EE 4G - can Ping but not browse on new SIM?

Hello folks - I am trying to assist a neighbour get their 4G modem working and I need some help please.

Like me, they were with BT in rural South West Scotland and struggling with about 7Mbps down and 0.8Mbps up. Last August I switched to the EE 4G Unlimited Data SIM with an OutdoorRouters.com EZR30 Cat6 modem/router running their version of OpenWRT and an outdoor omni antenna.

After talking to me last month the neighbour ordered the (more recent) EZR33 Cat6 modem/router and have just had it professionally installed by a private comms engineer. The installation has been fine but the modem won't allow us to access web pages and I don't know where to begin troubleshooting.

Firstly their EE SIM works fine in two different smartphones. It is recognised and can visit websites. It is installed in SIM Slot 1 in the EZR33 and can connect to and see the same local mast as I do at about 3 mile range. Their signal strength is a little lower than mine (RSRP -97dBm compared to my -92dBm) but they have a 5m cable compared to my 1m and are in heavier trees. The EZR33 is factory reset, passworded, running the latest firmware and has secured wifi.

When viewing the status page over wifi the EZR33 is reporting QMI Cellular as Connected and has an IP4 address. Live Traffic shows small numbers of packets coming and going to the order of a few Kb per second. Diagnostics - Ping - Google.com correctly finds Google and returns 0% packet loss. I can see a bump in the Live Traffic if I query the modem's "Find Latest Firmware" page and it reports firmware up to date.

The catch is that if I try to access any web page I simply get "Safari cannot display this page. Server is not responding". I never get anything else even when going to google, the BBC etc.

Opening the Terminal on the EZR33 and typing "gcom" shows the SIM as responding and active.

I don't know what to suggest to my neighbour next. Would any logs from the EZR33 be of use (providing I could redact any personally identifying info)?

Are there any questions they should be asking EE given that we are not using their hardware?

Are there any commands I can use to query the modem and see what it thinks it can connect to (or not)?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Can you try your sim in their device? This would at least rule out an EE system “blacklisting” and confirm if it’s the equipment or network.

Interesting extra details - the IP address my neighbour has been allocated is vastly different from mine. When plugging it into WhatIsMyIPAddress.com it is confused and doesn't know anything about it. Should EE be informed about this?

Sadly no - my SIM is high up on a roof and would require a professional ladder to access which I don't have.

Does he or yourself not have a mobile phone you could pop the sim out of and try?

Also, is the correct APN setup in the router? I know it’s a simple check but it does sound like the network is artificially limiting what you can do. Some networks allow connection even with wrong APN (so you do see a data connection), however activity over most services is blocked.

Do you have the right APN set?

Ah, I understand. Yes we both do. Mine is with O2 and I don't know if they have an EE one. Fortunately their modem is just outside an upper floor window and only requires a little precarious leaning and fiddling with an Allen key to get out.

To reply to both gary333 and jchamier - I believe I have the correct APN set. It is the public ones for EE as follows...

Protocol : QMI Cellular
Modem Device : /dev/cdc-wdm0
APN : everywhere
PIN : (blank)
PAP/CHAP Username : eesecure
PAP/CHAP Password : secure
Authentication Type : PAP

Edited by DanielCoffey67 (Wed 08-Jul-20 21:46:24)

Try deleting the username and password and leaving blank. If that doesn’t work try changing APN to consumerbroadband leaving username and password blank.

Edited by gary333 (Wed 08-Jul-20 21:56:26)

If Gary’s suggestion doesn’t fix; if there is a setting for IPv6 turn it off.

No change with the alternative (and blanked) APN... well in fact it is worse. No QMI Cellular connection was established.

I will have a look for IPv6 settings but the modem is set up the same as mine. We both have an IPv4 address and no IPv6 active.

I just had a look and the weird IPV4 address seems to have been flushed and a more "normal" EE one is now active. Still no access to web pages though. The screen progress bar pauses for a few seconds then disappears and gives the "Cannot access web page..." message.

Does EE.co.uk connect?

Also try 4G-PPP instead of QMI. Not sure it’ll make any difference, but it’s the equivalent of basing all the buttons lol.

When I tried 4G-PPP earlier, no it didn't connect at all.

I will try again in the morning as I have to go and stand at the bottom of the garden in order to pick up their wifi and I will start to get funny looks if I try it now.

Out of interest, if I can ping and tracert "www.bbc.co.uk" and get a result but not visit the same address in a browser, does it confirm that the DNS is set up correctly?

I don't know how similar their software is to standard OpenWrt. If the menus are similar you could try the menu selection Status -> Firewall to see if the built in firewall is dropping any packets. A mis-configured firewall could explain pings working but not normal traffic. This seems unlikely with an out of the box install but worth checking.

The interface background colours also indicate which firewall zone an interface is assigned to (green for the local LAN, red for the internet side) so make sure these have not been changed.

Got it sorted. As jchamier said... do you have the correct APN set?

No... [censored] auto-correct saw to it that we didn't!

I don't know if the APN is case sensitive but "everywhere" was capitalised and "eesecure" was corrected to "ee secure". I only noticed because I had the modem off the roof and connected to my Mac Mini on a proper screen and saw the word move a little after I typed it in.

I did try tried the SIM in my original Huawei from EE and it worked perfectly. I put it back in the EZR33 and did a full push-button reset. When typing the APN back in was when I noticed the attempt to auto-correct.

All done and handed back to the neighbour. They won't get as good a signal as me because they are in trees. I get RSRP of -92dBm but they are at -97dBm because of the longer cable and more trees.

Thanks all for the help and suggestions. The neighbour really appreciated knowing help was available.

In reply to a post by DanielCoffey67:

Got it sorted. As jchamier said... do you have the correct APN set?

No... [censored] auto-correct saw to it that we didn't!

Ah-hem. I think you will find 40 seconds earlier I'd already said that .

Anyways, glad you got it sorted

Ah, but!

He was drafting his post when you made yours. There was no way he would have seen yours, and I doubt if many people review threads after proof-reading their draft but before submitting.

Well thanks anyway! The neighbour is really pleased too.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Ah, but!

He was drafting his post when you made yours. There was no way he would have seen yours, and I doubt if many people review threads after proof-reading their draft but before submitting.

Well obviously. I never said he would know. My point was I pointed this issue out too (and happened to be first). Thus I was jokingly saying I’d not been recognised for that thanks.

Edited by gary333 (Thu 09-Jul-20 17:47:19)

In reply to a post by DanielCoffey67:

I don't know if the APN is case sensitive but "everywhere" was capitalised and "eesecure" was corrected to "ee secure". I only noticed because I had the modem off the roof and connected to my Mac Mini on a proper screen and saw the word move a little after I typed it in.

Tablets and mobile phones are hopeless for IT engineering! Glad you got it sorted.

EE has a multitude of IP ranges. Has now got to the situation where mobiles use IPs originally intended for BB & v.v. What's yours (1st 3 or 2 octets)?

I didn't record the IP address at the time once I had searched for it and been told it was a business fixed IP address. I presume EE had bought some more IPv4 addresses that had not been in use for a while. The issue is resolved now anyway and the neighbour has a "normal" IP address now..