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Connection between plusnet and virgin

kaos2003uk
Dabbler
Posts: 17
Registered: ‎14-03-2015

Connection between plusnet and virgin

Ok guys bear with me on this one !
I have 2 lines installed at home, plusnet fiber plus and a virgin media line. Currently I use the plus net fibre for working at home, remote desktop, private cloud ect, and my virgin media line for day to day things.
Now when trying to see the static IP of the plusnet from the virgin, it tells me it doesnt exist? Something is blocking the connection somewhere. It is not only me, others i know that use virgin media as a provider also seem to get this issue. I have done everything i can think of to find a solution but becoming a little stuck.
This is not a consistant issue either, at the time of writing this, the plusnet machine doesnt exist i cannot ping it nothing, while others on different providers can, but this will last about 6-8 hours now and then suddenly start working for a few hours again, then drop.

If anyone could shed some light on this, please do because its sooo annoying that i cant connect to a system that im sitting 6 meters away from but someone in scotland i know can  Embarrassed

Thanks
45 REPLIES 45
twocvbloke
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 6,399
Thanks: 1,782
Fixes: 3
Registered: ‎06-11-2014

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

Sounds like you have a firewall (and everyone should) on your Plusnet connection, usually on the router these days, which rejects Pings sent to it to make it appear as though it doesn't exist, so your firewall is working nicely... Smiley
kaos2003uk
Dabbler
Posts: 17
Registered: ‎14-03-2015

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

i would agree with you if it wasnt for the fact that friends i know that are not on a virgin media connection can always see and connect to the system fine. This only seems to effect virgin media connections !
rklrkl
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎05-04-2013

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

Just a note that I'm seeing major packet loss between my Plusnet unlimited fibre connection and anything on the Virgin Media network today. Here's some mtr output:
                                      Packets               Pings
Host                                Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. 192.168.1.254                     0.0%     8    1.1   1.2   1.1   1.4   0.1
2. lo0-central10.ptw-ag02.plus.net   0.0%     8   29.3  29.6  27.9  33.7   2.0
3. link-a-central10.ptw-gw01.plus.n  0.0%     8   28.5  28.6  27.4  31.0   1.1
4. xe-0-2-0.ptw-cr01.plus.net        0.0%     8   30.9  28.7  27.7  30.9   1.1
5. 195.66.225.103                   75.0%     8   98.3  99.5  98.3 100.8   1.8
6. Huh
7. Huh
8. Huh
9. Huh
10. Huh
11. brhm-bb-1b-ae0-0.network.virginm 71.4%     7  105.5 105.4 105.4 105.5   0.1
12. Huh
13. git-dmz4-css-4b-vip07.network.vi 60.0%     5  107.2 109.1 107.2 111.0   2.6
That's showing up to 70% packet loss between me and www.virginmedia.com. Looks like some bad peering/routing's been going on for much of Saturday. All non-Virgin Media sites seem fine from my Plusnet connection. Just a note that I've raised this as a support issue with Plusnet.
Grinden
Newbie
Posts: 8
Registered: ‎14-03-2015

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

I'm having exactly the same problem. My work VPN appears to be on the Virgin network, so I can't get anything done at the moment.
I've had the issue for the last 3 evenings running. It seems to have gone away by about midnight on the last two nights.
It all appears to centre around whatever is at 195.66.225.103. According to https://www.linx.net/pubtools/member-techlist.html, it's a bit of kit in the London Internet Exchange owned by Virgin.
Last night, at around midnight, I tried dropping my connection to plusnet from my router and reconnecting, which switched me over to a different gateway. It seemed to start working at that point. The night before, I didn't do anything and it seemed to start working around the same time, so it may have been coincidence.
I ran a tracert after I reconnected and I don't think it went through 195.66.225.103 (although it was fairly late, so it might have been my imagination). Unfortunately, I didn't get a copy of the route or make a note of which gateway I was on.
Today, it's happening again. I hoped I could just do the same thing again, but I've tried reconnecting at least 10 times and been through 10 different gateways and they all seem to route the connection through 195.66.225.103.
Grinden
Newbie
Posts: 8
Registered: ‎14-03-2015

