Problems accessing some HTTPS web pages via BT

I know a couple of people having problems accessing some HTTPS web pages via their BT Business connections - both using BT Business hubs on ADSL2+.

Searching on Twitter I can see this (viewing secure HTTPS pages) seems to be something that pops up quite regularly over the years for BT customers!?

Unfortunately the Twitter conversations don't really go anywhere so don't help.
Rebooting the router seems to get things going for a while before the problem returns the next day. Their exchange is currently mentioned in the generic "broadband issues" outstanding faults on BT's status page - due to be cleared on the 21st. But it doesn't say what issues they are fixing just:

"A small number of our customers in the areas shown below, may experience a loss of telephone and/or broadband services. We hope to have service restored as quickly as possible and apologise for any inconvenience this may be causing. Services can be affected by a variety of reasons such as damage caused by 3rd parties or cable theft."

When/if I get to visit I can investigate further but thought I would ask here in case other BT customers have been there, done that...

Well I am not on a BT's Business connection, just Infinity 4 using a Smart Hub, but I am having no issues accessing HTTPS (SSL/ TLS encrypted sites) at all.

I do have the odd issue where I have to click on a link twice for the link to work or else the page times out, but that happens of any type of page whether it be HTTP or HTTPS, it might be a browser issue I don't know.

One thing you could check is see if the site in question has a valid Certificate, most browsers now days refuse to access them if they are not signed by a reputable source, i.e. if the site self signs their own certs the browser will tell you or just refuse access to it.

Also some Virus Checks don't like self signed certs as well.

Paul

Odd MTU figures sometimes can break SSL or cause issues for some SSL sites (if brain is working right)

Thanks for the replies.

I should have said there aren't any certificate errors you just get page load failures so you get the browsers "snap failed" "failed to load" error page or a hanging page load.

@MrSaffron I don't think it's MTU related as a reboot fixes things and nothing has been changed recently for these people.

In reply to a post by b4dger:

Thanks for the replies.

I should have said there aren't any certificate errors you just get page load failures so you get the browsers "snap failed" "failed to load" error page or a hanging page load.

Ah ok, so its not a cert issue, when it fails to load a page, is it instantly failing or does it wait a little while and then fails, if so that was what I get every now and then, and I just have to either click on the link again or refresh the page if it was a typed in URL.

So maybe that's something to try.

There is nothing worse than having to reboot the router/modem due to this and end up with slower speeds due to the reboot.

Paul

It hangs trying to load the page rather than instantly failing.

If you search Twitter for btcare https and wade though things you can see others have problems loading HTTPS pages on their BT connections.

In reply to a post by b4dger:

It hangs trying to load the page rather than instantly failing.

If you search Twitter for btcare https and wade though things you can see others have problems loading HTTPS pages on their BT connections.

Only the first tweet is recent, but they go back a long time, but all could be different issues, like a load was due to the cert issue like I said.

When it hangs trying, try refreshing the page, or re-entering the same URL in the address bar.

Ah, I think I might know why mine is fine, I am not using BT's DNS Servers, I use Googles then falls back to our own DNS Server and if both of those fail it uses BT's.

So maybe its a DNS issue with Secure HTTPS connections.

Paul

DNS resolution should be the same for https and http

Reboot of PC or modem/router - the latter may mean you end up on a slightly different segment of the 'BT' network and its one where a duff MTU setting is screwing up some traffic.