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Port forwarding intermittent from within network

ajorg
Community Member

I just upgraded from Google WiFi (Gen 1) and port forwarding isn't working consistently from within my network.

That maybe requires some explaining, to avoid misunderstandings:

  • I've configured port forwarding to a server on my network
  • That server has an IP reservation to avoid any problems with it having a wrong address
  • I've got dynamic DNS configured so that if my router's IP changes, DNS will still be correct (yes I know about TTLs)
  • Forwarding works from outside my network. For example if I disable WiFi on my phone, I can hit my server from my phone's browser. Everything works great. However, at the same time I cannot hit that server, using the public DNS and IP address (of the router, the WAN address) from inside my network.

Now it's completely normal for routers to work this way. Since the packet didn't arrive on the WAN interface, many routers won't apply the forwarding rules. But Google WiFi (Gen 1) was one of the good routers that forwarded no matter where you were coming from.

Why would I want that? So that I can use the same address regardless of what network I'm on. For example I could go to https://home.example.com or I could do ssh home.example.com from home or from anywhere and it works exactly the same.

So naturally my first suspicion was that Nest WiFi Pro doesn't support this, but it turns out it works sometimes!

Another bit of evidence that something is wrong: Chrome Connectivity Diagnostics claims it can't contact the the local network gateway (the main Nest WiFi Pro router) but it can contact the Internet just fine.

Anyone else seeing something similar? There's another thread about "Port forwarding crashing" and it does seem like that could be related, but that thread is locked, and claims it has an answer, and the resolution doesn't seem to be applicable.

10 REPLIES 10

LanceM
Community Member

I just setup my Nest Wifi Pro (3 units) - upgrading from the Nest Wifi - and I have the same problem, although my internal port forwarding doesn't work at all.

I remember the old Onhubs had this issue when they first came out but Google eventually fixed it with an update.

 

** Edit - I stand corrected -- the forwarding worked briefly (about 2 minutes) then stopped...

Logandros
Community Member

Seems odd, I have done 9 setups already for customers and I have not experienced any port forwarding failures externally, just internally as the original author described.

Logandros
Community Member

This seems to be resolved as of last night. Around 11pm EST all of my devices disconnected and reconnected. My ring bridge went offline, a few of my TIVO televisions powered on to report internet loss, and almost all of my Google hubs and smart speakers sync'd and/or emitted a reboot sound. It was quite startling for it to happen all at once, reminded me of Close Encounters. In any case, as of this morning the internal port forwarding no longer seems to be an issue. Coincidence with regards to what happened last night, I think not. If all it took was for Google to wake me up, I'm fine with that. I just hope that doesn't happen every time they fix something or they schedule taking EST people into consideration.

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey Logandros,

 

Thanks for posting what the resolution ended up being for you. Hopefully the others here see this and can see a similar situation play out. The restart was most likely the network installing an update that hadn't been applied yet, as it will automatically restart to complete that process. Let me know if you see any changes in your situation from here.

 

Thanks,
Jeff

ajorg
Community Member

This is not resolved for me. I'm on 1.63.318999.

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey ajorg,

 

It's been a while since we visited this. We've had some hardware updates and app updates in that time. I wanted to check in and see if you were still having the some problem or if things cleared up for you with the updates. If there's more you need, just let me know.

 

Thanks,
Jeff

ajorg
Community Member

Not resolved. Also not intermittent though, it just never works, and I wonder if in fact it ever did.

I believe the issue is understood and being tracked somewhere.

Logandros
Community Member

Exact same results. Anything I want to connect to internally using DDNS fails. I have to switch over to cellular in order for the links to work or I would have to create a separate set of links for all my servers for internal and external which would be a real pain. I hope this gets addressed and they add this functionality. Furthermore I can add this worked on Google WiFi as well as Nest Wifi, so this is a new bug / loss of ability just with the Pro.

orzzer101
Community Member

I got the exact same problem as well with the nest wifi pro that I received today (upgraded from google wifi gen 1).  I am still looking for a solution.

orzzer101
Community Member

@ajorg It is not resolved yet.  The problem is only with an ethernet connection,  it works fine with wifi connection.