the
channels:

ERROR: Failed to download <channel schedule page>:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/<pid>/2021/w43
ERROR: Connection error: Premature connection close

However, I can still access BBC websites, albeit still slowly, but when
I ping www.bbc.co.uk, this is the result, note that some sort of back-up
or other server seems to be responding in place of www.bbc.co.uk:

21:53:28 D:\>ping www.bbc.co.uk

Pinging uk.www.bbc.co.uk.pri.bbc.co.uk [212.58.237.253] with 32 bytes of
data:
Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3146ms TTL=49
Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3187ms TTL=49
Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3143ms TTL=49
Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3212ms TTL=49

Ping statistics for 212.58.237.253:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 3143ms, Maximum = 3212ms, Average = 3172ms

Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd

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Oct 31, 2021, 4:21:58 AM10/31/21
to
> Pinging uk.www.bbc.co.uk.pri.bbc.co.uk [212.58.237.253] with 32
> bytes of data:
> Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3146ms TTL=49
> Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3187ms TTL=49
> Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3143ms TTL=49
> Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3212ms TTL=49

Those are horrible ping figures, worse than the early days of modems, an FTTC
connection from Croydon looks like:

Pinging: www.bbc.co.uk
Ping of 56 bytes took 6 msecs
Ping of 56 bytes took 6 msecs
Ping of 56 bytes took 6 msecs
Ping of 56 bytes took 6 msecs
Ping of 56 bytes took 7 msecs
Ping of 56 bytes took 6 msecs
Ping of 56 bytes took 6 msecs
Ping of 56 bytes took 6 msecs
Ping of 56 bytes took 6 msecs
Ping of 56 bytes took 6 msecs
Pings Completed

Angus

Graham J

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Oct 31, 2021, 5:06:49 AM10/31/21
to
Traceroute might show us something useful ...




--
Graham J

Chris Green

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Oct 31, 2021, 5:33:04 AM10/31/21
to
From rural Suffolk on FTTC I see:-

chris@esprimo$ ping www.bbc.co.uk
PING uk.www.bbc.co.uk.pri.bbc.co.uk (212.58.237.251) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 212.58.237.251 (212.58.237.251): icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=7.28 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.237.251 (212.58.237.251): icmp_seq=2 ttl=53 time=7.12 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.237.251 (212.58.237.251): icmp_seq=3 ttl=53 time=7.05 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.237.251 (212.58.237.251): icmp_seq=4 ttl=53 time=7.31 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.237.251 (212.58.237.251): icmp_seq=5 ttl=53 time=6.87 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.237.251 (212.58.237.251): icmp_seq=6 ttl=53 time=7.16 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.237.251 (212.58.237.251): icmp_seq=7 ttl=53 time=6.92 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.237.251 (212.58.237.251): icmp_seq=8 ttl=53 time=7.02 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.237.251 (212.58.237.251): icmp_seq=9 ttl=53 time=7.33 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.237.251 (212.58.237.251): icmp_seq=10 ttl=53 time=7.32 ms

7ms rather than 6ms but pretty similar.

--
Chris Green
·

Java Jive

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Oct 31, 2021, 7:03:32 AM10/31/21
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Yes, I hadn't investigated it very thoroughly, but I have been aware of
problems gradually building over the last few days.

As some may remember from a couple of years back, I'm using a BTHH5a
with OpenWRT firmware and a ZTE 4G mobile dongle plugged via an
extension lead into the USB port - the extension lead allows the
dongle to be high in a ground floor window with line of sight to the mast.

I'm currently on a Three contract - after Virgin, when my previous
contract ran out, unilaterally without so much as a 'by your leave'
'upgraded' it to one that was 25% more expensive! The Three contract
gives me unlimited at a very reasonably little over £22pm.

However, it's always been a strange feature of Three's coverage locally
that I appear to get faster speeds via 3G than 4G. Commonly, when I
first connect, it starts as 4G, and is dire, but then settles for 3G
which is better. This morning, investigating the slowness rather more
thoroughly than I've had time in the last few days, I noticed it was
back on 4G. So I went into the modem settings page and set it first to
only use 4G, then only 3G, and ran a speed test on each, and it exactly
proves what I've always suspected, that the 3G service is several times
faster:

Net Latency Down Up
ms Mbps Mbps
3G 68 10-14* 2.1
4G 142 4.6 0.8

* 2 disconnect/connect cycles tested with different resulting Down
speeds but others figures the same.

So so now I've left it on 3G only for the moment. Round here, where
ADSL speeds are around 1Mbps if you're tolerably lucky, the 3G speeds
are acceptable, however it would be nice to get back to Virgin's 20Mbps
download speeds, but without the danger of disproportionate 25% price
hikes for supplying exactly the same service as previously.

