Question

5g home internet - some sites won't load

  • 15 August 2021
  • 49 replies
  • 7917 views
L
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My big gray cylinder 5G Home internet has good signal and works reliably. But some percent of websites I visit simply refuse to load via the TMo 5g device, yet they work fine if I use my Verizon cellphone data, or a coaxial cable modem (which I have not canceled service on yet). I am guessing it’s either a DNS issue between my Mac and the T-Mobile cylinder (eg: settings requiring technical help or updates), or a problem in the T-Mo network that is blocking some sites. 

After spending too many hours on the phone already with Tmo tech support for 5G Home, I am not excited about the prospect of engaging on the phone again. It takes too long, and the agents need more training and support. 

Has anyone experienced and solved this issue? Do you have technical insights? Is there actual written documentation somewhere that I could access? Thank you. 

(Honestly Tmo, you need to rethink your support infrastructure for 5G Home.)

49 replies

jlillard
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If you have one, I would suggest a dedicated wi-fi router that is hard-wired to the modem instead of using the built-in wi-fi.  That seems to tax the device a bit too much at times and cause issues like you’re describing.  You may also be dealing with an overheating modem.

 

L
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Thanks Jlillard, but the device is consistent with the sites it refuses to load, so it’s not an intermittent or random occurrence, and I do not think it’s a heat-related issue in this case. 

I’d like to continue to solicit advice on this. 

jlillard
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I have never run across a scenario where T-Mobile is blocking access to a site.  However, since I’m using a dedicated wi-fi router that’s providing DNS for my network as well.  You could try hardcoding your DNS servers on your clients to see if that helps.  Google’s servers are free to use: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.  This would help confirm / eliminate a DNS issue.

L
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Thanks! I had been using Cloudflare’s servers. In testing, I reverted to the Tmo ones, and neither set worked. So I just tried your google ones, plus rebooting and renewing the DHCP lease, but no change. 

The error messages I see on the sites that won’t load are either “timed out” after a long pause, or 

“A network change was detected. ERR_NETWORK_CHANGED” 

I don’t think Tmo is blocking anything on purpose, since these are inoffensive sites. But they won’t load. Here is one example site that won’t load for me via Tmo. http://judiglova.com/

jlillard
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I am able to load that site up without a problem.  Someone else on one of my threads mentioned having an issue with a Mac and it may have been related to IP6.  I’m pretty sure my router is only doing IP4 but when I connected to the modem directly it was doing IP6.  Are you able to force yourself to IP4 and see if that helps?

L
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Thanks! I tried this on your advice. For anyone else reading this, let me save you some time. You can’t disable IPv6 from the System Preferences control panel. You can only set it to local. So I did that, but I also googled and found this Terminal command to disable it: 

networksetup -setv6off Wi-Fi

And that does indeed show as “off” in the IPv6 panel of System Preferences, once you execute it. 

So thus set up, I tried again, and… no change.  :-/  

Some further data though: The site loads on my iPhone via Verizon cellular data, but NOT when the iPhone is attached via wifi to the Tmo 5g Home router. So does that point to the router, not the computer? 

jlillard
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Are you using Chrome on your Mac?

L
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Fails to load on Mac: Chrome; Mac: Firefox; iOS: Chrome; iOS: Safari; Android: Chrome. 

So 3 browsers on 3 operating systems all behave (fail to load judiglova.com) the same. 

jlillard
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Are you running over a VPN by chance?

L
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I’m sorry, I’m not on VPN. I am apparently a difficult case! 

You can see why I didn’t want to get on the phone for this ;-) 

jlillard
Userlevel 4
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I’m running out of ideas.  The next thing I would do is use the host command from the terminal to confirm your DNS lookups are returning the same IP regardless of that network you’re on.  Assuming those are the same, I would also try a traceroute from the terminal to see if you can determine how far your request gets.  The Chrome developer tools could also be useful if you have the Network tab open when you make the request.

L
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Thank you. It’s a tough one. I will try this, though it’s a bit beyond me. 

You also have me thinking I could try to turn on a VPN and see if that changes anything…

I’ll report back…

And thank you. 

R

My big gray cylinder 5G Home internet has good signal and works reliably. But some percent of websites I visit simply refuse to load via the TMo 5g device, yet they work fine if I use my Verizon cellphone data, or a coaxial cable modem (which I have not canceled service on yet). I am guessing it’s either a DNS issue between my Mac and the T-Mobile cylinder (eg: settings requiring technical help or updates), or a problem in the T-Mo network that is blocking some sites. 

After spending too many hours on the phone already with Tmo tech support for 5G Home, I am not excited about the prospect of engaging on the phone again. It takes too long, and the agents need more training and support. 

Has anyone experienced and solved this issue? Do you have technical insights? Is there actual written documentation somewhere that I could access? Thank you. 

(Honestly Tmo, you need to rethink your support infrastructure for 5G Home.)

More likely if its 5G just like the phone, it is not you, its Tmo. They’re blocking UDP Access with 5G connections. Try a VPN and see if it works that way. I did that and the sites and access to voice programs like Discord and Skype worked fine after that. T- Mobile lies about their Data or does not give out proper information, Correct me if im wrong T Mobile ? 

M

You ever figure this out? Having same issues T-Mobile support isn’t much help just restarting thing, resetting. No changes. Only had this thing a week then it just starts happening in randomly. I can access google, YouTube, Facebook, but no other sites will load, WiFi or LAN devices. 

