Intermittent connection issues loading/changing site- secure connection failed/site can't be reached

[EDIflyer]

Is anyone else occasionally getting a 'connection down' error from Chrome (or 'Secure Connection Failed' from Firefox) when changing page - if I hit refresh it works fine. At first I wondered if it was the site I was using but have noticed it on multiple different major websites over the past couple of months and not noticed it from other locations where I don't use Three Broadband so does seem to be related to the router/connection (this is via wired Ethernet too, so not a WiFi problem).  I've tried changing DNS server in case that helps but no difference.

It mainly seems to happen when trying to first load a site or (annoyingly) at checkout when a different site is being loaded as part of the checkout process.  It certainly doesn't happen everytime but does happen with reasonable frequency.  I've also noticed I often get it when trying to pull/push from/to Github too and have to do so a number of times for it to work (browsing the Github website works fine).

I'm using a NR5103E with Firmware Version V1.00(ACBJ.0)b14 - I tried rebooting it but to no effect.

[AkiTaiyo]

These are all the direct URLs mentioned as failing on this thread so far.. This doesn't include the non-url metions such as banking apps, xbox sign in, smart TV apps etc..

www.jdoqocy.com
www.topcashback.co.uk
retail.santander.co.uk
github.com
raw.githubusercontent.com
ghcr.io
portal-ww.ecouser.net
www.skyscanner.net
malkoffdevices.com
www.netomnia.com
diy.com
royalmail.com
duckduckgo.com
inews.co.uk
news.sky.com
visualstudio.microsoft.com
new.three.co.uk

[bytespider]

Since I have access to a large number of media and news outlet URLs I thought I would run the top 100 with @wgen's script.

news.yahoo.com 6/20
style.yahoo.com 4/20
road.cc 11/20
respectyou.me 12/20
thesethreerooms.com 1/20
www.liverpoolecho.co.uk  1/20
metro.co.uk 1/20
www.gazettelive.co.uk  1/20

Granted these could just be adding noise to the issue.

[Midnight54]

duckduckgo search engine is also a regular site that will fail and need a few reloads to get to work for a period of time, although once working, works for a period of time until go back and revisit it sometime later when fails again (PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR in Firefox).  The debrid service is the most consistent thing that basically fails/download cycles fully as per previous message. Banking has been an issue too intermittently, since this past week or so......damn you Three, roll back whatever the hell you've been changing, it was overall a great service for 18+ months here and now its gone from 5* to 1*

[fashric]

I'm even getting the error trying to connect to this page.....

[MP]

A ridiculous workaround I found is to refresh a problematic website in another tab on a regular basis (so if I was going to submit a form for a website) I would setup a 10 second refresh of the website in question beforehand. And there are no issues. This cannot continue and will need a proper solution of course.

[bytespider]

🤣 that's so stupid, seriously Three?! though given sometimes it takes many attempts to get Xbox to log in, I imagine even this work around has it's millage.

[Midnight54]

Disgusted that this has been left to go on all these months.  For me its only begun in the last several days and I've been pulling my hair out with it thinking was it my pc at fault and so on, and spent many hours and money wiping my pc to resolve etc, including being unable to work.

Obviously with receiving frequent page cannot be displayed type messages having to refresh plus downloads failing. Xbox services pretty much do not work at all.

This has caused me allsorts of problems trying to purchase goods too where pages fail during making payments and then duplicate transactions!

For me, the downloads issue can be easily replicated by using a premium debrid service, however this would be harder for Three to test without signing up to that service.  If I download a file in Firefox, the file begins to download no problem.  Once the file hits 99% and finishes it pretty much always says download failed. If I then press retry 1-5 times it eventually says complete. In Chrome and Edge however, when try to download the files, it gets to the end of the download then restarts from the beginning.....over and over and over again.  On a mobile phone the files say successfully downloaded but are fully corrupted.  The PC is not at fault, in the end I took it to nextdoor and no issues at all to rule out something on my PC

After reading "some" of the latter pages of this thread I see that VPN being engaged seems to not cause the problem, which reflects what I've tried.  I also noticed that the logging of downloads on the Debrid service from a few days ago started reporting ipv6 addresses being used. Maybe coincidence but I doubt it.  I then manually changed APNs to some of the different ones and specifying IPv4 only, but same problem occurs (the debrid service does report ipv4 address).  ZTE MC801A router on fw B15, line of sight to house with good speeds between 500-900mbps typically, and worked fine for about 18months (with exception of early constant rebooting firmware) however badly gimped from this 

[r1lew999]

Just to add my name to the list of people encountering this exact issue. Been happening since I started contract with three in February with a Zyxel NR5103Ev2 router but lately its got worse.

Didnt know how best to put the issue to Three so thank you all for your work on this issue.

I will be watching this thread eagerly for a solution but frustration is building and I may be cancelling me contract and changing provider if I want to keep my job and be able to work remotely.

[EDIflyer]

Further issue I'm encountering more over the last few weeks - reception here isn't great on my mobile so I tend to use WiFi calling. It worked really well but now I'm often needing to activate the VPN on my phone to deal with these secure connection issues (which often block banking apps in particular from working if using Three BB direct). However the VPN seems to muck-up WiFi calling so then I need to turn it off again - really frustrating to not be able to just rely on the main broadband connection without needing to do the VPN.  @JonathanB appreciate it's a Bank Holiday today in England but when you return can you please let us know where things have reached?

[JonathanB]

Hi @EDIflyer,

The main challenge seems to be that the issue isn't reproducing for the teams we've engaged about the issue. There doesn't seem to be new threads cropping up about this, and to date we've had around 25 unique accounts posting on this thread. 

I'm sure the issue will be more widespread than this, but it doesn't seem to be a universal one, or perhaps as it's a quite random and intermittent issue the frequency of the errors occurring is in a very wide range, so it may well be flying under the radar for a lot of customers, whereas it's obviously causing a lot of disruption for the members posting here.

I've discussed internally how we get this escalated further, and it looks like the best next steps is to gather some fresh data about the frequency of the errors from you all directly. 

I'd suggest that if as many of you as possible can share either by PM to me or in reply to the thread. Gather a list over the next day or two which websites or services are triggering these end of file errors, and date/timestamps of when these are encountered. (Don't share any personal/private info on public responses, I'll get in touch if we need help correlating any info with the actual Three accounts).

This will give fresh and current data to share to the support teams, whilst also helping to explain the severity of the impact this is having on you all. Even better, if anyone is already keeping logs of the errors let me know and I can get this info shared to the teams sooner. If anyone prefers to PM info, you can reach me here: @JonathanB 

Thanks,
Jonathan