Why would it be that Three's 3G is faster than 4G? I can think of two
possible reasons, but have no idea which is the true explanation ...

1) Three are bandwidth limiting 4G connections for their cheapest
contracts, but do not think it worthwhile to do so for 3G connections.

2) A different mast further away with a weaker signal is providing the
4G connection. There are two within line of sight:
i) The Ord, also the local TV relay for Lairg, about 6.5mi.
ii) A new mobile mast overlooking the A836, about 4mi.

Woody

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Oct 31, 2021, 9:35:09 AM10/31/21
to
You don't say whether Virgin was on EE or O2 at the time you had a good
signal. If it was on EE then look at deals from EE, or Asda.

Given Virgin have now moved onto the O2 infrastructure (from EE) why not
investigate what you can get in terms of signal or deal on either O2 or
one of the MVNOs such as Tesco or GiffGaff (I can personally recommend
the latter.) The OfCom mapping shows the whole of the Lairg area to be
solidly covered indoors by O2 on 4G and speech (which could be 2G or 3G
of course) buy pretty poor and patchy on 3, not too brilliant on EE, and
quite good on VF.

The signal variance suggests to me that the 4G is coming from a more
distant source. Have you thought of using an external directional aerial
with a 4G router that has a socket for an external aerial?

Java Jive

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Oct 31, 2021, 10:00:57 AM10/31/21
to
On 31/10/2021 13:35, Woody wrote:
>
> On Sun 31/10/2021 11:03, Java Jive wrote:
>>
>> As some may remember from a couple of years back, I'm using a BTHH5a
>> with OpenWRT firmware and a ZTE 4G mobile dongle plugged via an
>> extension lead into the USB port  -  the extension lead allows the
>> dongle to be high in a ground floor window with line of sight to the
>> mast.
>>
>> I'm currently on a Three contract  -  after Virgin, when my previous
>> contract ran out, unilaterally without so much as a 'by your leave'
>> 'upgraded' it to one that was 25% more expensive!  The Three contract
>> gives me unlimited at a very reasonable little over £22pm.
>>
>> However, it's always been a strange feature of Three's coverage
>> locally that I appear to get faster speeds via 3G than 4G.  Commonly,
>> when I first connect, it starts as 4G, and is dire, but then settles
>> for 3G which is better.  This morning, investigating the slowness
>> rather more thoroughly than I've had time in the last few days, I
>> noticed it was back on 4G.  So I went into the modem settings page and
>> set it first to only use 4G, then only 3G, and ran a speed test on
>> each, and it exactly proves what I've always suspected, that the 3G
>> service is several times faster:
>>
>> Net    Latency    Down    Up
>>         ms         Mbps    Mbps
>> 3G     68         10-14*  2.1
>> 4G     142        4.6     0.8
>>
>> * 2 disconnect/connect cycles tested with different resulting Down
>> speeds but other figures the same.
>>
>> So now I've left it on 3G only for the moment.  Round here, where
>> ADSL speeds are around 1Mbps if you're tolerably lucky, the 3G speeds
>> are acceptable, however it would be nice to get back to Virgin's
>> 20Mbps download speeds, but without the danger of disproportionate 25%
>> price hikes for supplying exactly the same service as previously.
>>
>> Why would it be that Three's 3G is faster than 4G?  I can think of two
>> possible reasons, but have no idea which is the true explanation ...
>>
>> 1)    Three are bandwidth limiting 4G connections for their cheapest
>> contracts, but do not think it worthwhile to do so for 3G connections.
>>
>> 2)    A different mast further away with a weaker signal is providing
>> the 4G connection.  There are two within line of sight:
>>      i)    The Ord, also the local TV relay for Lairg, about 6.5mi.
>>      ii)   A new mobile mast overlooking the A836, about 4mi.
>>
> You don't say whether Virgin was on EE or O2 at the time you had a good
> signal. If it was on EE then look at deals from EE, or Asda.

They were on EE at the time

> Given Virgin have now moved onto the O2 infrastructure (from EE) why not
> investigate what you can get in terms of signal or deal on either O2 or
> one of the MVNOs such as Tesco or GiffGaff (I can personally recommend
> the latter.) The OfCom mapping shows the whole of the Lairg area to be
> solidly covered indoors by O2 on 4G and speech (which could be 2G or 3G
> of course) buy pretty poor and patchy on 3, not too brilliant on EE, and
> quite good on VF.

I think my plan with Three still has some months to run, but I'll check
it out.

> The signal variance suggests to me that the 4G is coming from a more
> distant source. Have you thought of using an external directional aerial
> with a 4G router that has a socket for an external aerial?

