How to fix connection drops and bandwidth issues with Virgin Media while using AirVPN

lewisisonfire

Over the past few months of using AirVPN alongside Virgin Media I have had nothing but issues. I am either unable to get the full bandwidth that I pay for, or my connection drops so frequently that it makes browsing almost impossible.

I want to say a huge thank you to the AirVPN community and the people over at AirVPN as well for all of their support. I have learnt a lot over the last few months and I wanted to take the time to share my findings so that anyone else that had these issues could attempt the same things as I did and perhaps it will help you too.

The Bandwidth cut

Firstly lets talk about bandwidth issues. I have a fibre connection that without my VPN service I receive the 150meg I pay for. No sooner do I switch on the VPN I face drops of 75%.

With the help of this post:
https://airvpn.org/topic/12473-virgin-media-openvpn-low-speeds-throttlingbug/

rainmakerraw posted saying that by using the SSL protocols through EDDIE he was able to regain the lost bandwidth faced by using the VPN service.

I figured this could work in the AirVPN program and after contacting the AirVPN team who advised changing this setting in AirVPN's protocols to SSL port 80 I saw that my speeds jumped to around 50% of my total bandwidth. For what I use the internet for, this was more than acceptable so I didn't mind taking a 50% cut so long as my anonymity was safe.

METHOD:

In the AirVPN program click the AirVPN logo in the top left corner:

Next hit the preferences button:

And then go to the protocols section and select the SSL port 80 radio button:

This should now give you boost on your speeds while running AirVPN with Virgin Media. However, my story doesn't end there.

The connection drop

For a short time I was able to enjoy absolute anonymity and with only a 50% drop in service. I could live with this, until my connection began drop constantly.

Initially this was very intermittent, and I simply disconnected from the current server and just hit reconnect. Issue fixed. However, this started to become extremely frequent, to the point that I was only able to browse for around 5 minutes before the connection dropped and I was shown a DNS error on websites I was trying to access.

I could not seem to find anyone on these forums with the same issue, nor anyone with a solution. I knew that it had to be my ISP causing the problem as this did not exist anywhere else.

However, I did find whisper on some other sites about Windows 10 causing problems with VPN services. It seems we live in a world governed by people hell bent on watching our every move, and at any cost they will try their best to succeed in this.

Thankfully there are far smarter nerds out there capable of finding a solution.

After a bit of searching I came across this post:

https://www.bestvpn.com/blog/28318/warning-windows-10-vpn-users-at-big-risk-of-dns-leaks-2/

Which suggested that within Windows 10's group policies there was an option causing a few issues regarding DNS leaking. I had checked several times on https://dnsleaktest.com/ as well as https://ipleak.net/ as to whether this might be the cause of my problem but found no issues.

That being said I wanted to add this here as I feel it could be of some use to people. Now, this is a guide for Windows 7 users but it works on Windows 10 (I will assume you are using this), however, it only works for Windows 10 pro.

Windows 10 Home does not have the group policy software included, and after a little tinkering I managed to get it installed but there was no option to remove the "Smart Multi-Homed Name Resolution". So it didn't help me. However, if you have 10 pro, I see no reason not to include this as it could be an option.

Never Give Up

I wasn't going to be beaten that easily. I figured it was time to use the ol' process of elimination to figure out the cause of my problem, so I connected my laptop to my mobile phone via WIFI hotspot and with AirVPN connected I found there was not a single drop in a full 24 hours of web browsing. (Of course this ended up costing me a fortune but we live and learn).

So then, my issue had to lie with Virgin Media.

Perhaps then my Superhub was the cause. But if it was, where would I start? I figured is this was going to be any kind of software issue the firewall would be the place to look. Well by Jove I think I found it.

Superhub more like SuperDUD

As I type this I am now happily browsing the web at full speed, uninterrupted, and happy. SSL 80, no connection drop and I'm confident. The issue seemed to be with the PPTP and Multicast pass through. A little internet search and what should pop up as the top link:

https://support.cultrix.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/202644875-VPN-Does-Not-Connect-When-Using-Virgin-Media-SuperHub

A page regarding the issues this VM hub causes VPN services when these two options are not clicked.

METHOD:

Log into your Virgin Media Hub. For most of you this will be via the web browser and in the address bar you type 192.168.0.1

If this should not work refer to your particular hubs manual for the correct method, or using the sticker on the bottom of the router.

Once in, you should see this screen:

From here you want to type in the password to access the routers settings. I have changed mine so its no longer default, however, if you have never done this the password should be on the sticker on the router, but refer to the user manual to be sure.

