Connection Issues to WhatsApp, Instagram and FRacebook on our House WiFi

[Tosh+McCaber]

We have Sky broadband.  Excellent service until a couple of days ago.  Unfortunately, over the past couple of days in our house, my family of four have experienced severe problems in accessing WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook on all our mobile phones.

Whilst we have nominally a very good wifi connection throughout the house (it reads 60mb/s), it takes forever to open (each time) WhatsApp- the app reads "connecting", sometimes connecting on after a couple of minutes.  Same procedure again when I switch out of the app, and then go to switch it on again- it eventually comes on after a minute or two.

Unfortunately, as well, Instagram and Facebook won't open at all on the house internal wifi.  This happens  on all of  the phones in our house.  We get a reading on Instagram- "Couldn't refresh feed" Also, a message on Facebook "Safari couldn't open the page because the server stopped working."

When I switch off wifi on the phone, all starts working again on 4G!  As well, logging in to a neighbour's Wifi, the apps work perfectly as well.

My nephew, who runs a computer business in another town, suggests that it may be a problem with DNS on a Sky server?

Whatever the cause, I regret to say that the Sky people to whom I've spoken were so far unknowledgeable regarding  this issue.

Can anyone give us pointers as to what may be wrong?  Thanks for any ponters!

[Tosh+McCaber]

I should also mention that I pick up WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook with no problems on my PC

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Tosh+McCaber 

Go to your my sky app, then product settings and click on broadband shield.  Here you can disable shield altogether or click on social media. 

[Tosh+McCaber]

 Thanks for that, Cookie.  Shield is alraedy disabled!

[Tosh+McCaber]

Hi Cookie,

Many thanks for your input.  I finally got to the bottom of the problem.  On speaking with a (very patient) Sky technician last night (a prompt response to my written query to Sky), we went through, firstly all the options for the fault, (which I had already ticked off, one by one).

He then suggested turning off Sky Broadband Shield.  I replied that I had already done that.  The technician told me that he could it was still working??  So we switched it off, and the Apps started working again!

 I then looked more closely at the Sky Broadband Shield web page, which gives options for age viewing.  I realised that the reason that I thought it was switched off is that the switched off option is shown as a circle with a cross in the middle, which I mistook as that being my option- which it wasn't , if I'd taken more time, and looked more closely!

Everything working fine- but still leaves the question -why did the Apps stop running in the first place.  The technician suggested it's because they are all run and owned by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta organisation- they must have altered their safety settings?

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Elle2610]

You have just saved my sanity!  I have tried everything, spent hours googling, deleting apps, updating....

One simple click and you've solved all my issues - thank you!

[Avh12]

I'm having this issue.   Can't get through to anyone to solve either.  I've checked the shield settings and even disabled shield as social media isn't an option on the she categories.  

[SD0099]

I realised that having the Broadband Shield set to PG does make Whatsapp and other sites very slow or unusable. But I want the setting set to PG  to prevent the children from opening up any unsuitable sites. Can SKy do anything to prevent sites/apps being slow or unusable when the shield is set to PG - it seems like an oversight.