Inside Insight → All Champaign Urbana USERS with port problems

We really need to call and get on Insight about the problems with ports not working. I don't think they are being blocked. I'm referring to ports 6000-7000. I commonly use bit torrent and other programs. These were working fine until a couple of hours ago.

I know this is not a isolated problems as this has been post about previously. But in order for Insight to get on the ball - we need to complain.

The tech i spoke to deny blocking any ports - so my assumption is that they need to fix/change SOMETHING. But this WONT happen until we get our butts in gear and complain.

Thanks

call the local office 384-2500 and lodge a complaint detailing the issues with the ports not working. For me the ranges have been from 6000-7000.

Insight has a program or something called SANDSTORM, SANDVINE, SAND SOMETHING running that limits p2p traffic. I have heard from the grapevine that this has been added with in the last 2 or 3 weeks. Bit torrents can download, but cannot seed torrents or upload them from time to time. And if it does upload or seed the upload is slow as snot.

I think everyone needs to complain. There are many legitimate bit torrents out there for shareware, freeware, and so on.

oh, and one more thing, this isn't just in Illinois, I have spoken with friends with insightbb in Lexington, Ky, Louisville, ky, noblesville, In, peoria, IL. It is all over!

So they give us the faster speeds, but then limit p2p traffic.

I guess it's insights way of saying you can't have your cake and eat it too.

I wish it was just upload that was restricted but its not. I can't even download anymore.

Here is the local insight email address.

ChampaignFeedback@insight-com.com

Here's the one that supposedly is the "main" one to send to.

LouisvilleSupport@insight-com.com

I'm emailing both using my insight email account.

Cmon people lets get on this.

I also talked to some poeple through the insightbb help chat.

»help.insightbb.com/conta ··· ult.aspx

Click on chat live.

Cmon people I did my share...lets gooooooooooooooo!!!

I noticed that winmx will only allow 1 out of 50 to upload anymore. i am connected 7 x 24 I can pull down just fine but not upload. very unhappy as i download old tv shows.

I did some packet sniffing and got some of the IP addresses used in my area of Champaign. I then ssh into a box using sbcglobal.net as a backbone. I then ran the below scan.

nmap -sV -sV -p 6881-6889 -P0 -T4 -n -vv -oN torrent.txt 12.203.112-117.*

A few results with part of the IP removed.

Interesting ports on 12.203.115.***:
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
6881/tcp open unknown
6882/tcp open unknown
6883/tcp filtered unknown
6884/tcp filtered unknown
6885/tcp filtered unknown
6886/tcp filtered unknown
6887/tcp filtered unknown
6888/tcp filtered unknown
6889/tcp filtered unknown

Interesting ports on 12.203.116.***:
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
6881/tcp open unknown
6882/tcp open unknown
6883/tcp filtered unknown
6884/tcp filtered unknown
6885/tcp filtered unknown
6886/tcp filtered unknown
6887/tcp filtered unknown
6888/tcp filtered unknown
6889/tcp filtered unknown

As you can see these ports are not being blocked as I am able to get them from off Insights network. To test yourself download a program called Netcat. Use the listening mode to listen on any port you set. Then attempt to access it remotely or use one of the free remote scanning websites. You can easily determine what ports are and are not being blocked by any ISP.

Then it is simply obvious that this p2p limiting stuff isn't active everywhere. Only in certain areas, and no I have noticed that it doesn't close ports, however it does make bit torrent almost useless. Insight's gonna lose a lot of customers over this crap. Here's some info on Sandvine:

»www.linuxelectrons.com/a ··· 06290110

Yes I have talked to insight and they say they havent blocked any ports. HOWEVER, the ports in the range of 6000-7000 are unable to be used. This is no just happening to me. There are 2-3 other threads detailing the exact same problem.

Its definately something on THEIR end. I was using the ports fine one minute and then other minute they stopped. I made no changes to the BT program I was using and can only assume that there is some problem occurring that they do not have knowledge about. They might not be blokcing ports - but SOMETHING is going on.

