Airport Extreme and Cox Internet IPv6 Problem

Bingo #2! Sometime in the last 45 minutes (currently 1930 PDT) ipv6 went down again. WAN ipv6 address appears to be unchanged according to Airport Utility(see my previous post). However I am back to 0/10 on the test.

I'll leave it this way for a while to see if ipv6 comes back...

Would be good to see a user with an older Airport Extreme/TC that uses the 7.6.7 firmware report their experience. For me, it didn't work and I gave up - switched to a Netgear router. But I'm still curious to see if anyone has one working (say a mid-2011 model) with the "new" Cox services. Fortunately the $140 or so it cost to replace the router was not a budget-breaker for me, but someone else might feel differently. Cox DID break what was working before, after all. 😉

I_Dont_Want_A_Username, now that you have the Netgear router have you been testing your IPv6 connectivity at the IPv6 test sites? I'm curious to know if your IPv6 connectivity is staying up consistently or if it goes down occasionally like it does for AirPort router users but you haven't noticed because it does not affect performance.

Can you run the IPv6 tests occasionally on the IPv6 test sites and let us know if it goes down.

http://test-ipv6.com/

http://ipv6-test.com/

Gino - when I enable the "Block Incoming IPv6 Connections" button, my score goes down to 16/20 on the test because it fails the ICMP test. When I disable the "Block Incoming IPv6 Connections" button, it goes back up to 19/20. So, I disabled it.🙂

I'd like to hear from someone at Cox or Apple what the correct or best setting is for this "Block Incoming IPv6 Connections," including for those of us who do not care to enable firewall in general.

Online there is nothing definitive.

As far as Firewall in general, most discussions end with something like "In summary, a firewall isn’t really necessary on a typical Mac desktop, just as it isn’t really necessary on a typical Ubuntu Linux desktop. It could potentially lead to more hassle with setting up certain network services. But, if you feel more comfortable with it on, you’re free to enable it!"

Mine was the first post in response to askin6305B

askin6305B

what say ye?

Hello askin6305B

I have the latest Time Capsule hard wired ethernet to a Netgear CM400 cable modem. The TC is then ethernet hard wired to a latest model iMac. I also have three latest model Airport Extremes set around the property, set to "Extend a Wireless Network." Over all setup is like this:

Where the bottom AP Extr is the farthest one away, and appears to bridge / extend off the one above it.

I updated all four devices to 7.7.7 several days ago.

Then I changed from local link to ipv6 "automatically" on the TC, and checked the box to "Enable iPv6 Connection Sharing" and also checked the box under Network options to "Block Incoming ipv6 connections" and "allow incoming IPsec authentication." I allowed the system to fill in automatically the Cox DNS servers for ipv4 and ipv6.

On the three Airport Extremes, they were set under Wireless to "Extend a wireless network" and under Internet / Internet Options for all three Airports, "Enable IPv6 Connection Sharing was" UNchecked (not checked).

Initially under this setting I was getting the 10/10 http://www.test-ipv6.com/ here on all devices, iMac hard wired, iPhone 6 plus via WiFi, other iMacs via WiFi, Ipads, everything:

but during this same period, on the iMacs, both hard wired and via WiFi, I would get these results on the other test http://ipv6-test.com/:

However with WiFi iOS devices (iPhone / iPads), I was getting 19/20 on the above test. I never could figure out why the iMacs were getting only 16/20.

Speedtest.net showed good speed (above the advertised 150/10 I am supposed to get on my premier plan) on the ethernet wired iMac. Speeds varied via WiFi, but everything worked.

HOWEVER, about 24-26 hours later, internet stopped working on the iMacs - the ethernet hard wired one, and the two iMacs connected via WiFi.

Airport Utility showed all green lights on all four devices. Network / Assist Me / Diagnostics, on the iMacs showed all green lights and "Your Internet connection appears to be working correctly." Review of the Network / Advanced / TCP/IP didn't show anything remarkable to me.

Error I was getting on the iMacs was when trying to use a browser - no connectivity no sites loading.

AT THE SAME TIME, an iPad and 6 plus iPhone connected via WiFi were working fine! with speedtest app coming in at decent speeds.

A restart of the modem and Time Capsule, resolved all errors, but ONLY for another 24-36 hours when I experienced the exact same issue - inability to load any websites on the iMacs (both ethernet and WiFi iMacs unable to load any websites on browsers), but the iOS devices (iPhone and iPads, via WiFi) were working fine.

Since I was unable to load any websites on the iMacs (both ethernet and WiFi iMacs), I could not do any tests other than the Network / Assist Me / Diagnostics, which, again, showed all green lights and "Your Internet connection appears to be working correctly." Review again of the Network / Advanced / TCP/IP didn't show anything remarkable to me.

Because of trying twice to keep things going with ipv6 enabled, I gave up and reverted to "link-local only" setting again on the Time Capsule, with no changes on the Airport Extremes. This link local status keeps me going indefinitely with no reduction in speed, and no connectivity issues on any devices.