Next go ahead and click sign in and you will see this screen:

From here we want to enter into the advanced settings option located at the bottom right of the screen. It may pop up a little warning but I assure you we are not doing anything that will break the router.

On the following screen scroll down until you see the "Security" options:

You are going to want to click on "Firewall".

Lastly, on this next screen you should see the option for PPTP and Multicast Pass through as seen bellow. Go ahead and click both so that there is a tick in each box and then save the settings.

If for some reason yours is already active, and you are facing the same issues as I am I am afraid I am at a loss as to what your issue could be.

As I say, this is really just my own findings and this is as far as I got.

The light at the end of the fibre

Hopefully you should now be in the same boat as me, you should have a lovely consistent connection, with no loss of bandwidth and with the help of your lovely AirVPN service 100% anonymity.

If for any reason these methods do not help feel free to post, perhaps this could be the central place for other VM subscribers and those using AirVPN.

The small print

Of course with any fixes like this they all come with inherent risks. I am merely showing you what I did and how, but please, do this at your own risk. I have had no issues doing this but I am not responsible for anything that goes wrong for you.

Another note: Virgin Media from time to time release firmware updates and these can (and have) reset settings on Hubs. If you find that one day you begin to see the same dreaded drops and throttling, check the hub settings again in case they have reset them.

I have seen many posts suggesting that turning the Superhub into modem mode and purchasing a router capable of the SSL 80 protocol in the routers settings is also an option. I have an old DD-WRT but its a little too old for the latest firmware and as such can not use the SSL protocol. This I think is a better option as it ensures anyone on your network is behind the VPN. But I am just finding the less expensive solution, not to mention there are far too many routers out there to determine which one can do SSL.

Anyway, I hope this can be of some help to people with VM. Or if you have similar issues, maybe your router has these options, give it a go.

Have a good day everyone.

Updated 29/12/2016: *Title change*

themangoman

Very informative post no I don't have that particular problem it is always good to know about things like this for educational purposes even if they were just simple router firewall settings

Kind regards Paul

bluesjunior

Good stuff from another Virgin user. When you are on the 150+Mbps or the 200Mbps you need a really expensive router to be able to use the superhub in modem mode as the normal type of router is not powerful enough. Previously I had a Buffalo GWH-300N running DD-WRT but this class of router is only capable of up to 100MB and to be able to support the Virgin service over 100Mbps you need the 1GB service from both your network card and your router otherwise you just get a bottleneck. When I upgraded to the max package a few months back I ended up disconnecting my router and rebooting the superhub in router mode due to this. I already knew about the Firewall setting pass-throughs but I will now try the SSH port 80 fix and see if I can also get the full width using AirVPN. Until now Like you I got an approx 25-50% reduction in width using the VPN while I got over 200Mbps without. This didn't really bother me as I tend to just use the VPN service for downloads and run without it for just browsing, but I would like to have it on full time.

lewisisonfire

bluesjunior: Let me know how that works out for you. Be interesting to see if you yield the same results.

As for the router information, thank you, that helps to narrow it down a little bit more. I figured i'd be spending well into the 100's in order to find something suitable, so thank you

bluesjunior

bluesjunior: Let me know how that works out for you. Be interesting to see if you yield the same results.

As for the router information, thank you, that helps to narrow it down a little bit more. I figured i'd be spending well into the 100's in order to find something suitable, so thank you