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

Again, it started getting better just before 12:30, and by 1am it was working fine.
It's still going through 195.66.225.103, but ping times are low and it's not dropping any packets now. It's using a gateway (195.166.130.177) that I had noted down as not working yesterday, so I don't think it is anything to do with that. I think that was probably a coincidence.
From the timings, I'd guess it must be something in the network falling over when there's a lot of traffic.
Tracing route to www.virginmedia.com [212.250.162.12]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
  2    11 ms    11 ms    10 ms  lo0.10.Central10.pcl-bng04.plus.net [195.166.130.177]
  3    18 ms    11 ms    11 ms  irb.10.PCL-CR02.plus.net [84.93.249.82]
  4    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  ae1.ptw-cr02.plus.net [195.166.129.2]
  5    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  ae2.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.4]
  6    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  195.66.225.103
  7    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  8    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  9    *        *        *    Request timed out.
10    *        *        *    Request timed out.
11    *        *        *    Request timed out.
12    58 ms    18 ms    19 ms  brhm-bb-1b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.254.42.106]
13    *        *        *    Request timed out.
14    22 ms    22 ms    22 ms  git-dmz4-css-4b-vip07.network.virginmedia.net [212.250.162.12]
rklrkl
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎05-04-2013

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

It's gone bad again on Sunday morning - it does seem proportional to the amount of traffic because I got up early on Sunday and it was reasonably usable. Now it's back to treacle as the day wears on 😞 I'm lucky I've got a US-based VPS I can use to work around this (using that as a proxy works fine), but most users won't have that luxury.
Grinden
Newbie
Posts: 8
Registered: ‎14-03-2015

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

I left my VPN connection open overnight and it was fine and I've been using it a bit this morning.
At 10:30am it has just dropped again with the same packet loss to 195.66.225.103.
If you have a look at the plusnet usage graphs (http://www.plus.net/support/service/network_performance/broadband_bandwidth_usage.shtml), the traffic levels appear to be about the same at 12:30am (going down) and 10:30am (going up). So I assume that means I'm not going to be able to use it again until 12:30am.
Tracing route to www.virginmedia.com [212.250.162.12]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
  2    11 ms    10 ms    10 ms  lo0.10.Central10.pcl-bng04.plus.net [195.166.130.177]
  3    11 ms    15 ms    11 ms  irb.10.PCL-CR02.plus.net [84.93.249.82]
  4    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  ae1.ptw-cr02.plus.net [195.166.129.2]
  5    11 ms    11 ms    11 ms  ae2.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.4]
  6    85 ms    *        *    195.66.225.103
  7    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  8    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  9    *        *        *    Request timed out.
10    *        *        *    Request timed out.
11    *        *        *    Request timed out.
12    92 ms    *      95 ms  brhm-bb-1b-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.254.42.106]
13    *        *        *    Request timed out.
14    *        *      92 ms  git-dmz4-css-4b-vip07.network.virginmedia.net [212.250.162.12]
npr
Pro
Posts: 1,898
Thanks: 119
Fixes: 9
Registered: ‎21-01-2013

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

From a web based ping tools:
Quote
http://ping.eu/ping/
--- PING 212.250.162.12 (212.250.162.12) 56(84) bytes of data. ---
64 bytes from 212.250.162.12: icmp_seq=1 ttl=115 time=28.9 ms
64 bytes from 212.250.162.12: icmp_seq=2 ttl=115 time=28.9 ms
64 bytes from 212.250.162.12: icmp_seq=3 ttl=115 time=28.8 ms
64 bytes from 212.250.162.12: icmp_seq=4 ttl=115 time=28.9 ms

Also
Quote
https://network-tools.webwiz.co.uk/ping.htm
Ping IP Address Response Time
1 212.250.162.12 13 ms
2 212.250.162.12 14 ms
3 212.250.162.12 14 ms
4 212.250.162.12 14 ms
Ping statistics for 212.250.162.12
    Packets: Sent 4, Received 4, Lost 0
Aproximate round trip in milli-seconds
    Maximum 14ms, Minimum 13ms, Average 14ms


