Can’t access pictures on Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp

[kgeriksson]

Hi,

All of a sudden (since 3G/4G stopped working in my area) I can no longer download photos from Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp via Virgin wifi on my phone or laptop. Other apps and sites work fine - I can stream BBC iPlayer, YouTube etc. There is no problem with the speed either. 
What could the problem be and how can I fix it? 
K

[kgeriksson]

Hi Gareth

I’m afraid not. Someone suggested my IP address might be blacklisted on those sites? Don’t know why that would be… I. Am still see the text in posts on all three sites - just not photos and videos.

best 

kristina 

[jpeg1]

OK. If you are seeing text but not the pictures that doesn't sound like an IP block. 

Can you get a friend to log in to Facebook from your Virgin connection to see if it's related to your login coming from Virgin? 

[sophist]

suspect it's a content delivery network issue. I know that VM host CDN nodes for google and netflix, and they probably do for facebook too.

you can test this theory a couple of ways.. 1. download a browser with a built in vpn (e.g. opera, though i have no idea if there's a mac client and if it supports the vpn functionality) or 2. put teh hub in modem mode and connect a single device (mac) via ethernet and try again..

if you don't have an ethernet socket on your mac then you'll need to buy a USB C one to test the theory

Putting hte hub into modem mode will give you a different IP address, which has cured this in the past on similar issues with netflix and youtube/google play store..

[kgeriksson]

Yes I’ll ask someone else to try. My husband has the same problem but he has 3G/4G on his phone so can still get pictures but more slowly. Thank you!

[kgeriksson]

This is super helpful thank you.

I’ll get the Ethernet/USB conversion cable. That won’t solve the problem on my phone though… 

what can VM do about it? Couldn’t they check if it’s an IP address issue? (They say the problem isn’t on their end)

[sophist]

---

@kgeriksson wrote:

This is super helpful thank you.

I’ll get the Ethernet/USB conversion cable. That won’t solve the problem on my phone though… 

what can VM do about it? Couldn’t they check if it’s an IP address issue? (They say the problem isn’t on their end)

---

Well, if it all works when you try it with the hub in modem mode, then there's really only one thing that VM can do to fix it and that's issue you with a new hub.  IP addresses are very "sticky" on the virgin network, so when you return your hub to router mode it's 99.999% likely that you'll get hte same IP addresss you have currently and it'll  stop working again..

If that does prove to fix it, then you can press VM for a replacement router (may be an uphill struggle, since overall, the connection is working and they won't be able to see hte fault) or you can fix it yourself by  buying your own third party router and leaving the hub in modem mode.  Not ideal, but there we go.

Need to prove that a change of address gets rid of the issue first though.

[ravenstar68 · Accepted solution]

It might be worth running a tracert to cdn node to see if they can get there.

Using chrome on the laptop right click on one of the image placeholders and select "Copy image address." open notepad and paste it in there, you'll see something like this:

https://scontent.fgla3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-0/s600x600/214867168_10220414916549710_5066565597755746003_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=b9115d&_nc_eui2=AeFgKCzY6--Q3aNrdoolWcSXDK3UutKRi3QMrdS60pGLdHAp2xTG_7bDU1ehC3CxGXY&_nc_ohc=iz8CtellRv4AX92OW4g&_nc_ht=scontent.fgla3-1.fna&tp=7&oh=f69b143a1735f084151e0c4fdf133bc5&oe=60E9947A

I've coloured the bit we need for the tracert in green.

Open a command window and type in the command:

tracert -4 scontent.fgla3-1.fna.fbcdn.net

Note: The -4 switch is unnecessary for you, it just forces the tracert to go over IPv4, leaving it in won't hurt though.  You shouldn't see a long trace as CDN nodes are usually placed on the users own ISP network by the various companies.

tracert -4 scontent.fgla3-1.fna.fbcdn.net

Tracing route to scontent.fgla3-1.fna.fbcdn.net [86.189.107.148]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms    <1 ms  BTHUB [192.168.1.254]
  2    10 ms     4 ms     4 ms  172.16.19.151
  3     9 ms     8 ms     8 ms  81.130.106.16
  4     8 ms     9 ms     8 ms  81.130.106.17
  5     8 ms     8 ms     8 ms  86.189.107.148

Give it a try and let us know what you get.

@sophist 

I'm on a BT network here, so can you do a tracert for comparison?

Tim

[sophist]

The node you've posted is (obviously) in the BT network - i get to 81.130.106.17 then its *** all the way.. .

Spoiler

[2.4.5-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.wolf.lan]/root: traceroute scontent.fgla3-1.fna.fbcdn.net
traceroute to scontent.fgla3-1.fna.fbcdn.net (86.189.107.148), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 * * *
2 aztw-core-2b-xe-103-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.252.112.129) 8.725 ms 10.571 ms 10.356 ms
3 * * *
4 tele-ic-6-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.174.86) 21.812 ms 18.756 ms 18.568 ms
5 109.159.253.100 (109.159.253.100) 17.038 ms 17.024 ms 18.501 ms
6 core1-hu0-15-0-0.colindale.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.252.165) 16.841 ms 16.821 ms 17.730 ms
7 213.121.192.137 (213.121.192.137) 17.512 ms
195.99.127.211 (195.99.127.211) 17.158 ms
195.99.127.209 (195.99.127.209) 20.448 ms
8 * * *
9 81.130.106.16 (81.130.106.16) 27.762 ms 36.961 ms 27.806 ms
10 81.130.106.17 (81.130.106.17) 35.182 ms 26.329 ms 26.599 ms
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
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22 * * *
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27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
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31 * * *
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35 * * *
36 * * *

As you say - we need the URL from OP to test further, however - in my experience, this isn't an issue with the node itself - i only have my own testing to go on when i was having the same issue with Netflix, and the behaviour was strange.

I could connect to the node i was having trouble with from outside of the VM network, and I could connect to it fine using a neighbours VM service for testing but when i tried to connect to it from my own network it would hit my default gateway and go nowhere from there.. the traceroute (post 10 in the above link..) would bomb at the first hop.. it's strange because my default gateway doesn't have a complex routing table - it isn't doing anything dynamically, it in turn has a default gateway and sends all traffic to it..

it will be interesting to see the results of OP's tracert

[ravenstar68]

@sophist make sure you traceroute using ICMP

tracert in Windows uses ICMP

traceroute in Linux/MacOS defaults to UDP pings.

Tim

[sophist]

@ravenstar68ah yes! forgot about that - this time, with icmp 🙂

[2.4.5-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.wolf.lan]/root: traceroute -I scontent.fgla3-1.fna.fbcdn.net
traceroute to scontent.fgla3-1.fna.fbcdn.net (86.189.107.148), 64 hops max, 48 byte packets
1 * * *
2 aztw-core-2b-xe-103-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.252.112.129) 13.085 ms 10.295 ms 11.823 ms
3 * * *
4 tele-ic-6-ae2-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.174.86) 16.070 ms 17.059 ms 17.096 ms
5 109.159.253.100 (109.159.253.100) 17.158 ms 18.039 ms 16.502 ms
6 core1-hu0-15-0-0.colindale.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.252.165) 17.016 ms 16.642 ms 25.181 ms
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 81.130.106.16 (81.130.106.16) 27.141 ms 30.421 ms 35.528 ms
10 81.130.106.17 (81.130.106.17) 27.343 ms 27.767 ms 26.873 ms
11 86.189.107.148 (86.189.107.148) 26.516 ms 30.378 ms 31.968 ms