But unless we bring it to their attention, it will never get fixed.

From my experience...it is not that ports are totally blocked..but insight appears to be filtering outgoing packets/connections so that you cannot seed (when using BT) or perform certain uploading operations. They are obviously concerned about the limited up bandwidth provided per node...and do not want people essentially setting up a server that COULD drain the up bw at the node and degrade speeds for other users.

The fact of that matter is that most users are not performing this kind of rigorous uploading...and another group of the people that are aren't really aware that the problems they may be witnessing are due to insight...not to something they may be doing wrong...and so this group gives up on p2p and insight wins again.

My point is that the very small amount of us that know and understand what is going on are the same people that Insight could care less about in terms of keeping us as customers. With that said, I don't see them changing anything, but that's just my opinion.

with all due respect Snuffleupagus, port scanning and packet sniffing is in direct violation of you AUP. And i doubdt insight really has much sympathy for people using p2p stuff because the bulk of the traffic on those networks is pirated music/software ect. I understand there are other uses, and i'm not sure what your intentions are, but look at it from their point. PS I really doubt insight is blocking ports.

All the more we need to raise hell about it NOW. If you look at my previous posts it indicates email addresses you can shoot an email off to. It will take less than 5 minutes.

Being lazy or resigned about our fate won't get anything done. Enough people get upset - they will do something about it.

Cmon people lets do something!

have you gone on to their 'live chat' for problem solving?
I did and got the answer that it must be my software..
someone with more knowledge of portsa and blocking could
possibly get a better answer...the guy's only fix was to reset
my router...but even without the router I can't connect...

i would like to know, how exactly is insight blocking ports? in each frame sent by your nic, any data concerning what port is being used is something that would be included in the application or (OSI 7) layer. when you send data over a docsis network, the modem encodes the data with QAM or QPSK, which is received my the CMTS (usualy a cisco UBR) from there from there you 802.3 headers/trailers are dealt with accourdingly and usualy striped and replaced with whatever protocol they are using in their network (if this is your last hop before the internet, it will be using some wan protocol) the only thing insights routers are concerned with are reading the 802.3 header and trailer, checking for errors using the FCS, and striping those headers and adding their own. you do have a single byte inside of an ethernet frame called the DSAP that identifies what type of protocol is inside the data field, but thats it.

I can connect perfectly fine with azareus (bittorrent) on the default port 6881(?). I can start new downloads and seeding works fine too. I'm on the westside of campustown.

Kello, I live in Clinton, Il and use Mediacom and we are having the same problem! It started Friday and I find it interesting that Insight and Mediacom are both having the same problem. It may be an issue elsewhere before them. I plan to check other ISP threads and see if other ISP's are having the same problem. Thought you should know you are not alone and it "may" not be your ISP.

I'm learning Direct Connect now...
Kazaalite++ still does not connect..

I'd been having the same p2p issue as everyone else. I did a live chat with tech support today and they said they didn't packet shape and they only block 4 ports.

I'm however happy to say that tonight I'm up and going again.
What did I do? first I have XP sp2 and I read that there are some issues with the number of outgoing tcp connections allowed. I tweaked the settings as this site suggested:
»www.winguides.com/regist ··· php/893/
If you're nervous about tweaking your registry
»p2p.weblogsinc.com/entry ··· 1391114/ will get you to some exes that can do it for you (I don't trust people)

I changed my outgoing ports on abc bittorrent and abc's
web interface port value.

Honestly though I don't think either of these did it.

Finally I saw another thread regarding this issue and noticed that someone said after unplugging their modem everything was back to good again. While the modem reset seems like a standard step 1, I think with all the other potential variables, resetting my router, trying another computer, I hadn't actually cleared both the router and modem at the same time. The guy also mentioned that he did a MAC clone on the router so he would have to "re-register" the machine.

