UPC Blocking "Livestream"

riverbank

Hi, I am a regular viewer/user of Livestream the Streaming Video Service that shows such channels as http://www.livestream.com/dominoireland and have recently found that UPC seem to be blocking the video streams and chat facility on the website. Knowing a bit about the internet I have found a way around this by changing my DNS to Google 8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4 but I am quick to realise that many users will have no idea what the problem is and just put it down to a bad connection from the Livestream website. The reason I think it is UPC that are blocking the website is because of what I have been reading from UPC users as far afield as Austria and New Zealand all commenting on the fact that this is typical of UPC. I would love to have it verified that other UPC users in Ireland can't connect to this website before I start complaining to them. If they have blocked it what do you think my rights are in asking for a complete refund on my UPC installation costs and monthly costs while I move to another provider.

Sorry if the question went on a bit

River

Chris_5339762

Works for me on UPC.

riverbank

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Works for me on UPC.

Thanks for looking Chris, strange though, I still can't view it on automatic DNS settings, but have no problem using Googles DNS

colinod0806

working for me on upc also

riverbank

Ok, looks like it must be me (and quite a few others) that they have blocked, changed my DNS back to automatic and can't view videos while the chat page sez "Disconnected", change the DNS back to "Google" and all is fine and working.
Maybe they decided certain Livestream Users are using to much bandwidth

thanks again

River

CiaranC

riverbank wrote: »

Ok, looks like it must be me (and quite a few others) that they have blocked, changed my DNS back to automatic and can't view videos while the chat page sez "Disconnected", change the DNS back to "Google" and all is fine and working.
Maybe they decided certain Livestream Users are using to much bandwidth

That makes no sense. If they for some bizarre reason they decided to block some users of this obscure website, they would hardly do it by denying those users DNS lookups

riverbank

CiaranC wrote: »

That makes no sense. If they for some bizarre reason they decided to block some users of this obscure website, they would hardly do it by denying those users DNS lookups

The Livestream Website is not exactly obscure, it has thousands of users and viewers, while the Farnborough Air show was on last month one station (showing LIVE footage) had over 10,000 individual viewers each day with no less than 800 at any one time. The individual stations can be pretty ropey with the most viewed on a regular basis seeming to be screen shots of video games, the example site I gave is a travel video site about Dublin which has only been live for a few days.

As for it making no sense, I agree, but struggling to find another reason why I can't use automatic DNS which works for every other webpage I look at.

Well, I am still mystified but happy that Livestream is still viewable to others

TouchingVirus

You tried flushing your dns cache?

ipconfig /flushdns?

riverbank

i have now, made no difference, I did a release and renew previously and again after the flush but no joy.

Moriarty

It's not unheard of for dns servers to have problems. If it bothers you, give support a call and let them know that when using the upc dns servers the domain isn't resolving. Odds are they have no idea that there's a problem.

AllGunsBlazing

As a UPC user I decided to check this out for myself and found I couldn't connect either.

Followed suit by changing my DNS and then it worked. I've never visited livesteam before I read this thread either.

riverbank

I am a bit lost why some people can view and some can't, wish i could poll the whole of Dublin. Failing that, anyone who reads this I'd appreciate it if you could check it out for me and see if you can connect.
If I manage to get 10 replies I will multiply the results by 100,000 and come to the conclusion that I still don't know why.

Cheers for your input

River

distraction

upc here and works for me.

Rycn

Doesnt work for me on UPC 30Mb

The_B_Man

upc 5mb tallaght.
works grand.

CrazyRabbit

UPC's default DNS servers have a nasty happy of trying to redirect traffic to the UPC Search website. Try opening an invalid URL and you'll see that you end up on the UPC Search website.

e.g. www.sdfgsdfijjjee.com
gives
http://search.upc.ie/upcieassist/dnsassist/main/?domain=www.sdfgsdfijjjee.com

Now, for web browsers, this isn't a problem. But I've found that it can interfere with non-browser connections as well, like VPN connections, and some streaming media.

There is a solution though, since you can use UPC's alternate DNS servers which don't have this DNS hijacking enabled.

89.101.160.8
89.101.160.9

Instead of
89.101.160.4
89.101.160.5

kk887

upc 15mb
working no problem

Runs Cold

UPC are not blocking livestream if it was being blocked by the isp no-one would recieve it.