Virgin media locking customer to customer connections!??
 

Hello.

Recently, i attempted to play a multi-player PC game with a friend of mine, also on vigin media living approximately one mile from myself.

The game has no online dedicated servers, to a direct connection must be established. Needless to say, we had no luck!

After some investigating, it seems that the only possible problem is at virgin media's end.. perhaps intentional blocking ?

I'm 99.99% certain my setup is correct, i went completely overkill on the pc / router settings trying to make this work.
Both windows PC had the firewall disabled.
Both routers had DMZ enabled for the PC's IP.
Both routers had icmp echo ( aka WAN PING ) enabled.

Still... no luck connecting.

At this point, I was blaming the game.. i had never used it for private matches over the internet before.
But i know from experience it works fine on LAN.
SO.. the next logical step was to bring these PC's onto the same LAN using PTP VPN.
This produced an even stranger error... windows was reporting that the remote host was not responding.

SOOO... in a last desperate act, we attempted to ping each-other.
all attempts at a ping, from either direction all timed out...

But what is VERY strange, is that we can ping eath other just fine over our 3G t-mobile wireless dongles!!!


So... to summarise..

VIRGIN-MEDIA BROADBAND -> ping -> google.com works fine!
VIRGIN-MEDIA BOARDBAND -> ping -> VIRGIN-MEDIA BOARDBAND TIMEOUT!!
T-MOBILE 3G -> ping google.com works fine.
T-MOBILE 3G -> ping VIRGIN-MEDIA BOARDBAND works fine!!

My Media centre PC runs a http web server that allows me to schedule recordings while im away... this connects fine for me from my 3G internet, and from my works BT-INTERNET connection. so i know that my internet connection isnt behind any form of NAT.

I wonder... is it just virgin media customers living close together suffering this problem ? is it a fault at virgin media's end ?
Or is it deliberately blocking us ???

Years ago,,, back when it was NTLworld i used to occasionally run a dedicated quake server from my place, and my friends living all on the same street, same service provider could connect without issue.

If any of you virgin media guys could try to ping me and post results and approximate location i would be grateful. i will leave WAN ping enabled for just today ( sat 7th may 2011 )

ping shovelsoft.homeip.net

I live in the Bestwood area of Nottingham.

THANKS!

re: Virgin media locking customer to customer connections!??
 

Pinging shovelsoft.homeip.net [82.4.238.92] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 82.4.238.92: bytes=32 time=55ms TTL=56
Reply from 82.4.238.92: bytes=32 time=44ms TTL=56
Reply from 82.4.238.92: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=56
Reply from 82.4.238.92: bytes=32 time=62ms TTL=56

Ping statistics for 82.4.238.92:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 28ms, Maximum = 62ms, Average = 47ms

From tools.virginmedia.com:

PING shovelsoft.homeip.net (82.4.238.92) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from cpc3-basf4-0-0-cust603.12-3.cable.virginmedia.com (82.4.238.92): icmp_seq=1 ttl=58 time=44.8 ms
64 bytes from cpc3-basf4-0-0-cust603.12-3.cable.virginmedia.com (82.4.238.92): icmp_seq=2 ttl=58 time=52.0 ms
64 bytes from cpc3-basf4-0-0-cust603.12-3.cable.virginmedia.com (82.4.238.92): icmp_seq=3 ttl=58 time=11.8 ms
64 bytes from cpc3-basf4-0-0-cust603.12-3.cable.virginmedia.com (82.4.238.92): icmp_seq=4 ttl=58 time=14.0 ms
64 bytes from cpc3-basf4-0-0-cust603.12-3.cable.virginmedia.com (82.4.238.92): icmp_seq=5 ttl=58 time=13.5 ms

--- shovelsoft.homeip.net ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4001ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 11.860/27.281/52.085/17.472 ms

re: Virgin media locking customer to customer connections!??
 

cpc4-****.*********.cable.virginmedia.com [mod edit] ? ;)

re: Virgin media locking customer to customer connections!??
 

thanks.....

So general virgin-media to virgin media seems to be fine...
what could possibly be wrong in my case ?

I've tried talking to support, but after turning my router off, counting to 30, and plugging it back on, they seem to run out of ideas...
And the last guy a spoke to didn't know what VPN was.

re: Virgin media locking customer to customer connections!??
 

It is unlikely to be a Virgin issue.

If you like living dangerously. check that ALL security software on both PCs (not forgetting Windows firewall) is turned off and then reboot them both before attempting to connect again. Simply turning off security software is not enough to rule it out.

