- This topic has 99 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 8 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
SSThing – 1 day ago »
As you can disable the VPN and the Humax iPlayer works, can you re-enable the VPN while the iPlayer is playing a programme? What happens, does it continue or does it lose connection?
Hello SSThing
Good question – I’ve just tried it.
With the VPN off, all was perfect. 20 apps in the Humax On-Demand screen. Started streaming an iPlayer programme and was fine and quite fast.
I activated the VPN, and within 10-15 seconds, the stream stopped. It was replaced by a black screen with the purple spinning (buffering) circle for about 30 seconds, and then went to a permanent error screen which read:
Something went wrong playing this programme. This is usually a temporary problem… blah, blah, blah. With error code 02110 in the top corner.
After deactivating the VPN, the stream ran perfectly again.
Am still going through the other posts and will come back asap. Also had some updated technical suggestions from Draytek about replacing the DNS routing policy with a Streaming policy on another port (1935). Will try it out when I get a spare hour or so to tinker.
You have also said that iPlayer works on other devices when the VPN is active.
Is that via an app on the device or direct from the device web browser? If it is browser, try installing the app and see if that works.
If you are already connecting via an app (or once you have installed it), try repeating a version of the first test but this time have a programme playing on another device first, then on the Humax, then fire up the VPN. What happens now?
SSThing – 12 hours ago »
You have also said that iPlayer works on other devices when the VPN is active.
Is that via an app on the device or direct from the device web browser? If it is browser, try installing the app and see if that works.
If you are already connecting via an app (or once you have installed it), try repeating a version of the first test but this time have a programme playing on another device first, then on the Humax, then fire up the VPN. What happens now?
Yes – iPlayer is working on all other devices as far as I can see.
It will work on a ethernet connected Win 10 PC, using Chrome.
It will work on a wirelessly connected Win 10 laptop, also using Chrome.
It will work on a wirelessly connected Android smartphone, using the BBC app.
These are all with the VPN active, and it still has a UK-based server that it connects to.
With the VPN active, the Humax is the *only* device that won’t stream iPlayer!
[/quote]With the VPN active, the Humax is the *only* device that won’t stream iPlayer!
Quote:Very useful. So I think this shows that NordVPN is not the culprit here – they claim not to block streaming services and seems to be the case. It supports my hypothesis that the HUMAX is sensitive to some other aspect of Router/WAN protocols – maybe DNS, maybe MTU size, maybe something else. Your symptoms with VPN on are very similar to many others reported on this forum – and my own from a year ago which eventually was solved by 1) replacing an ISP supplied router and 2) ensuring that DNS servers are not showing as the router.
If you can try changing/adding route policy in the Draytek router as I suggested in an earlier post you might just have success.
Let us know how you get on
TBH if you can view iPlayer through Chromecast then I suggest you stick with doing that and not waste any more time or effort getting it to work on the Humax.
gomezz – 8 mins ago »
TBH if you can view iPlayer through Chromecast then I suggest you stick with doing that and not waste any more time or effort getting it to work on the Humax.
But that’s not a solution, it’s merely an alternative.
It is a solution to spending your time productively.
GrahamRHK – 1 day ago »
[/quote]With the VPN active, the Humax is the *only* device that won’t stream iPlayer!
Quote:Very useful. So I think this shows that NordVPN is not the culprit here – they claim not to block streaming services and seems to be the case. It supports my hypothesis that the HUMAX is sensitive to some other aspect of Router/WAN protocols – maybe DNS, maybe MTU size, maybe something else. Your symptoms with VPN on are very similar to many others reported on this forum – and my own from a year ago which eventually was solved by 1) replacing an ISP supplied router and 2) ensuring that DNS servers are not showing as the router.
If you can try changing/adding route policy in the Draytek router as I suggested in an earlier post you might just have success.
Let us know how you get on
Will do Graham, but my limited logic is coming to the exact opposite conclusion here – in that the NordVPN *is* the culprit, as it is this single change to the network that prevents the Humax on-demand services from working as they should. Quite why… I don’t yet know.
I emailed Humax the other week… no response
BTW – have confidence that it is not MTU size. This was checked a few weeks ago, and as I recall, the MTU was at the max setting of 1200.
gomezz – 1 day ago »
TBH if you can view iPlayer through Chromecast then I suggest you stick with doing that and not waste any more time or effort getting it to work on the Humax.
Sadly, I don’t have Chromecast, so I’m not quite sure where you are getting that from.
rjsdavis – 1 hour ago »
BTW – have confidence that it is not MTU size. This was checked a few weeks ago, and as I recall, the MTU was at the max setting of 1200.
An MTU of 1200 sounds low to me. The MTU on my WAN connection is currently 1492.
Martin Liddle – 17 mins ago »
rjsdavis – 1 hour ago »
BTW – have confidence that it is not MTU size. This was checked a few weeks ago, and as I recall, the MTU was at the max setting of 1200.
An MTU of 1200 sounds low to me. The MTU on my WAN connection is currently 1492.
Apologies – my mistake. I couldn’t remember where it was in the config pages. It is actually at the max of 1520 – just found and checked it.
Quote:but my limited logic is coming to the exact opposite conclusion here – in that the NordVPN *is* the culpritYou have a point… but your tests with other devices, reported here, show that with the VPN on these seem to work (with for example iPlayer). My understanding is that it is only the HUMAX which is affected by your VPN. VPN traffic is encapsulated which makes the packets bigger – depending on what VPN protocol is being used – and that might lead to fragmentation somewhere along the network path. Hence my logic that if the HUMAX works with the VPN off then routing HUMAX traffic “round`’ the VPN using a direct path to the WAN might just fix it.
Quote:VPN traffic is encapsulated which makes the packets bigger – depending on what VPN protocol is being used – and that might lead to fragmentation somewhere along the network path.There is an article here which led me on this train of thought… https://directaccess.richardhicks.com/2019/02/11/always-on-vpn-and-ikev2-fragmentation/
Setting a route policy to bypass the VPN seems to be relatively straightforward but I can’t test it for you as i don’t use a VPN. See how you get on…
This really is a problem that should have a simple and straightforward solution.
It should be easy to route traffic from a particular device, or traffic to and from specific sites around the VPN.
Quote:It should be easy to route traffic from a particular device, or traffic to and from specific sites around the VPN.This is indeed correct. I have been experimenting – being intrigued by this problem. I have set up a permanent VPN tunnel to NordVPN in the router. Then used Route Policy settings in the Draytek 2862 router to force HUMAX traffic over the WAN while allowing other connected devices (eg this computer that I am posting from) to use the VPN tunnel. All works perfectly. I think the problem again relates to DNS settings. NordVPN blocks access to many ISP supplied DNS servers (NordVPN FAQ) and uses its own – 103.86.96.100 and 103.86.99.100. So if the HUMAX thinks the DNS servers are different from those it won’t work – nor will this computer unless I set DNS servers to those addresses, as I discovered.
Hope that helps
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.