From my plusnet connection:
Quote
Pinging 212.250.162.12 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.250.162.12: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=115
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 212.250.162.12: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=115
Ping statistics for 212.250.162.12:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 2, Lost = 2 (50% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 100ms, Maximum = 101ms, Average = 100ms

Looks to be a issue with Plusnet or their transit provider.  Undecided
30FTTC06
Pro
Posts: 2,286
Thanks: 108
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎18-02-2013

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

Another test that connects to the host just to confirm the loss.
[tt]Connecting to 212.250.162.12 on TCP 80:
Connected to 212.250.162.12: time=26.94ms protocol=TCP port=80
Connected to 212.250.162.12: time=91.00ms protocol=TCP port=80
Connected to 212.250.162.12: time=92.98ms protocol=TCP port=80
Connected to 212.250.162.12: time=17.57ms protocol=TCP port=80
Connected to 212.250.162.12: time=24.45ms protocol=TCP port=80
Connected to 212.250.162.12: time=87.99ms protocol=TCP port=80
Connection timed out
Connection timed out
Connected to 212.250.162.12: time=24.69ms protocol=TCP port=80
Connected to 212.250.162.12: time=24.46ms protocol=TCP port=80
Connection statistics:
Attempted = 10, Connected = 8, Failed = 2 (20.00%)
Approximate connection times:
Minimum = 17.57ms, Maximum = 92.98ms, Average = 39.01ms
[/tt]
bone
Grafter
Posts: 31
Registered: ‎13-05-2008

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

Hi
I have a leased line provided by Virgin with several servers on it. I'm having connection issues to the ip's and servers in my rack when trying to connect from home (Plus.net).
Random fast and slow connections and slow pings.
I know its nothing to do with my rack or leased line because all other users from around the world are connecting no problem at all.
I hadnt seen this thread when I called support and was told to reboot my router to force my connection onto another rack. Other sites seem to be OK, generally.
Any ideas?
JHewess
Grafter
Posts: 81
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎20-11-2014

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

Bizarrely, this issue also seems to be effecting my connection to ocado.com. Pings and traceroutes are frequently timing out, but when the trace route has done something its gone via virgin's network. Using the mobile app and connecting via O2 the issue disappears. Most odd. 
Grinden
Newbie
Posts: 8
Registered: ‎14-03-2015

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

Got my father-in-law, who is on Virgin, to try a tracert the other way.
Similar problems, but it looks like it gets into the plusnet network and then has trouble there. That suggests to me it's an issue on the plusnet side, rather than Virgin's.
I've only been a plusnet customer for 4 days and apparently everyone I want to connect to is on Virgin, so this appears to be a fairly inauspicious start.
Quote
  1    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  2    7 ms    6 ms    8 ms  sotn-core-2a-xe-103-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.255.45.53]
  3    13 ms    12 ms    12 ms  popl-bb-1c-ae14-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.175.30]
  4    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  5    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  6    12 ms    17 ms    11 ms  brnt-bb-1a-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.254.42.194]
  7    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  tclo-ic-2-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.250.14.202]
  8    13 ms    12 ms    12 ms  linx-gw2.plus.net [195.66.236.164]
  9    83 ms  101 ms    84 ms  ae1.pcl-cr02.plus.net [195.166.129.3]
10    *      88 ms    *    irb.10.Central10.pcl-bng04.plus.net [84.93.249.86]
11    *        *        *    Request timed out.
12    *        *        *    Request timed out.
Chris
Legend
Posts: 17,724
Thanks: 600
Fixes: 169
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

Hi there,
Do you know what date these issues started?
Former Plusnet Staff member. Posts after 31st Jan 2020 are not on behalf of Plusnet.
Grinden
Newbie
Posts: 8
Registered: ‎14-03-2015

Re: Connection between plusnet and virgin

I first noticed them last Thursday (12/3/15), but my line only switched over to plusnet on Wednesday. I didn't notice it on Wednesday, but it's possible I wasn't connecting to anything on Virgin.