Unable to access specific website

[Nick2345]

I have a very strange and specific problem. I am unable to access one (that I know of) specific website from my home internet connection. The website is simply https://www.arnoldclark.com (i.e. the well known car/garage website). I first tried to access it last week and found that the connection attempt timed out. Since my internet was working fine in all other regards, I assumed that their website was down. However, I then tried again several times over the weekend and the same happened. I happened to speak with my brother about this on Sunday and yesterday (Monday) he emailed me and said he could get to the site fine (he is also a TalkTalk customer). I tried again and it failed again.

No matter what device I use (iOS and android phones, windows, Linux, ChromeOS laptops) I cannot reach the site via my home broadband. However, using my iOS phone in 4G I can access the site and if I use it as a hot spot, any of my other devices can then access the site. Hence, it is definitely an issue with the home broadband.

I have an Eero 6 router and I have checked and confirmed that it has no security/profile/blacklisting active that would prevent access to sites (and the website is hardly one that would be age limited etc!).

I have used a range of tools (such as ping, wget, tcptraceroute - all on Linux) that show that the connection attempt makes it as far as the general servers for the website host. However, the connection then appears to just stop (as might be the case if a server firewall was blocking and dropping the connection).

I had a 1.5 hr long "chat" with Talktalk customer services yesterday, which went through all the usual stuff (is the router turned on, etc). We eventually got a stage where (after I suggested it) apparently my router's external IP address was changed (I could not verify this, since I had not made a note before the change of what the address had been). That made no difference, as did any other change that was made (they also appeared to change the DNS servers - I knew that would make no difference, since tcptraceroute, ping, wget etc all showed me that DNS resolution was not an issue).

Hence, I am still stuck with the situation that essentially my internet connection is "working fine", but I cannot access this one specific website (I may also be unable to access other website, but they are unknown at present). This is very strange and frustrating.

The customer support person I chatted to yesterday said they would raise this as a formal complaint, but I have yet to see any notification telling me that this has been done.

I would therefore ask whether anyone else has ever seen this behaviour and/or has any idea what is causing it and how to fix it. As I stressed to the customer support person yesterday, my testing so far strongly indicates to me that the issue is not related to my router or devices (in particular, the output from tcptraceroute demonstrates that the connection request makes it all the way through to the servers associated with the website host for arnoldclark, at which point it then fails. Hence, my router, the fibre connection, DNS server and internet connections all the way to the website host servers is working).

Right now I am left totally scratching my head.

[KeithFrench]

I will try & download the file later tonight and have a look at it tomorrow hopefully.

[Nick2345]

Hello Keith,

Wireshark trace complete, no dropped packets. I will PM you the password.

Best wishes,

Nick

[KeithFrench]

Hi @Nick2345 

I will send you a PM in just a moment.

[Nick2345]

Hi Keith,

Yes, you are right. I have never used Wireshark and made an assumption that it was a Windows equivalent of traceroute. I have it installed on my Windows 10 OS now.

[KeithFrench]

Hi @siphosethu-TT 

Port forwarding is not used at all when accessing a website.

I will deal with this customer's problem, as it might be highly complex.

The information below is provided by TalkTalk, for confirmation, please contact @Debbie-TalkTalk or @Lorrainef.

KeithFrench is one of our valued Community Stars and can help with a range of issues related to wireless and networking. At times, he may ask you to send him test results via a Private Message to help analyse/diagnose an issue. Although Keith does not work for TalkTalk, he very kindly shares his time and knowledge to help others.

If you need further help or if we need to take any details such as personal information about your account like phone numbers, account numbers, etc, one of the TalkTalk team will jump in and help out.

[KeithFrench]

Hi Nick,

I beg to differ; those tools are nothing like Wireshark. Wireshark is an IP packet analyser which displays all of the IP packets in their complete detail, down to the binary bit level. To understand the output of it, a very deep understanding of the OSI 7 Layer model is required as a starter.

I will send this over to you by a PM, but it won't be for a little while as I need to update my Wireshark guide a bit.

[Nick2345]

Hello Keith,

Yes please. That would be very helpful. I usually use Linux and tools such as tcptraceroute (which will do the same as wireshark), but I have a dual boot system and so can go into Windows and run the test from there. Please PM me about this.

Thank you very much for your assistance,

Nick

[siphosethu-TT]

Hi Nick, please let me know if you were able to set it up using the following link: Set up port forwarding

Thanks

[KeithFrench]

Hi @Nick2345 

@fr8ys has asked me to help you. I think the only way forward is to install Wireshark on a Windows PC, do some other configuration on the PC, but I do not want to make that bit public, so I will PM you about it. Then you will take a trace of the failed attempt from the PC to that website (I can access that one via my eero network). However, that bit does not surprise me, because if a traceroute fails at the destination webserver, it cannot have anything to do with your eero.

A Wireshark trace will capture everything going through your Ethernet or Wi-Fi adapter in your PC, so please do not have anything else running at the time. Then I will get you to send me the trace so I can analyse it for you.

If you are happy to do this, let me know & I will send you the PM.

The information below is provided by TalkTalk, for confirmation, please contact @Debbie-TalkTalk or @Lorrainef.

KeithFrench is one of our valued Community Stars and can help with a range of issues related to wireless and networking. At times, he may ask you to send him test results via a Private Message to help analyse/diagnose an issue. Although Keith does not work for TalkTalk, he very kindly shares his time and knowledge to help others.

If you need further help or if we need to take any details such as personal information about your account like phone numbers, account numbers, etc, one of the TalkTalk team will jump in and help out.

[DJI_MINI_2_SE]

"I too use an Eero and using your link in your original post I can view the website"

Same here.

[fr8ys]

Thanks for confirming.

I too use an Eero and using your link in your original post I can view the website.

Staff here can look into whether you have a complaint open and advise further.

I'll also ask our Router expert @KeithFrench if he can shed any light on this in the meantime. It's not the first time we've seen this but the ad blocker turn off has worked in the past.

[Nick2345]

Hi fr8ys,

Thanks for your reply. No, ad blocker is not turned on. There are no restrictions or other items active under "Security and Privacy" apart from internet backup (So Advanced Security and Ad Blocker are both inactive).

At the end of the customer support chat yesterday, the CS rep asked if I wanted to make a formal complaint. My response was that if that was a way for the item to be escalated to the TT tech people who could look into it more fully then that was what I wanted. The CS rep had previously told me to use a VPN as a workaround. I did not feel that this was particularly appropriate and so asked whether it could be escalated to the tech people. I think the CS rep had done all they could and I am not critical of them, since I think this is way outside of what they could resolve. At present, I have no answer either! I am not a tech expert, but I know enough to know that this behaviour is very strange.

[fr8ys]

Hi,

You mention you have an Eero. Do you have the ad blocker turned to on under advanced security?

I've found this an issue on various sites and turned this off and could then access the sites.

Hope this helps but if not please post back.

NB if you have made an official complaint the unfortunately staff here are unable to offer help and you would need to wait for the CEO manager to make contact to resolve this. Thought you should be made aware of this.