Site's non-accessibility from Sprint

Lawrence, my wireless carrier is Sprint in the US. I noticed that I can't access BrickOwl.com from my phone (and thus also not via hotspot through the phone). A traceroute shows that Sprint seems to be purposefully dropping packet routes early in the hops, like barely 2 or 3. I'm guessing that the IP block your host uses for your server(s) have at one point been on a blacklist that Sprint is using. You may want to talk to your host and Sprint - it may be a small slice of your audience that's affected but a lot of people now use their phones for Internet browsing and millions of Sprint customers are in the US.

Comments

  • 31 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • This issue is ongoing since July last year. It is very inconvenient.
  • Somehow, I think complaints from a paying customer would carry more weight for Sprint, compared to complaints from some website owner.

    Did anyone ask Sprint about it?
  • I did ask Sprint a while ago. Spoke to 2 people and they said I would be contacted but it didn't happen and I did not follow up. I just tried again and will communicate the outcome.
  • I haven't but I have to call them to complain about something else anyway, I'll see if I can get them to connect me with a network engineer.
  • edited February 2017 Vote Up0Vote Down
    @Lawrence they called me back and can't figure it out- claim there is no block on their end but replicate the issue. I referred them to you as I am unable to discuss your website technical aspects.

    Thanks
  • Doing a bit of Googling it seems not to be only us, apparently Sprint users can't access Greyhound buses either. I guess they have some block. We don't have any IP bans on our end. Sounds like someone at Sprint has put a block in place and clearly other support members aren't aware of it. Obviously it's in our interest for this to be resolved, but judging by the initial comment by @JayB-SoCal this isn't something that is within our control.
  • I've just got off the phone with Sprint. At first they wasted my time, a tech instead I do a network reset on my phone even though I knew that was not the issue and was supposed to call me back after I did that, but never did, so had to call back and then walk through the issue with another tech. They said they would have some resolution for me within 24-72 hours.

    I made sure to give the 2nd tech a hard time about the first tech who didn't call me back, as I'm not above complaining if someone doesn't follow through on support & also made sure to tell him that other Sprint users I've spoken to have been having the same issue since July of last year. Kept emphasizing that it's a routing issue on their end (not a device, issue, not a browser issue, not a 4G or 3G issue) so that they didn't come back to me later shrugging their shoulders - one of their route hops is clearly dropping connections to a block of IPs, they just need to find that hop and un-block them.

    I deal with tech issues all day long, this should be a brain-dead one for them to find & resolve -- but it's a wireless carrier in the US, so we're mostly dealing with 90% drones who couldn't ping their way out of a paper bag.
  • Update- not sure what this tells you tech savvy people but I am able to reach the website on the opera mini browser. I can navigate through different stores, the catalog, etc. When I press the login link, poof-- "could not connect to the website!". What about that?

    Sprint is using this fact to claim it must be an issue with the site, otherwise I would not be able to load any pages. Does that tell anyone anything?
  • Lawrence, while Sprint checks on this, just one suggestion - on my own personal sites I run on a VPS and have Mod_Security installed. Sometimes it auto-bans IPs based across the server (even for IMCP packets) based on certain behaviors, and it's certainly possible that Sprint's network utilizes a web proxy setup since the error code coming back is Status 504 and not a simple timeout. That means a gateway server (aka proxy) is trying to make the connection. If that's a shared proxy then there is a slim chance the IP address(es) of Sprint proxy IPs are in a ban list somewhere *IF* you make use of Mod_Security or similar. If so, I can message you what my IP appears to the outside world as to cross-reference. I'm very doubtful it's this issue but worth checking if it's a possibility.

    Another possibility - when I do an IP check on my phone on various sites, it returns the IPV6 address instead of IPV4 - which could mean that there is a router somewhere in the path between Sprint & you that is barfing on the IPV6. That doesn't exactly help you to know that but if someone else calls Sprint about this, make sure they are aware a lot of people are having the issue and it's very likely THEM (when I do a trace hop test, my connections get dropped at barely TWO hops). 2 hops is not normal, if it were on Lawrence's side it would not drop the hops until the very end (usually 6-15 hops depending on network path).
  • bluedragon - I will install Opera to test. Does your Opera browser have any proxy settings that may be bypassing connecting through your Sprint connection?
  • edited February 2017 Vote Up0Vote Down
    Don't think so. I was prompted to install it by Sprint as they obviously tested every browser. It is a clean install with the default settings on an iphone 6.
  • edited February 2017 Vote Up0Vote Down
    Testing via Opera Mini, made sure no proxy settings, no WiFi, just 4G. Am able to browse & log in. Either Sprint partly fixed the issue already after I barked at them or there is something on this end? Very odd.
  • I have failure with Chrome & Firefox. I have never seen this kind of issue before, anywhere, and I'm a senior level web developer & IT director.
  • I went to the same web sites to report my IP address using a non-working browser and using Opera. I get the same address back. HOWEVER, I noticed 1 difference: On some sites my IP address is reported back as the IPV6 version but on Opera it's ALWAYS reported back as the IPV4 version. It's just weird that this happens based on the application side of a device unless the problem applications (i.e. Chrome & Firefox apps) are directing the hardware to prefer IPV6. That should still not be a problem unless the subsequent routers are going with this as an absolute and a router somewhere in the route path is choking on the IPV6-based routing.