Oh, and if that doesn't work, why not take the routers out of the equation as well?

Then if you can ping each other successfully there's always technical support for the game itself, even if it is only via web forums.

re: Virgin media locking customer to customer connections!??
 

What game was it?

See if http://www.gameranger.com/ supports it. That can be used to fool a game into thinking you are playing on a LAN and might get around whatever issues you are having.

re: Virgin media locking customer to customer connections!??
 

Ping has started…

PING shovelsoft.homeip.net (82.4.238.92): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 82.4.238.92: icmp_seq=0 ttl=57 time=25.203 ms
64 bytes from 82.4.238.92: icmp_seq=1 ttl=57 time=36.381 ms
64 bytes from 82.4.238.92: icmp_seq=2 ttl=57 time=24.193 ms
64 bytes from 82.4.238.92: icmp_seq=3 ttl=57 time=57.981 ms
64 bytes from 82.4.238.92: icmp_seq=4 ttl=57 time=21.787 ms

--- shovelsoft.homeip.net ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 21.787/33.109/57.981/13.413 ms

re: Virgin media locking customer to customer connections!??
 

What game ( / software /protocol ) is it..... none of them work.

1) modern warefare
2) quake
3) telnet
4) vpn
5) http firefox ( apache2 server )
6) ftp
7) icmp
8) tcp
9) udp



take your pick... connection is dead.

Tracing route to cpc2-mapp7-0-0-cust503.12-4.cable.virginmedia.com [86.21.205.248]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 9 ms 7 ms 12 ms [Mod Edit - IP address removed]
3 6 ms 22 ms 44 ms nott-cam-1a-v123.network.virginmedia.net [80.4.47.149]
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18

However... traceroute from my android phone, on 3g, has no problem connecting / tracerouting / pinging..

Who should I contact about this ?

I can however, tracert to other services / non virgin media broadband users users.


Tracing route to google.com [209.85.227.103]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 14 ms 38 ms 7 ms [Mode edit - IP address removed]
3 31 ms 19 ms 7 ms nott-cam-1a-v123.network.virginmedia.net [80.4.47.149]
4 10 ms 9 ms 11 ms nott-core-1a-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net [195.182.174.213]
5 40 ms 42 ms 8 ms leed-bb-1a-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.174.169]
6 10 ms 10 ms 15 ms manc-bb-1b-as3-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.175.142]
7 42 ms 31 ms 19 ms tele-ic-3-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43.163.70]
8 52 ms 59 ms 43 ms 162-14-250-212.static.virginmedia.com [212.250.14.162]
9 15 ms 37 ms 18 ms 209.85.255.175
10 23 ms 24 ms 26 ms 66.249.95.173
11 35 ms 27 ms 34 ms 72.14.236.191
12 28 ms 35 ms 21 ms 209.85.243.97
13 46 ms 24 ms 42 ms wy-in-f103.1e100.net [209.85.227.103]

Trace complete.

re: Virgin media locking customer to customer connections!??
 

Routing fault. Good luck getting that reported....

Re: Virgin media blocking customer to customer connections!??
 

Yep.... Ive no idea who to contact about this.
ive talked to customer support, ive turnied it off and on again ( yes i know thats not the issue here, but there script makes them make me do it before progressing further )

And after all that malarky, if i can get onto google.com, then my internet works as far as they are concerned.

UPDATE: - the plot thickens...
Ive managed to persuade another person, living a few streets away to ping me from his SKY broadband... he gets timeout too!

ME PING people far away = good.
FAR away people ping myself = good.
me ping locals = bad.
locals ping me = bad.

At first i was guessing virgin media infrastructure was at fault, but i thought SKY used bt, which was a completely seperate infrastructure ?

Re: Virgin media locking customer to customer connections!??
 

I can ping you fine.

Im also on Basford UBRs.

Re: Virgin media locking customer to customer connections!??
 

C:\Users\Lodge>ping shovelsoft.homeip.net

Pinging shovelsoft.homeip.net [82.4.238.92] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 82.4.238.92: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=59
Reply from 82.4.238.92: bytes=32 time=30ms TTL=59
Reply from 82.4.238.92: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=59
Reply from 82.4.238.92: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=59

Ping statistics for 82.4.238.92:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 21ms, Maximum = 31ms, Average = 27ms

I'm on CPC5-BASF9 approx 10 miles away from you.