UDP issues, DNS, VPN, Gaming, high latency

[#1]

Hello,

I'm having a lot of trouble with UDP connections for the past week now. Multiple devices, multiple operating systems, restarted both router and modem a bunch of times.

First noticed the issue when the internet became slow. I was then unable to DNS resolve any addresses at all. At the time I was using Google DNS. After some troubleshooting I was able to determine that the only working DNS servers are the plusnet ones. OpenDNS won't work, Google DNS(8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4) wont work. Both of which DID work beforehand.

When running a trace I was seeing over 350ms of latency when the connection hit inside the exchange. This has dropped since but is still higher than expected.

I'm also unable to connect to an OpenVPN server that uses UDP protocol. There is no issues connecting from other ISPs, tested on multiple devices. I've done a "tcpdump" of UDP connections from the VPN server and it seems as though the server isn't getting 99% of packets from the client.

I've noticed a lot of online games now fail to create/join games too, ones that worked before and that use UDP. 

I've done some digging on the forum and noticed a few other uses with the exact same issue that was resolved by assigning a static address from another block. One of the users in another thread is was using an address with the same first two octets, if that helps.

See below:

 My address: 80.189.99.X

https://community.plus.net/t5/ADSL-Broadband/Plusnet-blocking-Open-VPN-port-1194-TCP-and-UDP/td-p/15...

https://community.plus.net/t5/Everything-else/DNS-servers-unreachable/m-p/1543325#M19433

https://community.plus.net/t5/Tech-Help-Software-Hardware-etc/VPN-fails-to-connect-with-UDP-OK-with-...

Please can you investigate and get back to me as soon as possible?

Lookup via Google:

nslookup google.com 8.8.8.8
DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
Server:  UnKnown
Address:  8.8.8.8

DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Request to UnKnown timed-out

nslookup plus.net 8.8.8.8
DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
Server:  UnKnown
Address:  8.8.8.8

DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
^C
nslookup plus.net 8.8.4.4
DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
Server:  UnKnown
Address:  8.8.4.4

DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
^C

Lookup via default:

nslookup plus.net
Server:  dsldevice.lan
Address:  192.168.1.254

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    plus.net
Addresses:  212.159.8.2
          212.159.9.2

Windows tracert(Was much higher latency earlier in the week):

Tracing route to google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     2 ms     1 ms     3 ms  dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
  2    44 ms    57 ms    61 ms  172.16.13.172
  3     *       67 ms    10 ms  129.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.
129]
  4    13 ms    15 ms    13 ms  128.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.
128]
  5    14 ms    12 ms    14 ms  195.99.125.136
  6    18 ms    26 ms    13 ms  peer2-et0-1-4.slough.ukcore.bt.net [62.172.103.2
08]
  7    13 ms    11 ms    12 ms  109.159.253.71
  8     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  9    13 ms    13 ms    14 ms  108.170.234.160
 10    16 ms    29 ms    15 ms  216.239.48.57
 11    15 ms    11 ms    12 ms  google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]

Trace complete.

Many thanks.

[#2]

Still no response.

Is anyone available to take a look at all? Is there any reason why the staff might ignore my post(am I missing some key information that I'm not aware of)? 

I've just had to reconfigure Steam in TCP mode because it wouldn't sign in using it's native UDP.

Still can't use DNS, Steam, Online gaming and VPN. This is starting to become a bit of a problem.

I'll usually work from home a day or two a week but since I can't establish a VPN connection to the office I'm having to drive 140 miles a day to work.

Please help if you can.

[#3]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Fibre Broadband to Everything Else for increased visibility.

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for getting in touch.

I'm sorry to hear about the issues you've had.

We've looked into your account and tested your line but we can't see any cause for the issues that you're experiencing.

There shouldn't be anything stopping you from using alternate DNS servers but I've assigned an static IP address to your account to see if this resolves the issue.

Let us know how you get on

[#5]

Thanks @Strat for moving the topic.

Hi @MatthewWheeler. Thanks for that!

I'll test this evening when I'm back at home and let you know the results. I'm starting to see a rising number of topics within this sub-forum relating to very similar issues with establishing VPN(most likely using UDP). I know there's been some acknowledgement by Plusnet staff of a wider issues with VPN connectivity though. 

[#6]

Hi @MatthewWheeler.

Thank you very much for implementing the IP change. I'm very pleased to have service back to normal. So far I can confirm that this seems to have completely resolved all of the UDP issues.

VPN, DNS and gaming are all now working as expected. 

What a rather odd issue. Where do we go from here? 

Please see below logs.

DNS lookup from Google are working properly again:

nslookup plus.net 8.8.8.8
Server:  google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address:  8.8.8.8

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    plus.net
Addresses:  212.159.8.2
          212.159.9.2


nslookup google.com 8.8.8.8
Server:  google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address:  8.8.8.8

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    google.com
Addresses:  2a00:1450:4009:80f::200e
          216.58.213.110

Traceroute(seems a bit faster, and more interestingly if you compare this to the previous test there are less hops and no timeouts):

Tracing route to google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
  2    41 ms    30 ms    19 ms  gi12-0-1-451.ptn-ag04.plus.net [84.93.253.80]
  3    51 ms    29 ms    47 ms  84.93.253.83
  4    47 ms    50 ms    64 ms  195.99.125.136
  5    65 ms    61 ms    59 ms  109.159.252.74
  6    61 ms    27 ms    48 ms  peer5-te0-0-0-32.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [195.
.126.77]
  7    51 ms    59 ms    42 ms  108.170.246.129
  8    49 ms    69 ms    59 ms  72.14.238.9
  9    54 ms    66 ms    43 ms  google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]

Many thanks.