4 ms·

Too bad I often have to disable IPv6 because my ISP suddenly decides to stop routing it from time to time. This is Comcast, so arguing with them doesn't get me

by dheera 5y ago

Too bad I often have to disable IPv6 because my ISP suddenly decides to stop routing it from time to time. This is Comcast, so arguing with them doesn't get me anywhere, all I get is "Thanks for expressing your concern." "Rest assured that I will solve all your problems." from the support dude in some random call/chat center.

miyuru 5y ago
Doesn't Happy Eyeballs fallback to IPv4 on that situation?
- dheera 5y ago
  Maybe it's supposed to in theory but empirical results on my machine say it doesn't
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  Anecdata: Enabling IPv6 does seem to break random stuff randomly.
  - wongarsu 5y ago
    If something has a network problem but it's not the uplink and it isn't DNS, then disabling ipv6 is definitely the next in the list.
- gerdesj 5y ago
  Sort of. There needs to be more intelligence at the client end though. I have a fairly decent IPv6 link but it can still fail in strange ways, that does not mirror the IPv4 link. Then again the IPv4 link has moved in mysterious ways from time to time. Happy Eyeballs isn't quite fully prevalent and it hasn't seen all failure modes yet nor how to deal with them. Internets is a really hard problem. For starters: define "connected". My wife will sometimes suggest that our internet connection is not working - she implies that her laptop (Arch Linux - obvs) is completely broken. What is really happening is that Mr Zuckerberg's thang has wandered off for a break and a smoko. This morning it was our mail server. Hit the wifi kill switch by accident then internet will not work. I've disabled the kill switch.
- profmonocle 5y ago
  Depends. Anecdotal evidence: Most "normal user" software handles it fine. (Chrome and Apple Mail on my Mac, Android apps, etc.) With terminal apps I use as a developer, it's more of a crapshoot. curl and SSH work fine. I've seen others that don't. Notably, Node.js's socket libraries can't fall back to IPv4 at all, even after the v6 connection times out. Node's DNS library actually overrides the default system behavior to prefer v4 over v6, probably for this reason. (This can be changed globally within a particular program, or on a per-lookup basis, but preferring v6 will allegedly become the default in an upcoming release.) I've unfortunately had much experience with this due to major bugs in Comcast's modems.
rahimnathwani 5y ago
I use both Comcast and Monkeybrains. I've had to disable IPv6 only once in the last 18 months: for my Monkeybrains connection.
- rahimnathwani 5y ago
  Just to clarify, this was just once, for about a day.
gtirloni 5y ago
Same here. I had enough random problems when IPv6 was enabled and got tired of troubleshooting things. Just disabled it and will enable again in a few years. Hopefully things will be better.

by dheera 5y ago

miyuru 5y ago

Doesn't Happy Eyeballs fallback to IPv4 on that situation?

dheera 5y ago
Maybe it's supposed to in theory but empirical results on my machine say it doesn't
formerly_proven 5y ago
Anecdata: Enabling IPv6 does seem to break random stuff randomly.
- wongarsu 5y ago
  If something has a network problem but it's not the uplink and it isn't DNS, then disabling ipv6 is definitely the next in the list.
gerdesj 5y ago
Sort of. There needs to be more intelligence at the client end though. I have a fairly decent IPv6 link but it can still fail in strange ways, that does not mirror the IPv4 link. Then again the IPv4 link has moved in mysterious ways from time to time. Happy Eyeballs isn't quite fully prevalent and it hasn't seen all failure modes yet nor how to deal with them. Internets is a really hard problem. For starters: define "connected". My wife will sometimes suggest that our internet connection is not working - she implies that her laptop (Arch Linux - obvs) is completely broken. What is really happening is that Mr Zuckerberg's thang has wandered off for a break and a smoko. This morning it was our mail server. Hit the wifi kill switch by accident then internet will not work. I've disabled the kill switch.
profmonocle 5y ago
Depends. Anecdotal evidence: Most "normal user" software handles it fine. (Chrome and Apple Mail on my Mac, Android apps, etc.) With terminal apps I use as a developer, it's more of a crapshoot. curl and SSH work fine. I've seen others that don't. Notably, Node.js's socket libraries can't fall back to IPv4 at all, even after the v6 connection times out. Node's DNS library actually overrides the default system behavior to prefer v4 over v6, probably for this reason. (This can be changed globally within a particular program, or on a per-lookup basis, but preferring v6 will allegedly become the default in an upcoming release.) I've unfortunately had much experience with this due to major bugs in Comcast's modems.

rahimnathwani 5y ago

I use both Comcast and Monkeybrains. I've had to disable IPv6 only once in the last 18 months: for my Monkeybrains connection.

rahimnathwani 5y ago
Just to clarify, this was just once, for about a day.

gtirloni 5y ago

Same here. I had enough random problems when IPv6 was enabled and got tired of troubleshooting things. Just disabled it and will enable again in a few years. Hopefully things will be better.