OMG, Xfinity Gateway WILL NOT open the port

[Kurtis500]

So after 3 hours...yes, 3 hours and most of it on the phone, Xfinity Gateway cannot open the ports for me to access Blue Iris. Does anyone have a solution to a router that will not allow port forwarding. I can do this easily on other providers like Cox and Century Link but this system only uses a phone app and it will not open the ports. Is there some work around to this? Im having a hard time believing that I cant use my admin tool while logged in to the router to open the port but that is the way it is. I have to use a phone app and it will not open the ports. Customer service ADMITS they can see the ports are open on my app but doesnt know why they cant be accessed with the open port check tools. They only run me in circles on the phone. Ive seen a few others online with the same problem and no solutions given to read about. Basically, can I do Blue iris from my computer without a port open?

Im so f#$king mad I cant see straight, and their customer service is an AI joke... even the real person is being translated live.. crazy

 

[bp2008]

First thing you need to do is find out what your router thinks your public IP address is. Compare that with what an online IP address checker says. If it is the same address shown in both places, then you can probably just buy your own router and use it instead of the one provided by the ISP. Asus makes good ones. This is a decent midrange option:

https://amazon.com/dp/B09M9477NS

If your router and online sources disagree on what your public IP is, then you are behind a NAT you can't control, and you won't be able to open a port on IPv4 even if you buy a new router.

At that point you either need to use IPv6 (which has its own learning curve, not to mention somewhat poor availability in all areas) or you need a third-party service to tunnel in for you. ZeroTier and Tailscale are good free options but to connect remotely you need to run their client apps on your phone/tablet/laptop etc. If you need to let others connect without additional software, then a "cloudflare tunnel" will work but you need to register a domain with cloudflare to get access to that. It is about $10-12 a year but then you can use their free proxy service that comes with their DNS manager, and run Cloudflare's software on your Blue Iris machine and it will tunnel out to Cloudflare to allow inbound connections from the open internet. The setup is a little more involved than that, but there are guides available. Do note it is against cloudflare's terms of service to use their free proxy service for a video streaming website but as long as you don't use a shitload of bandwidth or make it public, they shouldn't bother you about it.

 

[bp2008]

Oh also, depending on your service plan, your ISP may be charging you a monthly fee for router rental, which they may be calling wifi service or some other cryptic name. If that is happening, see if you can return the router and use your own to get out of paying the rental fee. Those fees tend to be high enough that a midrange router like an Asus AX1800S will pay for itself in a year or less.

 

[Kurtis500]

Oh also, depending on your service plan, your ISP may be charging you a monthly fee for router rental, which they may be calling wifi service or some other cryptic name. If that is happening, see if you can return the router and use your own to get out of paying the rental fee. Those fees tend to be high enough that a midrange router like an Asus AX1800S will pay for itself in a year or less.

Thank you, that does make some sense. Althought the varied IP's are a little hard to grasp since I only get the one stated on the Open Port tool, is the service provider hiding another number behind that maybe? The router I have is a modem/router combo from Xfinity. I think we opted for the rent version. Maybe a seperate modem and router combo the way to go...? (If I even can) My other setup is with Cox and is a modem with seperate router/switch right after the modem. It has been rock solid for years and such a reliable performer. That combo has an Asus router and that is what I use to port forward. Pretty straight forward and simple once learned. I'll look in to switching this out at the store tomorrow if thats an option.

Heres what I get when I go to the Port Forwarding option in the router admin page... Trying to figure out why its even there if this is the message I get.

 

[bp2008]

If you're planning to stick with this ISP for more than a year or two, then yes, you are better off not renting hardware from them.

If your router's interface tells you that your public IP is the same as the one listed in an Open Port checking tool, then port forwarding SHOULD work, and there is probably just some detail missing such as a private IP or port number being entered incorrectly, or Windows Firewall blocking the traffic (sometimes because the network interface got changed to "Public" without you realizing it). Something I do usually to ensure no firewall issues is I go into the advanced firewall settings and add my own inbound rule for TCP port 81 (or whatever you're using for Blue Iris web server) and allow the traffic for all network types (including Public) so that if Windows switches my interface to Public it won't break remote connections.

 

[Kurtis500]

hmmm. so you think the computer may have thrown up a firewall? Its actually my old BI computer