M

I also recently started having issues with this and some sites no longer load when i am connected to the T-Mobile Home Internet.

For example www.bofa.com does not load for me, but www.bankofamercia.com does.

If i switch over to my hotspot through my phone, these pages work. I tried multiple browsers and devices and all work fine through hotspot, but once connected to home internet, specific sites no longer work.

There seems to be some proxy or DNS issue which isn't loading correctly?

Also, i can ping the websites through terminal. They just fail to load in all browsers

J

I just got the Gray cylinder and neither of the MacBooks I own would see the internet although they were connected to TMo wifi.  I tried again but used a vpn and they worked like a charm.  This made me very confident the issue was DNS. I changed the DNS settings in System Preferences/Networking to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and the MacBooks worked great even without using VPN.  It was a very simple fix.  What is beyond frustrating is I spent 90 minutes on the phone with TMo support trying to fix this problem and they were absolutely clueless.  Actually, beyond clueless.  All they would do is keep having me reset the device.  I truly find it hard to believe they haven't resolved this issue for other Mac users and documented it for the support folks who have to deal with the public.  C’mon T-Mobile, you're better than this.

 

D

I have the same issue reported above with various random websites not loading on my 5g iPhone.
 

Yesterday, I went to get a covid test and my iPhone would not load the website to submit my insurance info…

https://dcltesting-2.com

 

This would not load on multiple browsers and I had no WiFi access.

 

As soon as I connect to my work VPN, I was able to load this website perfectly fine. Good thing I had a VPN accessible.

 

Any insight into why these websites are not loading? Is this a UDP issue as mentioned above?

 

FYI. The website mentioned earlier in this tread does not load for me either via 5g on my iPhone…

http://judiglova.com/

J

I’m having the exact same issues.  The service worked fine for almost a month and then in the past 4-5 days i’ve been having to reboot the router multiple times per day because of certain websites not loading.  Youtube and netflix will always load, as will google, and yahoo. But my bank website won’t connect, and many others.   I’ve been on the phone with tech support twice for over an hour and keep being told there’s an upgrade being done to a tower in my area. I find this highly suspect since so many others are experiencing the exact same quirks in connectivity.  

J

I can’t get discovery plus in the evenings. YouTube load YouTube TV loads but not discovery plus I can get discovery plus in the daytime which doesn’t really help me. Any ideas what to do about that? I did have a Netgear box that I used with my former Internet service but I don’t need it because the signal strength is excellent. I’m not very tecky and appreciate any advice

T

J-Mac where did you find “DNS settings in System Preferences/Networking to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 “ when I log onto the Ethernet connection settings I don’t see that option.  I feel like the problem is something with the IPv6 as someone else said.  When I turn on my VPN everything loads fine, but if I turn the vpn off nothing will load on Safari, Firefox works which is really odd. 

iTinkeralot
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When using Safari on my MacBook Pro I have taken a packet capture of the link to the http://judiglova.com/ site. With a quick nslookup I can see the DNS to IP resolution shows 35.209.59.249 IP address associated with the judiglova.com host name. The session starts with IPv4 from my client to the 35.209.59.249 IP and I can see the TCP source port 443 so I am sure of the conversation establishment. The page renders in a timely manner. The curious part I have not taken apart is the IPv6 flow that follows the initial IPv4 conversation setup/establishment. 

Open a terminal window and see if you can ping judiglova.com - the IP 35.209.59.249 should be resolved by the DNS and if it is not blocked then the ping should be successful.

iTinkeralot
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I should add that I have the IPv6 configuration on my MAC set to automatic so I do run both IPv4 and IPv6. I am not sure if it is related but it is another datapoint. I am wired to a Thunderbolt adapter via CAT-6 Ethernet cabling so I know the traffic rides the Ethernet connection. Maybe it is related to running a dual stack IPV4 and IPV6. I tend to leave default settings alone. 

Don’t poke the sleeping dog.

If you load Wireshark and take a packet capture of the period of time when you initiate the session to the site you can save the capture and deliver that to T-Mobile support. I am sure they have engineers there that can read packet captures. Installing Wireshark and saving a packet capture is pretty easy.

iTinkeralot
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If you want a quick low down on your IP addressing open the terminal and type in /sbin/ifconfig

It takes a few seconds for the terminal to render the report on my MAC as it is older but be patient. With that information you will know more than you ever thought you wanted to know about the IP addressing on your MAC. 

You can select and copy that information into a text file and provide that to support as well. If there is anything out of sorts a good engineer should be able to pick it apart.

L

I have the same odd failed page loads on specific sites, so I am monitoring this thread too.  I am a new user and usually service is good and speeds are 200Mbs down, 30Mbs up if not congested.  If I come up with new information then I will post back here.  For now I am using http://judiglova.com/ as a test (it always loads fine on cellular) .

 

I am not up to filing a tech support case now - maybe later.

Arcadyan KVD21, typ.DOWN=20-250Mbs UP=25Mbs, SINR=1-6 . test4. status= http://192.168.12.1/TMI/v1/gateway?get=all .
I

Same issue started happen to me today with webmail site (other sites are fine), regardless the device I am using as long it connected to the T-Mobile wifi network. I’ve tried modifying DNS, IPV6 etc. does not matter. I ran tracert and It time out along the way, so I am confidence it is on the t-mobile cell network.

Don’t know if they aware of it, I am not sure what to do next

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