I did some tests yesterday using our combined info from this thread. Firstly I checked the Virgin Superhub firewall settings in order to see that they were unchanged. I had checks in the last three boxes, Ipsec PT - PPTP and the Multi one. I had unchecked the Firewall on - Port Scan and IP Flood boxes iirc I did this when originally setting it up after reading that the Virgin Firewall might conflict with my Comodo CIS security suite. Anyway I added these checks in order to have the same set up you describe above. On AirVPN I was using UDP port 443 as I had found previously that was where I got the best speeds after using the SSL tunnel port 443 option. I changed this to SSH port 80 as above and after checking that I was getting a full width signal from Virgin without the VPN on http://www.speedtest.net/ I was and got a reading of Ping = 17ms - Download = 211.26Mbps - Upload = 12.38Mbps from Virgins Manchester server. I then engaged AirVPN and got the following results:
Using SSH port 80,
Ping-------------------------Download---------------------------Upload-----------------------Server------------------Country
18ms------------------------85.69Mbps-----------------------7.67Mbps-----------------------Naos---------------------UK
32ms------------------------42.20Mbps-----------------------4.28Mbps-----------------------Aquilae-----------------Germany
40ms------------------------65.23Mbps-----------------------5.87Mbps-----------------------Skat---------------------Holland
These results weren't very good so I changed the AirVPN post back to UDP port 443, signed out and in again and did the following tests.
Using UDP port 443:
18ms-----------------------151.98Mbps-----------------------11.38Mbps---------------------Naos----------------------UK
36ms-----------------------109.3Mbps-------------------------11.50Mbps---------------------Aquilae-------------------Germany
32ms------------------------95.35Mbps------------------------11.55Mbps---------------------Tauri----------------------Germany
40ms------------------------87.67mbps------------------------10.75Mbps---------------------Skat-----------------------Holland
18ms-----------------------146.73Mbps------------------------11.61Mbps--------------------Naos-----------------------UK I repeated the Naos UK Manchester server again just to see that I was getting a similar result and to confirm that the other tests were also relevant to it.
So I shall remain on UDP Port 443 for the time being. I never unchecked the altered Virgin Superhub Firewall settings leaving them the same as yours, though I would like a second opinion on them as to whether they are necessary when using a third party firewall security suite like Comodo CIS?. Hope this helps.

LZ1

Hello!

This is really excellent and deserves a bump, in my view. I also think we've had a couple of Virgina media users come in, so it might be useful for someone.

Really good effort OP - pretty sweet with the pictures too .

privacy4me

Ok, i'm a complete and utter noob with this stuff, but before i purchase airvpn, i just want to know if there's a simple solution to setting it up on my virgin super hub 3.0, so that all devices in my house go through the vpn. Any help or pointers would be much appreciated.

LZ1

Ok, i'm a complete and utter noob with this stuff, but before i purchase airvpn, i just want to know if there's a simple solution to setting it up on my virgin super hub 3.0, so that all devices in my house go through the vpn. Any help or pointers would be much appreciated.

I recommend that you either purchase the 1 euro subscription, which will last you 3 days or apply for a 3 day trial, via support tickets, in the client area. Because we inherently don't know your setup, so it's a little tricky to say .

AirVPN doesn't typically cater to "utter noobs" as you describe yourself, unless they're willing to put in the effort. There's a guide in my signature though, so you shouldn't have too much trouble either.

However, I don't think super hubs are really equipped for running a VPN on them, so I wouldn't expect stellar performance if you install it ON the router - even if you did somehow manage to get it installed.

But AirVPN does provide 5 connections per account still, so you can still connect 5 devices, which is enough for a lot of people. Phone, laptop and either desktop or tablet.

Welcome to AirVPN!

galik

Changing to SSH tunnel completely worked for me. My download speed went from 19.78 to 89.47. Unfortunately the new HUB does not allow the configuration options mentioned here.

Lee47

Just to give an update for possibly other Virgin Media customers and having AirVPN latency or up and down broadband performances.

Virgin media did finally release a router without the Puma chipset (Only took them 6 years to fix the issue) which was a direct cause for much of the issues with overall broadband issues be it p2p, torrenting, gaming and video conferencing and this was without VPN or Air even.

Its now using broadcom chipset now found in the new Hub5 router, several others have reported much lower latency and drop outs and overall more improved line stability.

The hub5 can work on older broadband speeds I am told, not just the new 1gig Fibre service so if you are on the 350 or 500 broadband lines it should still work fine, I believe Virgin media won't so easily send it out to you, they may charge £35 for it or try to put you on the 1gig Fibre service.

I also recommend anyone using p2p or newsgroup services under AirVPN or other to use SSD drive for temporary downloading temp files before moving the completed files to an older mechanical hard drive or just use SSDs for all your p2p or newsgroup downloads, using slower mechanical drives can cause p2p or newsgroup to saturate your system and broadband line making it unstable or inconsistent up and down speeds. If you want to max out your BB speeds and have it stable I advice newsgroup and SSD only.

There is more info and tweaks here

NKKA12345

On 11/1/2022 at 2:19 PM, Lee47 said:

Just to give an update for possibly other Virgin Media customers and having AirVPN latency or up and down broadband performances.

Virgin media did finally release a router without the Puma chipset (Only took them 6 years to fix the issue) which was a direct cause for much of the issues with overall broadband issues be it p2p, torrenting, gaming and video conferencing and this was without VPN or Air even.

Its now using broadcom chipset now found in the new Hub5 router, several others have reported much lower latency and drop outs and overall more improved line stability.

