DNS / Routing issues

[#1]

I have been having routing issues very similar to the ones described at great length in this thread from last year: https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Broadband/DNS-Routing-issues-for-the-last-36-hours

Websites only load halfway, with images and formatting missing. Online services like OneDrive, Dropbox, app notifications, Netflix, BBC iPlayer all fail to work reliably or at all. Speed tests, when they work, show the connection speed I would expect though, nice and fast. So Plusnet's usual insistence on rebooting your router or connecting to the master socket are no help at all. The staff just don't get that this isn't a connection issue, its a routing issue. No, it isn't my DSN server selection, no it isn't my browser...it is Plusnet's routing servers.

I was even persuaded to get another router by Plusnet, which I did. I went and bought another VDSL router, a TP-Link N300. Same issues on that new router, slightly better than my VR2600, but no major difference.

I messed around with NSLookup, tracert, ping and various other tools to investigate. Eventually with no help from Plusnet, I found that thread I linked to above. Somebody on there said that using a VPN solved their issues. I tried that. I used IPVanish to create a VPN on one of my computers expereiencing the routing issues. Hey presto, all symptoms and issues disappeared. Services reconnected themselves, browsing works again flawlessly, no more problems.

So now I know at least that the issue is on Plusnet's side, even if Plusnet don't. I know also that this isn't the first time that Plusnet has created these issues and then not bothered investigating them with any speed. I have a static IP, whcih maybe explains why there aren't too many others reporting this issue, perhaps I am on some old subnet that is gathering dust in some corner of Plusnet's infrastructure. I've logged a ticket and I have tweeted to Plusnet, Plusnet are 'looking into it' I'm told. I have been told to shut my router off tonight for 12 hours for them to do some testing.

I doubt posting this will help to get anything resolved by Plusnet, it didn't seem to last year, but at least it may help somebody to realize that they are not the only one with a problem like this. Unless this situation resolves itself by the weekend, I'll be jumping ship to a better, probably more expensive ISP

[#2 · Accepted solution]

My issue appears to be resolved.

Plusnet did NO troubleshooting for this issue since I reported it on Tuesday. The engineers couldn't even be bothered to read the notes I provided that went into troubleshooting using ping, tracert and nslookup, screenshots etc. I don't think that there are that many Plusnet employees that go beyond telling users to try their master socket, reboot or buy a new router.

Anyway, I rang Plusnet this morning and asked that my Static IP be removed. I had suggested this as a test on day1 of my problem. As I had a routing issue and could see from last year's thread on routing issues, gettting a different IP in a different subnet resolved the problem for many. It makes sense as routing is done differently for different parts of any network infrastructure. My existing static IP was in the range 212.159  My new dynamic IP is in the range 84.51. As soon as I had that different IP, my connection has returned to normal. I can access all sites at full speed, various web services all start working again (Dropbox, OneDrive, Cisco VPN, update checkers, email, Netflix, BBC iPlayer, All4).

So its clear that this was a problem created by Plusnet, that there is a routing issue in the 212.159 subnet. Its also clear that if you want Plusnet to resolve issues, you need to troubleshoot it yourself and give them the solution.

[#3]

This is appalling. this is definitely hostname resolve issues because if you know the IP address it responds instantly. Infact you can use the ip address instead if you know it. Well I have opened several cases thinking the would bother them serves to fix it.. nope.. they only had an excuse, they didn't even ask any questions.

There is more to this, as they them selves know this is an issue however ignore questions of the topic.