ports blocked Virgin

jhe

any help please ?
changed my Tivo to a v6 and they upgraded router because of slow broadband to a Hub 3.0 despite this we still get at times 5.0 and 6.0 download speeds instead of the 100 we are signed up for.
after another 30 minute phone call yesterday they altered back to 2g and 5g.
same as we were getting on the super hub 2 we had.
the broadband speed still isn't brilliant but now I am finding ports are blocked. I have had this problem in the past with ports suddenly getting blocked.
Is this up to Virgin to unblock them or should I be doing it myself ?
sick and tired of the service I am getting from them,
they tend to put me through to their technical team who forward me onto to someone who wants paying to sort it ( which I will not do)

esuhl

What ports are being blocked? Are you blocking the ports with a firewall? Have Virgin confirmed that they are blocking them?

AndyPix

This all sound a bit fishy - Virgin tech support are passing you to a 3rd party who wants paying ??!!


That is crazy.


As above, what ports are being blocked and how have you come to be aware of this ?
No ports should be ebing blocked at ISP level, this is normally done with router/firewall


More info needed before we can help

jhe

esuhl wrote: »

What ports are being blocked? Are you blocking the ports with a firewall? Have Virgin confirmed that they are blocking them?

Port 8000 (needed for my CCTV app)
did a port configuration test through TV it says
TCP port 80.
TCP port 8080.
TCP port 80
TCP port 7287
TCP port 7288
TCP port 8081
it says the above ports need to be opened on your router.
everything was working ok until a phone call to Virgin yesterday over the slow broadband, they altered the broadband to 2g and 5g, that resulted in me having to put passwords into all devices again. including printer, wifi extender etc.
do you mean the firewall on the hub/ router ?

flower77g

I found the newer Virgin routers have more ports blocked by default which I could change by connecting to the router using the admin password given for it.

jhe

AndyPix wrote: »

This all sound a bit fishy - Virgin tech support are passing you to a 3rd party who wants paying ??!!


That is crazy.


As above, what ports are being blocked and how have you come to be aware of this ?
No ports should be ebing blocked at ISP level, this is normally done with router/firewall


More info needed before we can help

just today I noticed CCTV app wasn't working, wifi extender needed pairing with router/hub again
Port 8000 (needed for my CCTV app)
did a port configuration test through TV it says
TCP port 80.
TCP port 8080.
TCP port 80
TCP port 7287
TCP port 7288
TCP port 8081
it says the above ports need to be opened on your router.
everything was working ok until a phone call to Virgin yesterday over the slow broadband, they altered the broadband to 2g and 5g, that resulted in me having to put passwords into all devices again. including printer, wifi extender etc.
Virgin or whoever they transfer me too have said this several times to me in the past about paying because they say they are sorting CCTV out (over the phone this is) I have never paid and had to argue that the problem is caused by the ports blocking for no apparent reason, this suddenly started happening around a year ago.
2 weeks ago I had a new Virgin router installed because of slow broadband- no prob with the ports until yesterdays phone call

jhe

flower77g wrote: »

I found the newer Virgin routers have more ports blocked by default which I could change by connecting to the router using the admin password given for it.

I have been into the router settings but not confident enough to start changing the advanced settings

jhe

esuhl wrote: »

What ports are being blocked? Are you blocking the ports with a firewall? Have Virgin confirmed that they are blocking them?

with the previous virgin router the ports would just block out of the blue. Virgin would eventually unblock them and make exceptions in the router settings but still used to have probs.
not knowledgable or confident enough to change the advanced settings in the router myself.
If it is down to Virgin I can get back on the phone to them but just wanted a bit of advice incase it isn't.
It doesn't help that the call centre isn't in this country and some of the Technical staff are difficult for me to understand.
Maybe I need to change to Sky

esuhl

Ah, so it sounds like you're blocking them through your router.

The problem with a lot of ISPs is that, at the first sign of trouble they'll ask you to factory reset your router (or do it themselves remotely), which will wipe out your network settings and potentially break stuff (like port forwarding and static local IP assignments). They really should have made it clear what they were doing and have checked for any custom settings before resetting it.

What you need to do is assign static IP addresses to the devices whose ports need forwarding, and then set up the port forward.

Does this help:
https://help.virginmedia.com/system/templates/selfservice/vm/help/customer/locale/en-GB/portal/200300000001000/article/HELP-2306/Setting-Up-Port-Forwarding-and-Port-Triggering-on-your-Virgin-Media-Hub

P.S. Port 80 is the default HTTP port, and 8080 is a common alternative. Is it a good idea to be opening these ports to devices outside the local network? I don't know enough to be sure. *shrug*

esuhl

AndyPix wrote: »

This all sound a bit fishy - Virgin tech support are passing you to a 3rd party who wants paying ??!!

I'm guessing it's because it involves the setup of third-party devices. ISPs don't want to get involved because they aren't familiar with the devices being used.

What really gets me is when an ISP (O2) sends you a crappy router with an illogical web interface and no documentation... and then you phone up and say, "What's a guest network?" and they tell you that there is no such option and replace the router with an identical one with the same options.

And when you ask, "Where do I set up port forwarding?", they reply, "We don't support port forwarding." I'm sorry?! You don't support the use of your own router?!

And then there's Sky who won't even tell you YOUR OWN login details, meaning you have to hack their router and sniff the packets to extract the details if you want to use your own router... Grrr!

esuhl

jhe wrote: »

the problem is caused by the ports blocking for no apparent reason, this suddenly started happening around a year ago.

How do you experience this port blocking? Are you using a computer on your local network, or trying to access over the internet (I'm presuming the latter)?

I've occasionally had problems with DHCP (which the router uses to automatically assign IP addresses to devices on the local network). So, as well as reserving a fixed IP address in the router for the CCTV device, you might also need to log in to the CCTV device settings and specify (the same) fixed IP address.

Is it possible that your CCTV device has been allocated a fixed IP, while the router is trying to assign one itself using DHCP...? That might cause intermittent connectivity.

jhe wrote: »

2 weeks ago I had a new Virgin router installed because of slow broadband- no prob with the ports until yesterdays phone call

When you had "no probs", were you using a device on you local network and when it failed you were accessing over the internet...?

Did you set up fixed IP addresses and port forwards on the new router?