The hub5 can work on older broadband speeds I am told, not just the new 1gig Fibre service so if you are on the 350 or 500 broadband lines it should still work fine, I believe Virgin media won't so easily send it out to you, they may charge £35 for it or try to put you on the 1gig Fibre service.

I also recommend anyone using p2p or newsgroup services under AirVPN or other to use SSD drive for temporary downloading temp files before moving the completed files to an older mechanical hard drive or just use SSDs for all your p2p or newsgroup downloads, using slower mechanical drives can cause p2p or newsgroup to saturate your system and broadband line making it unstable or inconsistent up and down speeds. If you want to max out your BB speeds and have it stable I advice newsgroup and SSD only.

There is more info and tweaks here

Hi
i have just signed up to the virgin media 1gig with hub 5 package.

when using a vpn(I’ve tried many)
I can only get a maximum of around 150mbps download on a Nvidia Shield(2015).

with out a VPN connection I get 1gig speed depending on times.

Any idea if this can be improved or is this pretty normal?

Staff

@NKKA12345

Hello!

If you are talking about nVidia Shield TV, we have noticed that nVidia Shield TV devices performance suffer when they rely on WiFi. If possible connect your device via Ethernet.

If you are talking about nVidia Shield tablets, try to use Eddie Android edition in WireGuard, OpenVPN over UDP, and OpenVPN over TCP modes, and make a comparison.

Kind regards

Lee47

On 2/2/2023 at 1:56 AM, NKKA12345 said:

Hi
i have just signed up to the virgin media 1gig with hub 5 package.

when using a vpn(I’ve tried many)
I can only get a maximum of around 150mbps download on a Nvidia Shield(2015).

with out a VPN connection I get 1gig speed depending on times.

Any idea if this can be improved or is this pretty normal?

Its a tad low but it depends on much, your overall home network usage and if its after 5pm since that is when VM starts slowly ramping speeds down gets worse around 6-8pm peak times and then won't go back to normal fuller speeds till midnight at night. So the best time to test anything is just after midnight or 1am in morning oddly.

For example I ran speedtest site on my Nvidia shield just now and get roughly 250-270Mbps but I have a dedicated router with Wireguard on it, one thing you have to remember the Shield is not quite like a PC cpu so you won't hit PC type fuller speeds (1gig) so its normal almost to have much slower speeds. The same applies to all other devices be it smart TV and virgin media cable boxes, remember these are not like normal PCs with powerful cpus so you will get much slower speeds on them usually this is fine since its just for basic stuff you probably only need 20-30Mbps to get the normal quality streaming anyhow and maybe 115Mbps for 4K HDR via appletv or sony bravia core for example.

You might get better speeds using Eddie Android edition in WireGuard as suggested above.

Staff

@Lee47

Hello!

Just out of information, your requirements for 4K HDR are excessive! Netflix recommends 25 Mbit/s and Amazon 15 Mbit/s. https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4182/~/what-bandwidth-do-i-need-for-4k-hdr-streaming

Kind regards

Lee47

Yes, re-edited reply to make this clearer, 120Mbps was in reference to these new bluray type streaming services from Sony TV and Apple TV where they want 115Mbps as minimum.

Some Nvidia Shield Plex users hit much more but not sure of his requirements and set up, but hopefully with Eddie android and Wireguard he has more then enough to keep it happy.

Staff

UPDATE 2023-AUG-28

A customer with Virgin Hub 5 reported very poor performance. The problem could be resolved by running WireGuard (or Eddie in WireGuard mode) and forcing a 1280 bytes MTU size. In this way the customer could almost saturate the peak bandwidth offered by Virgin.
WireGuard's MTU size can be customized on Eddie 2.23.1 and higher versions, on "Preferences" > "WireGuard" window.

Kind regards

pembrokeVPN

I have been on Virgin Media for some 9 months or so. Running pfSense Plus on my router for years, setup a couple of connections over openVPN in a gateway group. The performance has generally sucked no matter what I do, I cannot get consistent performance, high latency, slow speeds, packet loss etc.

However, at the weekend I setup wireguard and the performance has been very good, am able to saturate the connection for the first time.

For whatever reason with Virgin Media, Wireguard out performs OpenVPN when connected to AirVPN servers.

bluesjunior

Well I found the ultimate fix for Virgin Media, I cancelled the lot and am now with Zen Broadband and what a difference too.

How to fix connection drops and bandwidth issues with Virgin Media while using AirVPN

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