giffgaff Mobile data issues

i_am_sy

There is potentially a major issues with giffgaff mobile data whereby some VPN, websites and mobile apps/games are inaccessible, these services work fine on other networks and broadband connections.

These issues are not caused by the adult content filter, nor has any other advice by members or agents managed to resolve the issues.

@mrjeeves and myself have been monitoring these issues recently and have compiled a number of threads that we believe may all be related, these do go back over the last few months, there may well be a great number more threads than we have found so far, and it is likely the issue has cropped up on social media too.

@mrjeeves is currently following up on each case to try and gather some extra information relating to the issue and to double check that each report is related.

If anyone has come across other threads or social media posts that may be linked please post the links here so that we add those to the spreadsheet.

benjamin567

i_am_sy I second this, I have seen members report this problem as far back as 2013.

Members with the issue have removed the adult content block and tried replacing their SIM multiple times but the issue still persisted. However, they had no issues on their previous network causing many to switch to their old provider!

Some on other networks have had the same issue, but they have been able to fix it by entering a specific APN setting, maybe this is something that is available on giffgaff 🤷‍♂️

mrjeeves

i_am_sy benjamin567 and @guy_ow (as you replied to the service updates post)

We've done more digging! 🥄 (there's no shovel emoji, ok? i had to make do!)

@i_am_sy found a bunch more posts and I've added them to the list.

I've also updated my existing agent case about one app (Hearthstone) with details about these other issues as well as some possible causes. The full copy of my agent message can be found below. This is the first time I hit the exact 2000 character limit as well 😅

Looks like this extends pretty wide, with Microsoft DirectAccess being quite a big issue especially in the current situation.

Hi again,

Thanks for keeping me up-to-date.

Myself and i_am_sy on the community have identified a number of other similar issues with data preventing correct access to some services.

This issue might not just be limited to Hearthstone specifically, also affecting other games as well as some VPN software, especially Microsoft DirectAccess, which are critical at this time.

Some people also have some issues with FTP/FTPS, though I think this is just because of how tethering works.

I have a slight feeling this could be due to some ports being blocked.

Here is a list of threads we have compiled, neatly organised into categories:
<same sheet as in OP>

Here is our community discussion about the problem: https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33132925-giffgaff-mobile-data-issues

Note that although a lot of the threads on this spreadsheet have best answers (BAs), most are either workarounds that should be unnecessary or set by BA setting accounts and not by the members themselves (so we don't know if the solution actually solves the issue).

I've attempted to get more info from some of these members by responding to their forum posts. So far one DirectAccess VPN user has responded (italicised and highlighted in a darker blue than the others on the document above).

Here's a list of ports (and other things) I've found that relate to these issues...

Hearthstone
TCP & UDP: 1119, 3724

FTP
FTP: 20
FTPS: 21

DirectAccess
UDP: 3544, 500
TCP: 443 (HTTPS so should be fine)
TCP: 62000
Also needed is support for the 6to4 traffic-IP Protocol both inbound and outbound

OpenVPN
TCP: 443,80 - HTTP(S) so should be fine
UDP: 1194, 1197, 1198, 8080, 9201, 53
TCP: 502, 501, 943, 110

L2TP (VPN-related)
UDP: 500, 1701, 4500

IKEv2 (VPN-related)
UDP: 500

PPTP (VPN-related)
TCP: 1723 or Protocol 47 (GRE)

Character limit approaching! Thanks in advance!

richybhoy36

i_am_sy Hi there in my 7ish years I’ve never had any issues like that !

sloz

i_am_sy
mrjeeves
Some observations,
All these three coincided from around the same time (around 2 months or so ago)

When I place a giffgaff sim in my samsung s6 after having a different network sim in….
I don’t now get a pop up list of networks on the phone screen

Problems with sending mms on androids

Problems with connecting to certain apps on androids

cal4231

Hi i_am_sy Just spotted this one here https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33149250-wi-fi-and-4g-don-t-buy-giffgaff/8

amieb90

i_am_sy even tho I have data it doesn’t work when I’m away from WiFi says no internet connection

cal4231

i_am_sy Is this another one just posted? https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33154074-mobile-data-issues

i_am_sy

benjamin567
mrjeeves
@guy_ow

A member with issues accessing CCTV has replied to the thread here with this:

thanks, just to [give] you an update, I have changed my apn to o2 settings and now I can access the cctv. So it is 100% giffgaff issue. They need to sort their own network out internally…

We will now test accessing some of the services reported with modified APN settings and see if this is the case across each of the issues reported, if successful this will give us both a working workaround and will demonstrate that there’s a clear issue with giffgaff.

benjamin567

Some on other networks have had the same issue, but they have been able to fix it by entering a specific APN setting, maybe this is something that is available on giffgaff

Indeed, it seems Three has two separate APN’s one that had a similar issue and one that didn’t, so it’s likely the same issue is happening here, except giffgaff only have one official APN, we will test with any details we can find that provide an internet connection and see if there is something that works.

jarzinio

I wish I could get involved but I have about another thousand thing I could be doing

davidvarley

i_am_sy
giffgaff and three need to fix there data issues if there apns are not working correctly so we get faster data access then.

kitkatkit111

I don’t know the technical side of all this but Turbo VPN works fine to access adult content. 😜

i_am_sy

sloz Some observations,
All these three coincided from around the same time (around 2 months or so ago)

When I place a giffgaff sim in my samsung s6 after having a different network sim in….
I don’t now get a pop up list of networks on the phone screen

That could be caused by the changes with balance notifications as it will probably be a USSD function that triggers that, maybe it was removed or broken when the balance notifications where switched to texts.