I have this version of the AEBS and as of today I have still been experiencing issues for the past two weeks. I upgraded to 7.6.7 on June 3rd, but it has been no help. I've been following this thread the past two days hoping that someone else might still be experiencing the same issues even after the updates and might have a solution. What I have been doing is when the connection goes out, I alternate between local-link only or native in the internet options and it resumes working for a few hours. I'm in Orange County as well. Today was the longest it worked without an interruption going pretty much the whole day, but about an hour ago my connection became really slow while on native. I've done that test when my settings are on native and I've received 19/20.

Crome,

A few things to check on your iMacs, if you haven't already, since they seem to have more iPv6 and general connectivity issues than other devices:

• Are you running current version of OS X on iMacs?
• Have you tried different browsers? Current version of software for each? Safari has had some reported issues with IPv6
• OS X has IPv6 settings too -- check System Preferences, Network, TCP/IP - you'll see settings similar to those on AE router
• Do you have OS X firewall enabled on the iMacs (System Preferences, Security and Privacy, Firewal on/off; if firewall is On, advanced settings provides Stealth Mode option, which conflicts with part of the IPv6 protocol.)

Casual web search shows that Apple users have reported IPv6 issues in all of these areas over the past couple of years.

I also experienced the 12 hour loss of ipv6, except this time I also lost ipv4 and had to reboot the modem

I'm not crome but those items have been mention before and I have verified each one including changing browser and it did not help me

starhopper, check the settings on the personal firewall on your Mac.

Go to Apple menu > System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Firewall > Firewall Options…

"Enable stealth mode" should be unchecked. Before you test again, make sure you enable the firewall in the Apple Airport router.

As I posted earlier, Stealth mode prevents a reply from ICMP ECHO_REQUESTs. For IPv6 to work properly it requires ICMPv6 ECHO_REQUESTs to receive a reply. So devices/computers that have a stealth mode option, it should be disable if you want IPv6 to work properly.

Gino, Since replacing the mid-2011 Apple router/TC with the Netgear R6400, we've had no downtime, outages, or error messages on any devices (three macs, two iphone, ipad, sonos, apple TV, Roku, two NAS, printer, etc.), except the Apple TV (gen 3) which required a restart. (Not unusual.) Response time to DNS queries is fast using Google's public DNS service. IPv6test.com results show: 17/20. Test-ipv6.com results show 10/10. I am in Santa Barbara Cox service area. One side observation is that having QoS has greatly improved the quality of Vonage VoIP calls, which I use primarily for work teleconferencing. I missed not having QoS on the Apple router and thought that having 35-60 down/6 up Mbps service would always provide enough bandwidth for a high quality VoIP call, but it doesn't. QoS has fixed that issue. Have not had to reboot anything since installation.

I'm still watching this thread with interest and hoping all the issues are eventually resolved, which benefits us all.

I_Dont_Want_A_Username, thanks for the update, glad everything is working out for you.

Just out of curiosity, on the IPv6test.com where you only got a 17/20, other than the Hostname test which will always fail, which other tests failed?

On the 17/20 test, besides the hostname fail, ICMPv6 is being filtered by the Netgear device, "1. Reconfigure your Firewall: Your router or firewall is filtering ICMPv6 messages sent to your computer. An IPv6 host that cannot receive ICMP messages may encounter problems like some web pages loading partially or not at all." and "2. Get a Reverse DNS Record: There is no reverse DNS record to associate your IPv6 address with a host name. Reverse DNS records are required by some Internet protocols and are usually managed at the ISP level."

My guess (just a guess) is the first issue is because the Netgear router setting for NAT Filtering is set to Secure rather than Open.

NAT Filtering

This option determines how the router deals with inbound traffic. The Secured option provides a secured firewall to protect the PCs on LAN from attacks from the Internet, but it may cause some Internet games, point-to-point applications, or multimedia applications not to work. The Open option, on the other hand, provides a much less secured firewall, while it allows almost all Internet applications to work.

I haven't run into an issue yet where I would need to try Open to see if it fixed it. I don't see any other settings in the Netgear router that specifically address ICMP.

I_Dont_Want_A_Username, ICMPv6 filtering can be caused by a setting on the Netgear router or a setting in the personal firewall on the computer.

I post earlier how to disable "Stealth mode" on the Mac Firewall so you might want to check that setting and make sure it is turned off (unchecked.) If the setting on the Mac is unchecked the it is probably on the Netgear router.

The NAT filtering setting (which should only affect IPv4) on the Netgear router shouldn't cause ICMPv6 failure but you can try setting it to "Open" to make sure. Of course, I highly recommend having an active firewall so, reset it to "Secured" after the test. Again, if the Mac is set correctly, there is probably a setting on the router that enables "Stealth mode" although they may call it something different.

I found this in the Netgear community forums, it may help.

https://community.netgear.com/t5/General-WiFi-Routers/How-to-enable-ping-on-WAN- and-where-is-the-firewall/td-p/391235