IPV6 not available via SKY Hub (gigabit fiber)

[SKYQwSKYfiber]

Want to use both IPV4 AND IPV6, however when I looked up Whats My IP website via wifi and IPV6 is not detected, also my Xbox One is only detecting IPV4 via ethernet cable.

On my router admin pages these are the following IPV6 settings:

Advanced > LAN TCP/IP Setup >  Enable IPv6 on LAN side = ON , Enable IPv6 DHCP Server = ON

Security > Firewall >  Enable IPv6 firewall  = ON , Enable Inbound IPv6 IPSec firewall = ON

any ideas why I cannot get IPV6 ?  should I disable both firewalls or is that a massive security risk ? 

[Chrisee]

@SKYQwSKYfiber by default Sky fully supports IP6 on their network and I get both an IP4 and IP6 address from Whats my IP site. Certainly dont disable the firewalls as that is a serious security risk and wont helpmget you an address. However a reboot of your hub may help. A few people reported similar issues after this weeks outage so there maybe a bit of weirdness left.

[SKYQwSKYfiber]

@Chrisee rang SKY and the person on the other end didnt know either ! They have opened a ticket on a seperate issue to find out why I am only getting 450 Mps download speed instead of close to 1GB via ethernet cable, so maybe the fix for that will sort the IPV6 issue also 

[SKYQwSKYfiber]

So ... got talking to someone at SKY and they recon IPV6 is enabled on the router however it only broadcasts an IPV4 address publicly and then does some internal configuration / routing after that. The reason for this was "people found the IPV6 address too long and confusing to give over the phone", so they took it upon themselves to introduce more confusion apparently !

Having a look at the Router Status page on the 192 admin site, I can see a value for the IPv6 Link Local Address however the IPv6 Global Address is blank, which marrys up with the above description some what. 

Fact remains that both my Xbox and every other connected device (ethernet or wifi) cannot get an IPV6 address in my house, so an engineer will be out to have a look. I am hoping he can either switch this off with his on equipment or give arrabge for a firmware update file to be sent that I can upload via the Router Upgrade page on the 192 admin site, will keep you updated ....

[-rpnz-]

You're correct IPv6 Global Address should not be blank.

No user-configurable settings should prevent the Sky Hub from obtaining an IPv6 prefix, but it may be getting confused for some reason.  If you could try factory resetting your Sky Hub please?

[SKYQwSKYfiber]

@-rpnz- please confirm how to trigger the ofactory reset on my Sky Broadband Hub ? 

Also, please confirm what data / settings will be lost ?

Looking at my Attached Devices list, some do infact have IPV6 addresses (see redacted below) however when I access the IP address screen on Xbox or the A34 phone none are showing 

[-rpnz-]

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@SKYQwSKYfiber wrote:

@-rpnz- please confirm how to trigger the ofactory reset on my Sky Broadband Hub ? 

There's a reset button on the back of the hub, hold it down for 10 secs and the power LED should flash.

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@SKYQwSKYfiber wrote:

Also, please confirm what data / settings will be lost ?

All of them.  You could try backing up and restoring the settings, but that might also restore the oddness.  Backup and then see how it goes first before restoring.

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@SKYQwSKYfiber wrote:

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Presumably all these addresses start with "fd"?  If so, then they're from a range reserved for "Unique Local Addresses" (ULA), these are private addreses for use exclusively on your home LAN.  Similar to RFC1918 in IPv4, but instead of getting NATted to a public IPv4 address on the router, your devices should also have a public or "Global Unicast Address" (GUA) IPv6 address, to source packets destined to the Internet from.  These can be identified as they all (currently) begin with "2".

[SKYQwSKYfiber]

@-rpnz- thank you for your help with this issue ! 

Please see below redacted screenshot ..... Xbox starts with 'fd' while laptop and phone start with 'fe' : 

I will simpy reset the router later tonight, only major difference from factory settings was splitting 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz with different SSID names so not a huge issue to set back up again

[SKYQwSKYfiber]

@-rpnz- tried a factory reset and it did not fix the issue, IPv6 Global Address is still blank & IPV6 addresses are not being detected on Xbox or on mobile devices.

However ..... it did mess up connectivity on my current devices, although I could surf the web I could not download any files. I think this is because I split the wifi again with same SSIDs and passwords, so the devices had outdated network configs.

I fixed this by doing a soft router reset (push button once) which allowed mobile phones to download again. On the Xbox this allowed me to perform Test network speed & statisticsagain in settings, however I had 100% packet loss, which I fixed but drilling down to Alternate MAC Address and clicked Clear, which restarted the Xbox and brought packet loss to zero again.

[SKYQwSKYfiber]

So .... I have been informed by a SKY employee that they "don't support IPv6 on broadband services in the Republic of Ireland", which is a bit strange seeing as  Eir, Virgin Media and Blacknight all support it ?!!

However, the same employee promises "it will be enabled shortly, following a migration over to our new network sometime in early 2024".

Bit of a let down, I assumed IPv6 came as standard, seeing as it has been rolled out world wide quite a few years ago. I can only assume  the reason my Xbox (connected via ethernet) has gone from 5 green bars of multiplayer connectivity down to 1 red bar, despite the download speed increasing from 90mbps to 440mbps, is due to only being able to connect via IPv4 and the knock on effect that has had on Ping and Latency. 

[jamesn123]

@SKYQwSKYfiber 

Not having IPv6 has not affect on ping or latency to a game server

[SKYQwSKYfiber]

@jamesn123  we will find out when it get enabled next year, however thats the only difference in my new network setup & pretty much every article I have read online regarding how IPv6 affects gaming says pretty much the opposite 😉

[jamesn123]

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@SKYQwSKYfiber wrote:

@jamesn123  we will find out when it get enabled next year, however thats the only difference in my new network setup & pretty much every article I have read online regarding how IPv6 affects gaming says pretty much the opposite 😉

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I am not saying its impossible because it depends on a ISPs routing & how the game server is configured. However many articles get it wrong, for example testing an anycast IPv4 address against a fixed IPv6 address. I game myself & have tested IPv4 & IPv6 on my own router both result in the same latency to multiple game servers.