Any wifi/broadband/4G technical bods on here?

[Mottie]

I have a problem with remote access to my cctv and ring doorbell on 4G.

I have tried it on three different phones - iPhone SE, iPhone 8 and a Samsung S9. It’s always worked fine on those phones in the past. Everything else data wise works on 4G on all phones - WhatsApp, iPlayer, prime video, Netflix, Sky Go, Kodi player, banking apps etc but I cannot access my home or my work cctv or my home ring doorbell on data when away from home - it has always been fine and I’ve only noticed it today. I can access the home and work cctv's and my ring doorbell on WiFi though. Haven’t tried accessing them on the work WiFi yet as I’ve not been at work since March. Only common denominator is that both my home and my work broadband packages are provided by Vodafone so by a process of elimination I think it must be the Vodafone broadband.

Is it likely to just be a network glitch that will sort itself out or do you think I’d need to spend hours trying to get through to a Vodafone 'technical advisor' to sort both broadband connections out? Not that urgent at the moment but I’d like to get it back to how it was.

 

[OwainDIYer]

Can you access your CCTV and Ring from any other external network (ie not 4G)? It's most likely to be a router/firewall/port forwarding problem not opening the relevant ports or not updating its IP address for external access.

 

[Mottie]

Can you access your CCTV and Ring from any other external network (ie not 4G)? It's most likely to be a router/firewall/port forwarding problem not opening the relevant ports or not updating its IP address for external access.

Thanks. I’ll have to try it from my mums WiFi (from outside her house) in the next few days and let you know. Strange that it’s both home and work and they are both on Vodafone broadband.

 

[SpecialK]

What make is your home and work CCTV? Does it have some form of cloud link and an app so you can access it remotely? Or does it just use a local IP address to access it?

 

[Mottie]

They are both Swann cctv's. If it was just them, I suppose they could be suspect but I have the same problem with my Ring doorbell. All other 4G video apps work fine on all phones so I think that rules out the Three network. Vodafone broadband seems to be the common denominator.

 

[Mottie]

Hmm. This has thrown something else up. Looking through my company bank statements, due to a massive cock up with a failed switchover when I switched to Vodafone last June, I’ve only ever had a £42 credit from them and I have never been charged a penny since then! I think I’ll leave the work broadband out of the equation for the moment!

 

[oldbutnotdead]

I'd be looking at firewall settings on your broadband modem/router- with all the recent hoohah about botnets your modem supplier may have pushed an update which now defaults to 'close all ports except those listed' instead of the previous 'open all ports except those listed'. Access works on WiFi- it would, you're inside the firewall. You'll need port numbers for your CCTV and Ring thing

 

[Mottie]

Can you access your CCTV and Ring from any other external network (ie not 4G)?

Yes, I can access it from another WiFi network. So, is that likely to be my home broadband network? I’m sort of ruling out the 4G network as I can’t get my cctv or ring doorbell on three different phones and two different networks (O2 and Three) and I could do before.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Is that 'other' Wifi network your mothers? Ie not at the same address as the cameras etc?

If yes, might be worth a look at the data settings on your phone (video is heavy on data, have you got the os or app set to economy mode). And the phone firewall settings if they have them?

 

[Mottie]

Is that 'other' Wifi network your mothers? Ie not at the same address as the cameras etc?

If yes, might be worth a look at the data settings on your phone (video is heavy on data, have you got the os or app set to economy mode). And the phone firewall settings if they have them?

Hi, yes, it was on a different network. I haven’t got 'data saver' on on my Samsung S9. I get the same problem though when trying to access it on an iPhone SE on O2 and an iPhone 8 on Three. All three worked fine previously.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

This is getting odd. Unless you live next door to your mother & you're getting some weird subnet stuff going on...is she with the same broadband provider as you?
Packets are leaving your house successfully so probably not your home setup at fault.
Are you using a specific app or is it just a web browser?
Have you tried (this might sound odd but costs nowt and worth a go) setting one phone up as a hotspot on 4g then connecting to it via wifi with another phone/tablet?
Oh yes, someone else asked this- is the app/viewer looking at your home ip address or is it looking at a cloud based server? And what do the error messages look like?

 

[Mottie]

This is getting odd. Unless you live next door to your mother & you're getting some weird subnet stuff going on...is she with the same broadband provider as you?
Packets are leaving your house successfully so probably not your home setup at fault.
Are you using a specific app or is it just a web browser?
Have you tried (this might sound odd but costs nowt and worth a go) setting one phone up as a hotspot on 4g then connecting to it via wifi with another phone/tablet?
Oh yes, someone else asked this- is the app/viewer looking at your home ip address or is it looking at a cloud based server? And what do the error messages look like?

Right, I’m viewing it through the SwannView Link app. All recordings are sorted on a hard drive in the recorder so I’m assuming it’s looking at my home ip address. I think! My mums WiFi is Plusnet and she lives a few miles from me - it works on there. I have a 'Three' MiFi unit and.........logging on to that, it works! Also works when I set up a hotspot from an iPhone on O2 so it seems to only let me view it over WiFi. I can also view it on my iPad over 3G from the Mifi unit.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Excellent. Have a good delve through the apps, somewhere there is a switch for LAN/WAN or something like.
Or maybe in the phone app permissions settings? Onn Android, go into settings, apps & notifications, advanced- see if Ring & Swann have unlimited data access. Ipad- no clue but there'll be a similar section of permissions somewhere

 

[Mottie]

I’d forgotten all about this. Just an update - it’s all working now. Did nothing whatsoever, it just started working a month or so ago.