Unable to Connect to Wikipedia via Plusnet Broadband

[#1]

For the past couple of days we, (my son and I), have been unable to connect to Wikipedia reliably. I can occasionally  to get to the  English homepage, but no further.We both run Firefox v121.0 on Linux Mint. Disabling the Malwarebytes add-on had no effect.

Chromium browser gives the same results.

My Android phone on Firefox and DuckDuckGo browsers was the same - until I disabled WiFi and tried via the 4G connection.

Wikipedia seems to be fine via 4G - so is there an issue between Plusnet and Wikipedia?

The Firefox error is: "The connection has timed out".

Is anyone else experiencing this problem, or can offer any advice to resolve please?

[#2]

No problem, Edge running on Win 10.

[#3]

@Champnet 

Thanks for the quick reply.

To confirm. did you try a few "sub pages" as well as the Wikipedia homepage?

[#4]

No problems, just had a quick trip around the World..............

[#5]

Yes, I’m seeing it as well. The browser can just sit there spinning trying to load the page for anywhere up to a couple of minutes, and then it will eventually it either work or time out.

If I tether to my O2 phone I don’t see the problem.

Sometimes it works fine for a while, and got a bit better last night but today it’s slow again.

Any ideas PlusNet crew?

[#6]

@bartstope 

Thanks for the reply.

Which browser(s) and OS please?

My 4G mobile is via EE.

[#7]

Safari, on MacOS, iPhone and iPad - all latest version. Haven’t tried Edge on Windows. Will try it later, interesting thought. I do have the iCloud tracking prevention turned off.

[#8]

Seems to be a few reported errors today  :

https://downdetector.co.uk/status/wikipedia/ 

[#9]

@Champnet 

Thanks for that. Noting that one report mentioned Plusnet's DNS servers, so tried to change on our PN Hub2 - alas unable to. I'm sure that I've changed DNS settings before - possibly on our ols BT Smarthub2?

Has it ever been possible to change DNS servers on the PN Hub2, or has that useful feature been removed?

[#10]

Same here - multiple browsers, multiple operating systems.

Sometimes it's there. sometimes it's not

But it seems to be worse from within the PN network on my phone compared to using O2

[#11]

I don’t think it’s dns related, I do my own recursive dns resolution using Unbound and I still see the problem - it feels like a weird routing issue with the timeouts as all the host names are resolved - inspect element development tools seems to show the delay is the response getting back from Wikipedia

[#12]

 Traceroute shows a 20-30% packet loss at 185.15.59.159,   et-0-0-50.asw1-bw27-esams.wikimedia.org

[#13]

I run dnsmasq which is picking up from non PN DNS servers and it's problematical so I don't think it's a PN DNS issue.

[#14]

I've just clicked through around 50 Wikipedia pages, and don't see any delays, timeouts, etc

If anything Wikipedia is faster than I've ever seen it, despite being plastered with "fundraising" pop-ups.

Running IPv6, Firefox 113, Ubuntu 18.04, Desktop, 80/20 SoGEA on non-Plusnet ISP, multiple non-Plusnet DNS

$ mtr -r -w -c 100 wikipedia.org
                                                Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1.|-- My_Home_Network                          0.0%   100    0.2   0.2   0.2   0.4   0.0
  2.|-- My_ISPs_Gateway                          0.0%   100    6.7   6.9   6.5   7.2   0.2
  3.|-- 2001:7f8:4::50e8:1                       0.0%   100    6.9   6.9   6.6   7.5   0.2
  4.|-- linx-1.init7.net                         0.0%   100    8.1  10.8   7.5  28.9   6.1
  5.|-- 2a00:5641:145::2                         0.0%   100   12.8  14.4  12.3  33.0   4.5
  6.|-- 2a00:5641:144::2                         0.0%   100   12.9  14.8  12.1  39.5   5.3
  7.|-- gw-wikimedia.init7.net                   0.0%   100   12.0  12.6  11.6  34.4   3.1
  8.|-- et-0-0-50.asw1-bw27-esams.wikimedia.org  0.0%   100   13.3  13.7  13.0  49.6   3.6
  9.|-- text-lb.esams.wikimedia.org              0.0%   100   12.7  12.9  12.7  13.5   0.2

[#15]

Not sure why my previous reply disappeared !  😠

From non-Plusnet SoGEA connection, having no problems browsing Wikipedia

IPv6 traceroute -

$ mtr -r -w -c 100 wikipedia.org
                                                Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1.|-- My_Home_Network                          0.0%   100    0.2   0.2   0.2   0.4   0.0
  2.|-- *                                        0.0%   100    6.7   6.9   6.5   7.2   0.2
  3.|-- 2001:7f8:4::50e8:1                       0.0%   100    6.9   6.9   6.6   7.5   0.2
  4.|-- linx-1.init7.net                         0.0%   100    8.1  10.8   7.5  28.9   6.1
  5.|-- 2a00:5641:145::2                         0.0%   100   12.8  14.4  12.3  33.0   4.5
  6.|-- 2a00:5641:144::2                         0.0%   100   12.9  14.8  12.1  39.5   5.3
  7.|-- gw-wikimedia.init7.net                   0.0%   100   12.0  12.6  11.6  34.4   3.1
  8.|-- et-0-0-50.asw1-bw27-esams.wikimedia.org  0.0%   100   13.3  13.7  13.0  49.6   3.6
  9.|-- text-lb.esams.wikimedia.org              0.0%   100   12.7  12.9  12.7  13.5   0.2

IPv4 traceroute -

$ mtr -r -w -4 -c 100 wikipedia.org
                                                Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1.|-- My_Home_Network                          0.0%   100    0.2   0.2   0.1   0.3   0.0
  2.|-- *                                        0.0%   100    7.1   6.9   6.4   7.4   0.2
  3.|-- *                                        0.0%   100    7.1   6.9   6.6   7.5   0.2
  4.|-- linx-1.init7.net                         0.0%   100    7.7   9.6   7.4  36.7   5.3
  5.|-- r2ams2.core.init7.net                    0.0%   100   12.3  13.9  12.1  32.5   4.3
  6.|-- r1ams2.core.init7.net                    0.0%   100   12.6  14.3  12.3  85.7   8.2
  7.|-- gw-wikimedia.init7.net                   0.0%   100   11.9  13.1  11.6  32.2   3.9
  8.|-- et-0-0-50.asw1-bw27-esams.wikimedia.org  0.0%   100   19.8  18.2  12.0  56.6   7.7
  9.|-- text-lb.esams.wikimedia.org              0.0%   100   11.8  11.9  11.6  12.5   0.2