Humax streaming / catch up services blocked by VPN

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Humax streaming / catch up services blocked by VPN

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GrahamRHK

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I would need to run a very specific experiment to test that. Which I could try soon when I have the opportunity.

I ran wireshark for about 3 minutes while watching iPlayer. The endpoints are shown in the attached images. The streaming endpoints are clearly shown. But many others too after pressing Freeview Play button. I have no idea what else is going on but I guess that if any IP addresses are blocked in any way, iPlayer may not work.
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1. Screenshot_2020-01-19_at_08.32.10.png (146.9 KB, 6 downloads) 4 years old
2. Screenshot_2020-01-19_at_08.32.40.png (88.9 KB, 5 downloads) 4 years old
| Sun 19 Jan 2020 8:46:33 #31 |
Martin Liddle

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GrahamRHK - 3 hours ago »
I ran wireshark for about 3 minutes while watching iPlayer. The endpoints are shown in the attached images. The streaming endpoints are clearly shown. But many others too after pressing Freeview Play button. I have no idea what else is going on but I guess that if any IP addresses are blocked in any way, iPlayer may not work.

It is interesting to do an IP WHOIS Lookup on the IP addresses. The content is being delivered from Lightning Networks who are specialists in caching for streaming services. The 212.58.xxx.xxx addresses are the BBC. There is nothing that ties directly to Humax but there are quite a lot of addresses that are allocated to Amazon AWS and could be being used by anybody. Other companies that are in that lists are Edgecast, Akomi, BT, Fastly, Microsoft, Opera, Plusnet. I am not sure any of this helps.

| Sun 19 Jan 2020 12:00:19 #32 |
GrahamRHK

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The endpoints are shown in the attached images.

the previously posted screen shots are not very legible. Here are some better ones for those interested
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1. Screenshot_2020-01-19_at_11.16.06.png (49.5 KB, 2 downloads) 4 years old
2. Screenshot_2020-01-19_at_11.15.30.png (113.4 KB, 1 downloads) 4 years old
| Sun 19 Jan 2020 18:27:33 #33 |
rjsdavis

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SSThing - 1 day ago »
I know that it may involve a bit of hassle (moving the TV and Humax temporarily to test) but have you tried connecting the Humax directly to the router (bypassing the repeater) and then trying with the VPN active?

Sadly, this doesn't work - already tried.

It is definitely the VPN that causing ag for the Humax BBC player.

| Mon 20 Jan 2020 0:42:25 #34 |
rjsdavis

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GrahamRHK - 6 hours ago »

The endpoints are shown in the attached images.

the previously posted screen shots are not very legible. Here are some better ones for those interested

Thank you for these posts Graham.

I still find myself a little confused though, and have also noticed a new glitch on the Humax On-Demand screen.

1 - Are we suggesting that I need to encompass that entire list of IP addresses within the router, to hopefully enable the Humax catch-up services to bypass the VPN?

2 - I've only just clocked a complicating factor. When the VPN service is active, not all of the catch-up service apps are even visible for selection on the Humax On-Demand screen! I hadn't noticed this before, as to be honest, when I've been testing it, I've not really gone beyond the BBC iPlayer app - as this is the one we'd most likely try to use on any given occasion.

ITV / Channel 5 go missing as apps completely (as if they were even there to begin with). When the VPN is deactivated, they return.

It would appear that the Humax device is actually fetching the apps from a server somewhere to display them on the On-Demand screen? (Rather like a clone/server based networked corporate PC, would go off for all of it's apps and software profiles when you login to a terminal in a large office?) - at least, this appears to be what it's doing...

| Mon 20 Jan 2020 0:49:04 #35 |
SSThing

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Your last paragraph would make sense (I have been thinking along the same lines myself) because I find it odd that Humax categorically state that the iPlayer app is completely out of their control (so have absolutely no input towards resolving issues when it's functioning but incorrectly) yet also state that when there were issues last week (apparently countrywide) with iPlayer not loading, they were working with the BBC to find a solution. This suggests to me that Humax, or a company on behalf of Humax, host a server (perhaps more than one) via which iPlayer and other apps access the content (meaning that they are obliged to assist in finding the fault). I shall be posting my most recent chat with them on another thread later today.

| Mon 20 Jan 2020 6:03:41 #36 |
GrahamRHK

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1 - Are we suggesting that I need to encompass that entire list of IP addresses within the router, to hopefully enable the Humax catch-up services to bypass the VPN?

No I am suggesting the opposite - that to make your setup work you would have to ensure that your FVP does not use the VPN. I don't know how to do that with a Draytek Router.

I've only just clocked a complicating factor.

You are right - when the FVP, for what ever reason, is not accessing the internet successfully, the first symptom is that most of the catchup icons are missing and the Players screen has catch up icons greyed out. This was the first issue that I discovered a year ago when my box was new and I was using an ISP supplied router. Using fixed DNS addresses seemed to sort it - I guess because using the router as DNS can lead to these problems but I have never found a definitive reason.

It would appear that the Humax device is actually fetching the apps

I can't be sure about this, but I suspect that the icons for the apps (and perhaps the app loaders too) are fetched from Humax.net - and if that doesn't work, little else will. One would have to know the internals of the box to figure that.

| Mon 20 Jan 2020 7:42:28 #37 |
GrahamRHK

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This suggests to me that Humax, or a company on behalf of Humax, host a server (perhaps more than one) via which iPlayer and other apps access the content

This is all making sense. I have been checking the version (level) of the iPlayer app when I use it and I notice two things 1) that iPlayer takes longer to load sometimes and 2) that the version date is always quite recent - and increments day by day- sometimes the current date and sometimes the previous day - which suggests that the app updates itself when invoked. And also infer that some apps don't work like that eg My5I will be interested to learn what Humax have to say in reply to you.

| Mon 20 Jan 2020 7:47:49 #38 |
SSThing

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https://myhumax.org/forum/topic/do-they-or-dont-they

| Mon 20 Jan 2020 7:49:22 #39 |
Pollensa1946

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The inability to access iPlayer via a VPN has been ongoing for a number of years. This applies not only to Humax but also to other boxes and TVs. As I said in an earlier post, some very smart people have failed to solve this. If a solution does arise here you will have done many ex-pats (trying to catch up with UK TV) in Europe a big favour. Maybe you should patent it I'm struggling to understand why anyone in a domestic environment needs to run a VPN permanently for the entire network.

| Mon 20 Jan 2020 9:46:23 #40 |