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Airport Extreme and Cox Internet IPv6 Problem

This is a notification to others as well as a question:


I have Cox Cable High Speed Internet at several locations using an Airport Extreme 3GB connected as a router to the Cox cable modem.


For more than a week we would regularly find in the morning that the outside connection to the internet DNS servers were lost. We called Cox several times, and they performed the usual reset of router and modem and things seem to work for a while. But the next day gone again.


They came out and replaced the hookups, I I had to buy a new cable modem and replaced a digital switch. Each time things seemed to work for a while.


I thought about replacing the Airport Extreme (as I read others had done in a similar situation to no avail).


After much frustration, I started to search for Airport Extreme and DNS and found similar tales.


After several unproductive calls with Cox Internet first tier support, I finally reached a tier who acknowledged that Cox was rolling out IPv6 and was having a problem with Airport Extreme Routers. They said Apple was working on it and gave me a number to call at apple router support. Unfortunalely the number they gave was no longer valid.

I persisted and eventually got to Apple support and indeed they knew of the problem and said Cox was working on it.. But there was a temporary fix - and that was to turn off iPv6 on the airport extreme (more precisely (internet > Internet Options > Configure Ipv6 : Link-Local Only).


For now this seemed to stop the overnight drop that seems to happen between 12:00 AM and 2:00 AM. From experience I dont think its really an IPV6 compaibility issue, but how the router responds to some sort of reset signal/test signal that the service does in the early morning.


So the question is - does anybody know for sure whats going on or who is really working on this. From my perspective both camps think its the other's problem. BTW - Ive read about others with Non Apple routers chasing something similar.

Posted on Mar 2, 2016 9:03 PM

Reply
483 replies

Jun 5, 2016 5:19 AM in response to OCRamón

I am having the same results as you, fail test, reset AE pass test, several hours later fail test. The only difference is where you are getting the message

Our tests show that you will have a broken or misconfigured IPv6 setup, and this will cause problems as web sites enable IPv6.

I am getting the message

Good news! Your current configuration will continue to work as web sites enable IPv6.

Jun 5, 2016 7:19 AM in response to GABarber

Ever since Cox implemented their Ipv6 protocol in Mid-December 2015, I have been unable to use my Apple Airport Extreme in "Automatic Ipv6" configuration mode. I hade to use "Local-link" only and even then I had to restart the AAE every 3 days or so.


When the 7.7.7 update came out last month, I immediately updated my AAE and I kept the "local-link" only option. I didn't have any loss of internet signal for a week, so I decided to take a shot and change to "Automatic Ipv6" configuration. That was a WEEK ago and I have not had to restart the AAE.


So, for me at least, it seems the 7.7.7 upgrade did the trick.

Jun 5, 2016 7:33 AM in response to sunjon

For those of you who are losing IPv6 connectivity, before restarting your router or modem to restore service can you run a couple of tests using the Terminal app and post up the result. This may also help the Cox engineer who is following this thread better understand what is going on.


ping test


Command is as follows:

ping6 -c 10 ipv6.google.com


A normal result will look like this.


PING6(56=40+8+8 bytes) 2607:fea8:20e0:12:e1cd:b0c7:ec95:d40b --> 2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e, icmp_seq=0 hlim=56 time=16.871 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e, icmp_seq=1 hlim=56 time=21.798 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e, icmp_seq=2 hlim=56 time=16.715 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e, icmp_seq=3 hlim=56 time=15.843 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e, icmp_seq=4 hlim=56 time=13.584 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e, icmp_seq=5 hlim=56 time=19.744 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e, icmp_seq=6 hlim=56 time=28.816 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e, icmp_seq=7 hlim=56 time=19.221 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e, icmp_seq=8 hlim=56 time=26.236 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e, icmp_seq=9 hlim=56 time=24.415 ms


--- ipv6.l.google.com ping6 statistics ---

10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/std-dev = 13.584/20.324/28.816/4.669 ms


Traceroute test


Command is as follows:

traceroute6 ipv6.google.com


A normal result will look like this.


traceroute6 to ipv6.l.google.com (2607:f8b0:400b:80b::200e) from 2607:fea8:20e0:12:e1cd:b0c7:ec95:d40b, 64 hops max, 12 byte packets