    Bluedragon, can you check to see if you have the same behavior? Specifically, go to:

    https://www.whatismyip.com/

    I am going to confidently predict that if you use Chrome or Firefox you will get back an IPV6 address (a long string of alphanumeric characters with semi-colons) but if you use Opera Mini you will get a normal IP address (4 dotted numbers).
  • I've concluded that Sprint has a router in play that is not doing proper IPV6-to-IPV4 tunneling, there can be no other explanation. Somehow Opera Mini is allowing the devices to connect out using IPV4, while other Apps just let the hardware control the address type (which Sprint is assigning as IPV6). This would explain why some sites are affected while many others are not - certain hop paths to certain regions will go through one route while others will go a different way. The path with the problem has a router with mis-configured tunneling. When that router receives traffic as IPV4 it works fine, when it receives it as IPV6 then it chokes. I don't have my phone rooted, but anyone experiencing this issue who has their Sprint phones rooted I would bet that forcing IPV4 on the phone side will be a workaround until Sprint gets their act together.
  • I have same type of IP on Chrome, Safari and Opera- xx.xx.xxx.xxx
  • Try this:
    http://ipv6test.google.com
    or this:
    http://test-ipv6.comcast.net

    I get different responses when using Opera vs the others. When using the others I get information that tells me I'm using an IPV6 address & that it's tunneled. When using Opera it says I'm not using IPV6 but that I should be OK with web sites that add IPV6 support.

    Make sure you're using your 4G when testing on your phone & not your WiFi.
  • Sprint LTE
    chrome/safari/opera- all show you don't have IPv6 but that should be OK...
  • Back to the drawing board... this is as deep as I can get figuring it out.
  • Sorry- the time you have spent on this issue is appreciated and I am sending you a coupon for my store :-).

    I have decided what do do now that everyone is aware of the issue: I will give Sprint 1 month, then switch if the problem persists.
  • Cool, thanks, I've been prepping some fresh orders. I actually did a PAB order from Lego.com last week... which of course probably will take 3+ weeks to get in my hands.
  • @JayB-SoCal Thanks for your level of research, it could potentially be IPv6 related, we didn't have IPv6 setup, I've now set it up and confirmed IPv6 access is working, but it didn't seem to help @bluedragon so I'm at a loss.
  • I just re-tried, it didn't seem to make a difference, though doesn't hurt to have it enabled. I'm pretty sure now it's a mis-configured router on Sprint's side that is not tunneling IPV6 to IPV4 to some or all outbound hops. They sent me a txt today to call them, probably a resolution on their end but since it's still not working I would guess they are going to just shrug their shoulders over it. I'll be calling them back to get clarity and will escalate it if necessary.
  • Access from Sprint via any browser on mobile devices should be working now for everyone. I re-tested and no longer have an issue - all browsers working. If anyone is still having issues, let me know if you're using 3G or 4G (LTE) so I can call them back on the ticket and drive them harder. I think the real test will be whether it works now for bluedragon :)
  • Thanks but still no luck for me. Tried all browsers on LTE. I can get to the website on Opera but can't login.
  • It's not working for me by way of hotspot still, so although somehow it's working by way of phone when I use the phone as a hotspot I can't connect.
  • I called them again today, gave them a hard time. I'm going to basically give them hell until they fix it or tell me why they can't fix it. This next 12 months will probably be my last on Sprint, but I don't know if the others will be just as bad or worse.
  • I ripped them a new one over the phone tonight. Probably won't help. If not, I'm going to get off Sprint within the next year. I would recommend we create a how-to for people on the site on how to work around the issue, since at least some of the suggestions helped.
  • Sprint called me back the following Saturday morning and an engineer tested on his phone and confirmed it didn't work for him, tried it on a different browser, confirmed it didn't work for him. So he escalated it to a higher level. I never got a call back after that.

    I updated my Android last night to Nougat and just tried hotspot from work and that finally works (before only just the phone was working for me). So now, at least in my testing, it's working both directly on the phone and via hotspot acting as a hotspot. I don't know if it's because Sprint actually fixed something or if the updated Android somehow played a role.

    The negative is that my mail application I use for work Exchange email doesn't succeed in sending email.
  • Ah! THEY FIXED IT!! It is working on my iPhone. @JayB-SoCal your persistence paid off in the end. Thanks again for taking the lead (and properly following up) on this! I'm sure I speak for all the Sprint users on the site.
  • Fantastic. Can we get a few others to check & confirm? Not sure who else watching this thread has been affected. I'm really hoping it truly is across-the-board fixed, I was relentless with them. I had a supervisor groveling at one point, I felt bad for him but I let him have it anyway.
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