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Port forwarding on ZTE MC801A 5G router not working

elarry
Regular

To access the OpenVPN server on my home network from outside, I need to set up port forwarding on the ZTE MC801A 5G router provided by Three. I found the settings in the router settings under Advanced Settings - Firewall - Port forwarding. I entered the LAN IP address of my OpenVPN server, set the port range to the port used by the server, and applied the changes. However, both canyouseeme.org and yougetsignal.com reported that the port was still closed. Restarting the router and my computer didn't help.

I called Three Customer Services. They said that they didn't restrict port forwarding, and advised me to contact the device manufacturer, ZTE. I called ZTE and described what I did. They confirmed that my procedure was correct, and told me that my router was custom-made for Three, so Three could have limited the functionality...🙄 When I called Three again telling them my conversation history, another Advisor said that it could be due to the default Safe Browsing restriction (adult content filtering, of which I failed to see the relevance) on Three home broadband. However, even if they removed the Safe Browsing block, port forwarding is still not working.

This is frustrating - I used to have the same settings on my Virgin Media Superhub 3 and it worked smoothly. I saw a few posts online reporting similar problems on this router. Someone said port forwarding only worked when it was in bridge mode, but I don't have another router and don't plan to have one. Has anyone successfully set this router up for port forwarding?

22 REPLIES 22
Valpid
Regular

Guys just tried port forwarding and everything work like a charm.  The key is that you can't reach public ip and forwarded port from the network itself. You need to setup it and check it via other network e.g. your phone with mobile internet (not the same as in router) and it works. But if you will try to do it from router network it will not work!  
A screen shot for my port config:

Screenshot_2024-05-14-22-26-41-185_com.android.chrome.jpg

IMG_20240514_223332.jpg

Caz
Fledgling

Unfortunately, your screenshots is blurry at this end, but I'm glad you managed to get port forwarding working. I've been with a few other ISPs prior to Three, and have never had any  such issues before. 

spangle1980
Fledgling

I actually had to subscribe to this forum to THANK YOU ALL for the comments above.  This has been driving me mad for weeks now, and the switching from AUTO -> MANUAL just worked.  I couldn't actually believe it, that DDNS now works 🙂

THANKS SO MUCH