This topic has been marked solved and closed to new posts due to inactivity. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.
So I have never seen this before....for reasons of instability documented here in other posts with this current version of firmware, I have IPv6 disabled on my network. However, today I saw something very strange! I happened to be working on 1 of 2 MacBook Pro laptops here, and lo and behold it shows IPv6 working on WiFi, and passing the online IPv6 tests!
This confused me. I checked another MacBook Pro, a Windows laptop, an iPad, and an iPhone, all report IPv6 unavailable. I logged into the Netgear RBR850 router, and confirmed that IPv6 is disabled. So I ended up trying:
-by luck MacOS minor update was performed; to version 14.1.1, with restart;
-tried on both Safari and Chrome, Chrome shows IPv6 disabled, Safari shows IPv6 working perfectly!
-cleared all website data on Safari.
- did "Empty Cache" on the Developer menu on Safari.
- tested IPv6 on 4 different internet sites to confirm all say IPv6 is working perfectly.
none of this helped.
So I guess this is a Safari problem, how is this happening?
Release version - never been in a MacOS beta. And it did this on both MacOS 14.1 and 14.1.1 (minor bug/security fix release) which I updated to today to see if that fixed it.
Seems like this maybe a Safari issue that you should post about to Apple. If IPv6 is disabled on the RBR and your devices are not getting any other internet connections from other sources, seems like Safari is reporting something that's inaccurate.
I did post it on an Apple forum. I’ll post back here if there’s a resolution. It does very much seem to be specific to Safari, but isn’t it odd that the IPv6 packets and information are getting through the router to the outside world that sees an IP address and other indications that IPv6 is working properly. We know Netgear routers and Apple products don’t work together 100% don’t we? 😉
IPv6 has been working here since Monday! I did one thing different this time; as soon as I made the change to enable IPv6, I rebooted the router/satellites. Can't believe that would make a difference, since in the past I am sure I rebooted and power cycled everything, but not immediately. Anyway - since Monday 10 AM I have tested on 2 MacBook Pro's, iPhone, iPad, Windows 11, and Windows 10, with a combination of Safari, Chrome, and Edge. All have tested perfectly each time I tried - about 4x a day.The only "warning" I saw was from time to time, the browser site reported that all was perfect, however the browser is preferring IPv4 to IPv6 and it shouldn't. I read up and verified that everything these days prefers IPv6 if it's enabled and working. So I read further, and learned also that all modern browsers now employ "happy eyeball test" - they actually send out requests on BOTH IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously, and whoever responds back first gets the payload. In the old days, they sent out one, waited for a resolution, then if necessary sent the other. So, in my case the IPv4 and IPv6 msgs go out simultaneously, and the result indicates whether things are resolved on v4 or v6. Knowing that, I would try again in a few minutes, and sure enough IPv6 was preferred. The times are very close in tests (I verified this in the test data returned), which is why one beats out the other from time to time. Finally, I activated it with all default settings. Next week I ---may--- turn on my preferred Cloudfare DNS servers, and see if things break. Or I may stick with Comcast DNS lol.
It's been perfect still. Every test passes except briefly as I explained a browser may temporarily report preferring IPv4 (but IPv6 is still working fine) - and that reverses to IPv6 preference in a minute or 2. If you read my explanation, that's a temporary thing based on response times. Browsers tested/platform:
If I remember correctly, this all started in January with users reporting a problem between Netgear and Comcast. It seems my recollection is that some thing changed on the Comcast side, but not that it was a bug or something like that. It was some sort of an upgrade or improved compliance or something, that Netgear was not handling. That was never substantiated though. so we really don’t know if it was Comcast, Netgear, or both.
Well last year CC/XF started doing this mid-split thing. I presume there was some of this involved as well as I had seen others, not with IPv6 issue, just bad services here and there in general after they started rolling this new configuration out. I presume this may have caused other issues like IPv6 operation to be effected as well. Hard to say where it all comes down too. Seems like if maybe the ISP has corrected there side and browsers maybe have been updated to better handle IPv6 testing, could have been root cause all along. Though there still maybe some NG handling as well in IPv6 protocols. Still probably haven't updated the core framework since 2016 from what we know.