I did investigate that once, but then when the Virgin deal came up with
what, for around here, are very good speeds, there didn't seem to be any
need to go to such lengths.

To get back on topic, GetIPlayer is working again now, and BBC web pages
are loading at more reasonable speeds again, though, being the BBC,
they'll always be unnecessarily bloated :-(

Andy Burns

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Oct 31, 2021, 10:28:12 AM10/31/21
to
Woody wrote:

> Virgin have now moved onto the O2 infrastructure (from EE)

Not fully, my Virgin SIMO contract is still on EE (MCC/MNC 234/30)

Tweed

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Oct 31, 2021, 11:07:48 AM10/31/21
to
My understanding is that Virgin Mobile is still migrating to Vodafone
despite the O2 tie up.

Brian Gregory

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Nov 1, 2021, 7:24:40 AM11/1/21
to
On 30/10/2021 22:07, Java Jive wrote:
> For me, BBC webpages have been slow over the last couple of days or so,
> and now GiP is not working either tonight, repeated messages for all the
> channels:
>
> ERROR: Failed to download <channel schedule page>:
> https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/<pid>/2021/w43
> ERROR: Connection error: Premature connection close
>
> However, I can still access BBC websites, albeit still slowly, but when
> I ping www.bbc.co.uk, this is the result, note that some sort of back-up
> or other server seems to be responding in place of www.bbc.co.uk:
>
> 21:53:28 D:\>ping www.bbc.co.uk
>
> Pinging uk.www.bbc.co.uk.pri.bbc.co.uk [212.58.237.253] with 32 bytes of
> data:
> Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3146ms TTL=49
> Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3187ms TTL=49
> Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3143ms TTL=49
> Reply from 212.58.237.253: bytes=32 time=3212ms TTL=49
>
> Ping statistics for 212.58.237.253:
>     Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
> Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
>     Minimum = 3143ms, Maximum = 3212ms, Average = 3172ms

I've always found ping www.bbc.co.uk produces good fast results but
still no web pages load.

I set my times run of get_iplayer to go every 6 days instead of every 3
and to go first time in the small hours this morning (1st Nov) and it
seemed to work!

But it's all broken again now :(

Brian Gregory

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Nov 1, 2021, 7:29:37 AM11/1/21
to
On 01/11/2021 11:24, Brian Gregory wrote:
> I set my times run of get_iplayer to go every 6 days instead of every 3
> and to go first time in the small hours this morning (1st Nov) and it
> seemed to work!

*timed run

Brian Gregory

unread,
Nov 4, 2021, 11:50:12 AM11/4/21
to
On 01/11/2021 11:29, Brian Gregory wrote:
> On 01/11/2021 11:24, Brian Gregory wrote:
>> I set my times run of get_iplayer to go every 6 days instead of every
>> 3 and to go first time in the small hours this morning (1st Nov) and
>> it seemed to work!
>
> *timed run
>

I have made a discovery.

Everything BBC related seems to start working reliably if I set my MTU
to 1492 (or more exactly I set MSS clamping to 1452 for IPv4 and 1432
for IPv6 on my internet connection).

As far as I can see everything else was working fine with MTU set to
1500 and baby jumbo PPPoE packets enabled on the connection to the modem.

The fact that, as far as I can see, it was only BBC stuff that was
affected, and only somewhat erratically, suggests the problem isn't at
my end. But to be honest I really don't know what was happening.

grinch

unread,
Nov 5, 2021, 5:03:34 AM11/5/21
to

> I have made a discovery.
>
> Everything BBC related seems to start working reliably if I set my MTU
> to 1492 (or more exactly I set MSS clamping to 1452 for IPv4 and 1432
> for IPv6 on my internet connection).
>

Cisco's default A/Vdsl config recommends MTU of 1492 and an mss of 1452
for both IPv4 and IPv6 . I have my trusty old Cisco 867 set to that and
I have had no issues.

Various lines from my routers config ,not all from the same interface
though.

interface Dialer0
mtu 1492
ip address negotiated


encapsulation ppp
ip tcp adjust-mss 1452

ipv6 mtu 1492


> As far as I can see everything else was working fine with MTU set to
> 1500 and baby jumbo PPPoE packets enabled on the connection to the modem.
>
> The fact that, as far as I can see, it was only BBC stuff that was
> affected, and only somewhat erratically, suggests the problem isn't at
> my end. But to be honest I really don't know what was happening.
>

Down the years I have seen this issue professionally and I have yet to
understand properly why it works for some sites and not others.I have
had various reasons explained to me but none covered all issues.

I personally think it has something to do with packet fragmentation not
being allowed but I am probably talking nonsense.

If nothing worked that is easy to understand .

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