Problems with sending mms on androids

This one is interesting, there was at least one member I’ve helped on the last few days that wasn’t able to send MMS when they had a goodybag, but could without, it didn’t make much sense at the time but could possibly be a ports issue too.

If so then I imagine that’s a bigger can of worms than one we are going to be able to unpick and make sense of without some way of testing each possible theory.

Problems with connecting to certain apps on androids.

Do you think these issues my just be limited to android? I hadn’t considered that it may not be the case on iPhones too.

mrjeeves

sloz When I place a giffgaff sim in my samsung s6 after having a different network sim in….
I don’t now get a pop up list of networks on the phone screen

I’ve never had that since I joined in 2015. Are you sure that’s not something that only happens on some phones? Most just autoconnect to the first network they’re allowed to.

sloz Problems with sending mms on androids

I remember that service issue being attributed to an incorrect mmsc address.

i_am_sy there was at least one member I’ve helped on the last few days that wasn’t able to send MMS when they had a goodybag, but could without, it didn’t make much sense at the time but could possibly be a ports issue too

Unless giffgaff were doing something very strange I don’t see how ports would be allowed/blocked when on PAYG vs goodybag. I’ve been able to send MMS when on goodybag with some credit left over.

sloz Problems with connecting to certain apps on androids

As i_am_sy mentioned, it’s very interesting if this only affects Android. If may be a coincidence (most Hearthstone players prefer Android/Windows combo for example).

That should be looked into…

sloz

i_am_sy
I wouldnt have though that the removal of balance notifications resulted in the pop up list of networks appearing after the phone is switched on,
(the problems I believe started before the balance notifications were removed)

The problem with connecting to certain apps appears to be only with androids,
And will always be resolved by running a vpn (I always suggest turbo vpn)
At the same time as the app

sloz

mrjeeves
Wrote....
I’ve never had that since I joined in 2015. Are you sure that’s not something that only happens on some phones? Most just autoconnect to the first network they’re allowed to.
.
.
mrjeeves
Remind which you have?
And that's if you place another network sim in your phone and then a giffgaff sim?

mrjeeves

sloz

I've got a realme X2 Pro rooted and modified to run stock Android 10.

Just tried with my dad's second SIM (Virgin) and it just connected me straight away.

sloz

mrjeeves
And no pop up list?
I've just tried again and when I place my tombile /EE sim in my phone a pop up list appeared, but not when I replaced my giffgaff sim,

As far as I can recall this has never been the case

_kara_

Thank you so much for raising this with us. I have flagged this up to the relevant folks and they are currently looking into this. We will get back to you with more information on this as soon as we have an update from them.

mrjeeves

_kara_

@i_am_sy and I did a bit more experimenting.

The issue is definitely within giffgaff specifically.

We know this because, while testing other O2 APNs (Tesco and O2 themselves) the issue still exists.

This might make it seem like the issue is O2-wide, but this problem still happens because the MVNO value in the APN is still set to giffgaff, meaning that the servers process it as giffgaff traffic.

All the O2 APNs redirect to the same internal servers, as far as I can tell. This is probably for backwards compatibility and because it’s just plain easier. It’s only the MVNO value that determines how the data is routed/processed. If this value was changed, you couldn’t connect without changing it back.

We can also confirm it’s not O2-wide as someone I know on Tesco, and @i_am_sy on O2 can’t reproduce these issues, but I can on giffgaff.

i_am_sy

This issue is still ongoing, the agents have not managed to get to the bottom of it, they had reported back that the engineers had found an issue which they had fixed however it did not rectify the issue. So the issue is still currently affecting giffgaff members when using mobile data.

The tracker has been updated with another thread for a game.

i_am_sy

This issue is now being raised internally by the community team as per this post on the unreported service issues thread.

Hopefully this.should mean further investigation will take place over the coming days.

guy_ow

Evening @i_am_sy and @mrjeeves

Not a massive update at the moment, one of the team did discover that the issue with Hearthstone is not specific to giffgaff, there is a post on this thread here https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/main-thread-t-mobile-sprint-cannot-connect-to-hearthstone-on-mobile-data/33040 where at post from their community support gives a bit more detail into the issue being experienced by Hearthstone users (roughly post 191, in blue text).

The other things haven't been forgotten about either, just wanted to update you on something one of the folks found that at least gives some explanation to one of the issues raised.

mrjeeves

guy_ow

The engineers are wrong about thinking that thread is related to this issue.

The CM said that it’s due to how Hearthstone handles IPv6 connections, but giffgaff doesn’t actually support IPv6 yet, hence why there are posts in Contribute asking for it and hence why the APN settings say IPv4.

guy_ow

mrjeeves I did ask the same question, main thought I had back was that it’s more on how they handle the IP network framework themselves as IPv6 is not as widely used as IPv4 yet. In regards to saying ‘specific’ was more to show there are other users experiencing issues using Hearthstone over a mobile data connection.

Either way it wasn’t a solution to the issue as such just more an update on what was found in relation to that one so far, the folks are still looking into things (I’m asking for updates as and when I can). So far we know that it doesn’t appear to be affecting all users of the giffgaff network, so this is requiring further looking into.