So
1. I told my router to clone my computers IP
2. re-registered my machine, but before resetting the router I
3. I unplugged my router
4. Unplugged my modem
5. went to get some juice from the kitchen
6. plugged the modem back in
7. plugged the router back in

And BAM! Started sucking down files . 245mb in no time flat.

If you have XP sp2 change the number of out going connections. 10 is all it allows by default and any attempts after this will automatically come back as failed. So I think that if the torrent tries a few times and doesn't get anything before the 10 is maxed you're jacked.

Let me know if anyone else has success.

What is very interesting is that I talked to a tech guy and he mentioned that within the last couple of weeks - literally hundreds of people have been calling in with complaints about this very issue.

Again I EMPHASIZE that I don't think that Inisight is actually blocking ports - rather that somewhere on the backbone, there is a block that is messing with people's conenctions. And that this is something that Insight knows about or has hand in.

Check out these discussions at the Bearshare forums and you will see its not just an isolated incident.

»www.bearshare.net/showth ··· =insight

»www.bearshare.net/showth ··· p=240637

Or just do a search for Insight and you'll see what I mean.

I'm in the Indy area and am experiencing the same problems others have described here with p2p uploading. Does anyone know an alternative ISP in this area? I will switch in a second if I knew of one to switch to....

Thanks.

It's not so much that people can't download. The problem is that most cannot seed after downloading. If it does happen to seed, it is very slow. And it has only been doing this for about 3 weeks now, Sandvine was turned on 3 weeks ago. Read about Sandvine. It's obvious that insight is not using it in all of their systems, but I have talked to a total of 23 of my friends who have insight and in different areas and all are having the same problem. Downloading is not an issue, but when it comes to uploading that is where the problem is.

Read more about Sandvine here: »www.linuxelectrons.com/a ··· 06290110

For me - I can't download OR upload. This is whats happening to some people. They can't do either.

I'm a Mediacom user and also have this same problem. I'm in the NW Indiana area. The following thread mentions something else that is probably the problem:

»[IL] Mediacom IS Blocking P2P Ports, kinda

Could it be AT&T is your problems, too?

Hiyas i'm on mediacom as well and i'm having the same ports and problems as well. also ports 8000-9000 are being blocked for me and my friend who happens to be on insight. i have a ping of 80 to his house which is only 3 miles away which is odd since i get a 50ms ping to a server in st louis

Anyone who has seen other AT&T ISP putting this into use. Or anyone who has any further information or links. Feel free to add a comment here »iggy.gnomeblog.com/blog/ ··· 642.html

Who Actually says Insight or AT&T has Sandvine? I would like to see some proof of this. I use all the file sharing programs and I do not have any problem using them. If they had implimented Sandvine, then everybody would not be able to use it. I looked at sandvines website and read all about it. Looks like Sandvine is all or nothing. Granted they can set it up where you can pass so much traffic before it blocks, but as a management stand point, they would most likely setup the Sandvine to strait block everything.

Well, whether they are or not its clear that somewhere on the AT&T backbone - they are supressing file sharing. It's happened to too many people and if you read everything above (inlcuding the links) - you would know that more and more by process of elimination - that AT&T is HIGHLY likely doing it and that Sandvine is on of the SUSPECTED culprits. Its definately not a problem on the user end.

I actually believe it may be middleware related.

everytime my p2p related ports get hosed up it's because I switched out routers etc. This has happened everytime, and everytime I couldn't so do the auto device registry, I had to actually call up and waste my time to get internet access al because I was managing my internal network ::eyeroll::

Given I started this thread and it was resolved way back then.... I'd like to pojnt out as of 4 days ago this started happening again. All my p2p related ports are not responding correctly, and after extensive testing it has to be insight or backbone related. I've tried several in house configuarions both hardware and software side and all of them had previously worked yet now are unrespoonsive. In general anything trying tcp/udp over ports 6881-6899 are not working correctly for me.