New ISP, Phone apps don't work over wifi

[Spaded21]

Hello, new to the forums and I have a pretty weird issue going on. I work in IT for a managed service provider, but I'm no expert.

I live in a small town so ISPs are very limited. I switched this week from AT&T DSL (not U-Verse, plain old 3Mbps DSL) to Kraus, a local cable provider. I believe Cogent may be the underlying carrier. I never had any problems with AT&T other than the speed. I have an Asus RT-N56U with the latest official firmware (3.0.0.4.374_979) and it has been problem free with the AT&T DSL.

Since getting Kraus, a lot of apps on my phone don't work over my wifi. Facebook, Amazon, Pandora, Chase Bank are the ones I have had problems with so far. I can use them with the browser on my phone just fine, and everything works on my laptop. I didn't change anything in my router other than WAN settings (from PPPoE to DHCP) and it's happening on my wife's phone as well. I have a Droid DNA and she has a GS3. Everything works fine on other wifi networks as well as the mobile network.

I swapped out the N56U with an old Linksys WRT54GL with DD-WRT firmware on it (DD-WRT v24-sp2 (07/22/09) mini) and I got the exact same symptoms.

I ran a packet sniffing app called Shark (modeled after WireShark) on my phone and found a couple IPs from the Facebook app. 69.171.235.48 and 31.13.74.49. I can ping these from my laptop and my phone successfully.

I tried to assign my phone a static IP address and have tried different DNS servers, such as Google and OpenDNS but there was no change.

I contacted the ISP yesterday, the same person who installed the service is tech support. He said it was the router, but after trying the Linksys I don't believe it is, unless there is some setting that the new ISP requires. If there is they don't know about it. I won't talk to him again until Monday, and I am going to ask him to escalate the issue, but I don't have a lot of faith in this ISP.

This is really strange since it's multiple, unrelated app, and the web versions all work fine. I also imagine some other customers would have complained about this issue as well. I'm really hoping this community can give me some guidance, as I don't know much on the carrier side of networking. If I can't get this working I'll have to go back to AT&T DSL.

 

[canuckle]

Are you able to surf the web on the devices that are giving you headaches?

I always have my ISP put the modem in bridge mode so I'm not getting double NAT problems.

Is your IP address from the ISP static or dynamic?

My sister lives in an area similar to you, and her microwave based service provider requires the MAC address of the router to be registered on their network.

Just throwing some thoughts out there.

 

[Spaded21]

Are you able to surf the web on the devices that are giving you headaches?

I always have my ISP put the modem in bridge mode so I'm not getting double NAT problems.

Is your IP address from the ISP static or dynamic?

My sister lives in an area similar to you, and her microwave based service provider requires the MAC address of the router to be registered on their network.

Just throwing some thoughts out there.

Yes I can surf the web on the phones. Haven't found any websites that don't work. I can go to the Facebook and Amazon websites even, however the apps don't work.

It's an Arris modem, no routing functionality. Also, my Motorola Surfboard modem would not work on their network.

It's a dynamic IP from the ISP.

ISP needed MAC from modem, didn't ask for MAC from router.

 

[remixedcat]

have the phones been rebooted since then? Also sometimes switching airplane mode on and off helps as well.

 

[canuckle]

I was just re-reading your OP. We're all apple devices, so it's tough for me to speculate on your mobile apps. If I was having those issues, and the web connectivity is not an issue, I'd be ensuring the apps were closed, all previous wireless profiles were deleted,and reboot the mobile devices. I would then connect with a fresh wireless profile and see if there was a difference.

It's strange that your connectivity is fine, but individual apps are are issue.

I wish I could be of more help, sorry

 

[coxhaus]

I can tell you I switched from AT&T DSL to Time Warner Cable with great success. I also have an Arris modem\router in bridge mode. What is your actual IP address on the WAN port of your router? My Arris is in bridge mode and I am not running double NAT.

My wife has an iPhone 4S and 2 iPads. The first generation and the last(most recent). The APPs run fine. I don’t have any non Apple phones. Friends have been over to my house and have run APPs on their non Apple phones. We have looked at the prices on Amazon for different things as we were listening to music. I have not heard any complaints.

 

[Spaded21]

I appreciate everyone offering advice, but I have tried all the basics. I need some pros here.

 

[coxhaus]

I don’t care for your comment as I have been working with routers for 20 years. I also have been Cisco certified in my younger years before I retired so I am out of here. Good luck on your own.

 

[Spaded21]

I don’t care for your comment as I have been working with routers for 20 years. I also have been Cisco certified in my younger years before I retired so I am out of here. Good luck on your own.

I was not being insulting towards anyone. With the level of detail in my OP I assumed it was obvious I covered all the basics.

I also specified in my second post I have an Arris modem that does not have routing functionality.

 

[canuckle]

I don’t care for your comment as I have been working with routers for 20 years. I also have been Cisco certified in my younger years before I retired so I am out of here. Good luck on your own.

Calm down for crying out loud, OP is just being honest and needs more than we can provide.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Off my hunch. Download namebench and run it, see what it says it may give a clue.

 

[RogerSC]

Just an off-the-wall suggestion. I'm with a different ISP, but the one that I'm with has great user community forum, where you can even reach the tech experts at the ISP for various areas of expertise.

Have you tried looking for community forums for your ISP? If this is a common problem, you'll most likely see other people asking about it there. I have an android phone myself, but have never seen or heard of this particular problem.

I guess what I'd try first is a factory default reset of one of my phones, and then reconfigure it by hand (don't use current backups). But that's just me, I want to be debugging starting from a known baseline, and it will also give your phone's networking software a chance to set up with your new ISP connected.

Another place to try for help is "xda-developers" forums. They have lots of people there that know a lot about Android phones. And the posters there are very helpful.

Hope that you get this one taken care of, sounds like it's really frustrating.

 

[Spaded21]

Just an off-the-wall suggestion. I'm with a different ISP, but the one that I'm with has great user community forum, where you can even reach the tech experts at the ISP for various areas of expertise.

Have you tried looking for community forums for your ISP? If this is a common problem, you'll most likely see other people asking about it there. I have an android phone myself, but have never seen or heard of this particular problem.

I guess what I'd try first is a factory default reset of one of my phones, and then reconfigure it by hand (don't use current backups). But that's just me, I want to be debugging starting from a known baseline, and it will also give your phone's networking software a chance to set up with your new ISP connected.

Another place to try for help is "xda-developers" forums. They have lots of people there that know a lot about Android phones. And the posters there are very helpful.

Hope that you get this one taken care of, sounds like it's really frustrating.

Thanks for the suggestions, the ISP is very small, there are no forums on their site.

I don't believe the problem is with the phones. It is happening to both mine and my wifes phone, and it is only with the new ISP. I hooked up the AT&T DSL again and the apps on the phone started working. It has to be ISP related. However I have posted this at XDA looking for any help.

 

[stevech]

I appreciate everyone offering advice, but I have tried all the basics. I need some pros here.

Call ISP and ask if they block certain porters. Or pass only port 80.

 

[jlake]

http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.berkeley.icsi.netalyzr.android

 

[Nerre]

When I switched from ADSL to fiber we first had a lot of problems beacuse every site thought our IP was from Portugal (we live in Sweden).

It might be that the services that don't work are in some way limited to certain geographical areas, and the IP you have now is incorrectly identified as being located in a totally different place in the world.