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EE 4G MTU query

Lucian - I've remembered that Linux can be run live from a USB stick with minimal fuss. At the weekend I'll spend some time trying to sort that and run tracepath. Should be amusing as I've not engaged with Linux in years. A quick google offers up a live Ubuntu distro that can run from USB.

tartanGuru - Your script still reports MTU of 1500 for my B818 so I suspect the problem lies elsewhere. I'm hoping tracepath as described above will provide further insight.

The Wee Bear - The way the XSX interacts with my router is interesting. I did a full reset of the B818 and while I still get the low 1370 MTU reported, I get an open NAT - hoorah! As soon as I enable UPnP or try forwarding any ports, the NAT goes to moderate or strict. There was me thinking that UPnP would help, and the same for port forwarding. Touching nothing seems best. Even putting the XSX in the DMZ changes the NAT from open. Count me mystified.
 
@teleman6868 Yes, pretty much any live CD would do it.
Tracepath is part of iputils package, should be in base install of most distros.
 
Lucian - I've remembered that Linux can be run live from a USB stick with minimal fuss. At the weekend I'll spend some time trying to sort that and run tracepath. Should be amusing as I've not engaged with Linux in years. A quick google offers up a live Ubuntu distro that can run from USB.

tartanGuru - Your script still reports MTU of 1500 for my B818 so I suspect the problem lies elsewhere. I'm hoping tracepath as described above will provide further insight.

The Wee Bear - The way the XSX interacts with my router is interesting. I did a full reset of the B818 and while I still get the low 1370 MTU reported, I get an open NAT - hoorah! As soon as I enable UPnP or try forwarding any ports, the NAT goes to moderate or strict. There was me thinking that UPnP would help, and the same for port forwarding. Touching nothing seems best. Even putting the XSX in the DMZ changes the NAT from open. Count me mystified.
Oh yes it's all very mystifying stuff teleman6868, although I was a chicken and touched nothing, so for me that plan worked fine. 😄👍🏼
 
TIL that DNS has both IPv4 and IPv6 variants.

Back in the day I used the console hack to change my router DNS to Google’s primary and secondary servers, both IPv4 addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Of course, this got wiped when I reset my B818 but I forgot that fact because it’s not normally visible in the UI.

The Xbox conveniently reports DNS details for its connection. I noticed that with EE connected after the reset on IPv4/v6 it reports the router’s IPv4 as one of its DNS servers, and an IPv6 address as its other DNS server.

So, manually fixing to Google’s DNS IPv4 addresses makes my connection worse because the Xbox then doesn’t use the IPv6 DNS server and returns a strict NAT result.

This may be obvious to many, but I thought it was worth sharing 😀

Also, I always have to manually create APN connection details and choose IPv4/v6 in the router. Left to it’s own devices, the router/SIM interaction results in an IPv4-only APN connection.

And all before 8am!
 
Interesting as I have my EE APN settings as IPv4/v6 and google DNS manually set in my B535 but haven't had any issues with MTU, but glad it's sorted problem for you!
 
Interesting as I have my EE APN settings as IPv4/v6 and google DNS manually set in my B535 but haven't had any issues with MTU, but glad it's sorted problem for you!
I’m finding my way with this. Everything in the router config (virtual server, static addresses, DMZ etc) relates to IPv4 addresses, and this becomes interesting when IPv6 addresses come into play. I do wonder if anything starts to conflict.
 
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It does appear that all of Huawei’s DNS setting only apply to IPv4. IPv6 DNS just seems to be the routers IPv6 address so it will be using EE’s v6 DNS servers. I do have an eero mesh network but I’m relying on the Huawei to do DHCP. Fortunately my variant of the B535 has the bridge mode available, so I might move to using the eero DHCP so that I can specify a better v6 DNS server
 
Well, the instructions for running Ubuntu from USB are crystal clear, and after a 2.7GB download and using rufus to create a bootable version, I was able to run tracepath as suggested by @Lucian

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ tracepath bbc.co.uk
1?: [LOCALHOST] pmtu 1500
1: homerouter.cpe 10.925ms
1: homerouter.cpe 1.723ms
2: no reply
3: 10.124.219.201 46.778ms
4: 10.247.84.155 27.536ms
5: no reply
6: 10.247.84.193 43.292ms
7: 10.247.84.182 42.212ms
8: 87.237.20.106 35.587ms
9: 87.237.20.75 40.054ms

This appears to confirm that my router's not doing anything, so the problem lies elsewhere, most likely the network. At no point is there another pmtu entry.

My investigations continue....
 
TIL that EE has a Content Lock setting. The best NAT I was getting on my Xbox was moderate. In My EE / Account settings you can see and change your content lock. Mine had defaulted to Moderate. I switched it off. Restarted router. NAT now open! Online gaming all working. Got killed in Halo....

I might have been lucky, but mention it because you never know what these content locks are going to filter, apart from the obvious.
 
Great find @teleman6868 , we're all so busy thinking of all sorts of technical details when the explanation was so simple on their web site. Definitely one to remember.
 
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