Humax streaming / catch up services blocked by VPN

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Humax streaming / catch up services blocked by VPN

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rjsdavis

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SSThing - 1 day ago »
As you can disable the VPN and the Humax iPlayer works, can you re-enable the VPN while the iPlayer is playing a programme? What happens, does it continue or does it lose connection?

Hello SSThing

Good question - I've just tried it.

With the VPN off, all was perfect. 20 apps in the Humax On-Demand screen. Started streaming an iPlayer programme and was fine and quite fast.

I activated the VPN, and within 10-15 seconds, the stream stopped. It was replaced by a black screen with the purple spinning (buffering) circle for about 30 seconds, and then went to a permanent error screen which read:

Something went wrong playing this programme. This is usually a temporary problem... blah, blah, blah. With error code 02110 in the top corner.

After deactivating the VPN, the stream ran perfectly again.

Am still going through the other posts and will come back asap. Also had some updated technical suggestions from Draytek about replacing the DNS routing policy with a Streaming policy on another port (1935). Will try it out when I get a spare hour or so to tinker.

| Thu 23 Jan 2020 16:58:46 #61 |
SSThing

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You have also said that iPlayer works on other devices when the VPN is active.
Is that via an app on the device or direct from the device web browser? If it is browser, try installing the app and see if that works.
If you are already connecting via an app (or once you have installed it), try repeating a version of the first test but this time have a programme playing on another device first, then on the Humax, then fire up the VPN. What happens now?

| Fri 24 Jan 2020 8:17:49 #62 |
rjsdavis

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SSThing - 12 hours ago »
You have also said that iPlayer works on other devices when the VPN is active.
Is that via an app on the device or direct from the device web browser? If it is browser, try installing the app and see if that works.
If you are already connecting via an app (or once you have installed it), try repeating a version of the first test but this time have a programme playing on another device first, then on the Humax, then fire up the VPN. What happens now?

Yes - iPlayer is working on all other devices as far as I can see.

It will work on a ethernet connected Win 10 PC, using Chrome.
It will work on a wirelessly connected Win 10 laptop, also using Chrome.
It will work on a wirelessly connected Android smartphone, using the BBC app.

These are all with the VPN active, and it still has a UK-based server that it connects to.

With the VPN active, the Humax is the *only* device that won't stream iPlayer!

| Fri 24 Jan 2020 21:00:06 #63 |
GrahamRHK

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[/quote]With the VPN active, the Humax is the *only* device that won't stream iPlayer![quote]
Very useful. So I think this shows that NordVPN is not the culprit here - they claim not to block streaming services and seems to be the case. It supports my hypothesis that the HUMAX is sensitive to some other aspect of Router/WAN protocols - maybe DNS, maybe MTU size, maybe something else. Your symptoms with VPN on are very similar to many others reported on this forum - and my own from a year ago which eventually was solved by 1) replacing an ISP supplied router and 2) ensuring that DNS servers are not showing as the router.
If you can try changing/adding route policy in the Draytek router as I suggested in an earlier post you might just have success.
Let us know how you get on

| Sat 25 Jan 2020 8:28:43 #64 |
gomezz

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TBH if you can view iPlayer through Chromecast then I suggest you stick with doing that and not waste any more time or effort getting it to work on the Humax.

| Sat 25 Jan 2020 9:13:24 #65 |
SSThing

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gomezz - 8 mins ago »
TBH if you can view iPlayer through Chromecast then I suggest you stick with doing that and not waste any more time or effort getting it to work on the Humax.

But that's not a solution, it's merely an alternative.

| Sat 25 Jan 2020 9:23:03 #66 |
gomezz

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It is a solution to spending your time productively.

| Sat 25 Jan 2020 15:28:28 #67 |
rjsdavis

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GrahamRHK - 1 day ago »
[/quote]With the VPN active, the Humax is the *only* device that won't stream iPlayer![quote]
Very useful. So I think this shows that NordVPN is not the culprit here - they claim not to block streaming services and seems to be the case. It supports my hypothesis that the HUMAX is sensitive to some other aspect of Router/WAN protocols - maybe DNS, maybe MTU size, maybe something else. Your symptoms with VPN on are very similar to many others reported on this forum - and my own from a year ago which eventually was solved by 1) replacing an ISP supplied router and 2) ensuring that DNS servers are not showing as the router.
If you can try changing/adding route policy in the Draytek router as I suggested in an earlier post you might just have success.
Let us know how you get on

Will do Graham, but my limited logic is coming to the exact opposite conclusion here - in that the NordVPN *is* the culprit, as it is this single change to the network that prevents the Humax on-demand services from working as they should. Quite why... I don't yet know.

I emailed Humax the other week... no response

BTW - have confidence that it is not MTU size. This was checked a few weeks ago, and as I recall, the MTU was at the max setting of 1200.

| Sun 26 Jan 2020 21:42:52 #68 |
rjsdavis

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gomezz - 1 day ago »
TBH if you can view iPlayer through Chromecast then I suggest you stick with doing that and not waste any more time or effort getting it to work on the Humax.

Sadly, I don't have Chromecast, so I'm not quite sure where you are getting that from.

| Sun 26 Jan 2020 21:43:34 #69 |
Martin Liddle

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rjsdavis - 1 hour ago »
BTW - have confidence that it is not MTU size. This was checked a few weeks ago, and as I recall, the MTU was at the max setting of 1200.

An MTU of 1200 sounds low to me. The MTU on my WAN connection is currently 1492.

| Sun 26 Jan 2020 23:42:53 #70 |