1 2607:fea8:20e0:12:3612:98ff:fe02:51c5 1.407 ms 1.453 ms 1.282 ms

2 2607:f798:804:123::1 19.180 ms 20.735 ms 13.354 ms

3 2607:f798:10:205c::661:8508:9213 27.415 ms 61.054 ms 23.688 ms

4 * * *

5 2607:f798:10:295::2 36.526 ms 31.048 ms 28.827 ms

6 2001:4860:1:1::32c:0:8 32.697 ms 23.901 ms 31.619 ms

7 2001:4860::1:0:713a 23.255 ms 22.707 ms 19.624 ms

8 2001:4860:0:1::71d 27.503 ms 26.101 ms 17.143 ms

9 yyz08s14-in-x0e.1e100.net 28.774 ms 18.186 ms 18.167 ms

Jun 5, 2016 8:09 AM in response to Gino_Cerullo

I am one that keeps passing and failing the ipv6 test


here are my results


Last login: Sat Jun 4 07:49:02 on ttys000

Roberts-iMac:~ Bob$

Roberts-iMac:~ Bob$ ping6 -c 10 ipv6.google.com

PING6(56=40+8+8 bytes) 2600:8807:5000:be:388a:de87:a412:2678 --> 2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e, icmp_seq=0 hlim=55 time=21.738 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e, icmp_seq=1 hlim=55 time=22.444 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e, icmp_seq=2 hlim=55 time=21.526 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e, icmp_seq=3 hlim=55 time=23.522 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e, icmp_seq=4 hlim=55 time=20.965 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e, icmp_seq=5 hlim=55 time=24.457 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e, icmp_seq=6 hlim=55 time=21.823 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e, icmp_seq=7 hlim=55 time=22.730 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e, icmp_seq=8 hlim=55 time=23.815 ms

16 bytes from 2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e, icmp_seq=9 hlim=55 time=20.573 ms


--- ipv6.l.google.com ping6 statistics ---

10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/std-dev = 20.573/22.359/24.457/1.205 ms

Roberts-iMac:~ Bob$ traceroute6 ipv6.google.com

traceroute6 to ipv6.l.google.com (2607:f8b0:4000:803::200e) from 2600:8807:5000:be:388a:de87:a412:2678, 64 hops max, 12 byte packets

1 2600:8807:5000:be:d203:4bff:fed1:f088 0.596 ms 0.368 ms 1.497 ms

2 2600:8807:7f04::1 7.985 ms 8.613 ms 9.158 ms

3 2001:578:1800:4::104:18 9.209 ms 10.040 ms 9.251 ms

4 2001:578:1800:4::1:20 9.195 ms 8.776 ms 10.530 ms

5 2001:578:1::172:17:248:183 20.921 ms 20.344 ms 19.879 ms

6 2001:4860:1:1::58f5:0:21 21.079 ms 24.704 ms 22.214 ms

7 2001:4860:0:e02::1 22.430 ms

2001:4860:0:e03::1 21.271 ms 24.018 ms

8 2001:4860:0:1::501 27.464 ms 21.509 ms

2001:4860:0:1::427 22.275 ms

9 dfw25s13-in-x0e.1e100.net 21.156 ms 22.660 ms 21.140 ms

Roberts-iMac:~ Bob$


After running the txt in terminal and without resetting anything I now pass the ipv6 test

Jun 5, 2016 8:35 AM in response to YatBob

So YatBob, just to be clear.


Before running the ping6 and traceroute6 tests you where failing the IPv6 tests on the test sites but after running ping6 and traceroute6 you were passing the IPv6 test on the test site?


If that is correct that is an interesting result.


Both the ping6 and traceroute6 test I had you run queried the ipv6.google.com domain name. Before the tests could run they needed to be able to resolve the ipv6.google.com domain name to its IPv6 address. This shows that the Cox DNS server(s) is resolving the IPv6 address.


What I find particularly interesting though is that after running the ping6 and traceroute6 tests your were also passing the IPv6 tests on the test sites again. So I'm wondering if the Cox DNS server(s) are having some temporary problem that ping6 and traceroute6 tests is temporarily fixing.

Airport Extreme and Cox Internet IPv6 Problem

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