Sky Boardband VPN Issues

[Josh148]

Hi,

We’re currently experiencing an issue where all of our end users on Sky Broadband are unable to connect to our network via VPN.

This does not appear to be isolated to our specific VPN solution — we’re seeing reports that multiple different VPN providers are affected when using Sky Broadband.

From initial testing, it looks like there may be an issue with DNS resolution or traffic handling on Sky’s network, as switching to an alternative DNS (e.g. 8.8.8.8) appears to temporarily restore connectivity.

This is having a significant impact on users working remotely.

Can anyone from Sky confirm:

• Whether there have been any recent changes to DNS filtering or traffic management
• If VPN traffic is being restricted or affected
• Whether there is a known issue or ongoing investigation

Any updates or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Chrisee]

@Josh148 not aware of a new issues affecting a significant number of VPN users. With over 5 million customers many of home who work from home the forum certainly know when things break

There has been a long running issue with a few VPN's having issues with Sky's use of MAP-T where the IP4 addresses are shared. These are largely resolved and can only affect Sky customers using the white Sky Max and Sky Gigaplus hubs. Customers can avoid the sharing issue by enabling UPnP on the white hubs (UPnP set up) which sers the sharing ratio to 1:1. In rare cases where that is insufficent Sky will disable MAP-T where there is a proven need customers can post in this forum and forum superusers can escalate the request.

The forum has not seen an unusual number of requests lately so I do not think there have been any significant changes but getting a meaningful reply here from Sky staff is unlikely but I will draw Sky's attention go your post

[Josh148]

Thanks for the response.

We’ve now had one user raise this directly with Sky support, who confirmed they were aware of an issue and applied a fix for that individual. However, this does not appear to have resolved the problem more broadly, as we are still seeing the same behaviour with other users.

All affected users are receiving the same error:

“The remote connection was not made because the name of the remote access server did not resolve.”

From our testing:

• The issue only occurs on Sky Broadband connections
• The same users can connect successfully via other ISPs or mobile hotspots
• Temporarily changing DNS (e.g. to 8.8.8.8) resolves the issue

This strongly suggests a DNS resolution issue specific to Sky’s network, rather than a problem with the VPN endpoints themselves.

We appreciate that this may not yet appear widespread on the forum, but given the consistent error and workaround, it does look like there could be a broader underlying issue.

[KevNewMedia]

Hi @Josh148 

Thanks for your post regarding this issue, and thank you for tagging me @Chrisee .

I'm going to send you a private message as we will need further information. You're looking for the notification on the envelope, at the top of the site.

[KennyMarc]

We are facing same

[KennyMarc]

We have recently observed an issue affecting some users on Sky Broadband after a Windows update/reboot.

The issue appears to occur before the VPN tunnel establishes. The VPN client fails because DNS resolution does not appear to complete successfully when the user is connected via Sky Broadband.

What we have observed so far:

• Affected users are on Sky Broadband.
• The issue started after a recent Windows update/reboot.
• The VPN client fails to connect due to unsuccessful DNS/name resolution.
• The same users can connect successfully when using a mobile hotspot.
• One user connected successfully via mobile hotspot, then switched back to Sky Wi-Fi/home broadband, and the VPN continued to work afterwards.
• This suggests the VPN platform itself is working and the issue may be related to Sky DNS, IPv6 behaviour, Sky Broadband Shield/filtering, or DNS caching after the Windows update.

Has anyone else on Sky Broadband seen similar behaviour recently with corporate VPN clients?

We are particularly interested in whether there have been any recent Sky DNS, IPv6, router, or Broadband Shield changes that could affect VPN gateway name resolution.

Any guidance from Sky or other users who have seen the same issue would be appreciated.

[Daniel0210]

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@KennyMarc wrote:

We have recently observed an issue 

What we have observed so far

We are particularly interested in

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@KennyMarc 

Who's the "we"? Your post sounds like you are a business user? 

[walneyite]

i am on sky broadband and not had acces all day to my works VPN.. still out now 

[James_H]

We have been seeing the same issue  with our remote users since mid afternoon yesterday.  VPN DNS failing to resolve for Sky Broadband users.  Using remote DNS checking tools the addresses resolve fine from multiple countries.  I did try to progress this issue with Sky yesterday, evidencing the issue but the call ended at 20:00 before there was any resolution or escalation.  From what we saw at the time Sky's DNS was intermitently timing out and immediatley failing for some addresses.  As others have said there are workarounds which involve circumventing Sky's DNS. 

[Maud3]

I am having similar issues with Sky vpn all day