Port Forwarding Unsuccessful - Even on New Router

Hello all,

I've been struggling over the past couple of days trying to get port forwarding working on my Router. I'm no expert in networking but at this point I've tried everything I can think of, including spending hours and hours with chat support and on the phone. I received confirmation from Verizon Networking/Manufacturer support that my settings are correct but no matter what I do I can't see the port as open when testing it. I've used canyouseeme.org and some other random sites for my testing so far and always get a timed out error which to my understanding means traffic isn't even reaching my router (this might not be the case, not 100% sure). I've tested both with the process I'm forwarding for listening and not listening on the ports and either way I get a timed out error.

For context I'm on a CR1000A router and just got it replaced today at Verizon's instruction. It made absolutely no difference. I'll post some images of my settings below:

I've covered the IP's but the SPT and SPT2 rules are pointing to the correct PC. Router security is low so it should be allowing both incoming and outgoing traffic and I've configured all necessary ports in my Windows Firewall as well. I've got a static personal IP, router's IP changes when it reboots but that's not an issue as this isn't for a long term hosting purpose.

Also at Verizon's instruction I've disabled DNS rebind protection which didn't help either. My UPnP is disabled, no other notable changes have been made to the factory settings that I can think of off the top of my head right now. According to every agent I spoke with things should be working so I'm thinking it's something Verizon is doing to block the traffic maybe? I'm looking for any kind of ideas or other things I can try.

Also of note, my IP doesn't seem to be getting masked in any way. The IP listed in my System Status menu is the same as the one I see when doing my tests or getting my IP from the internet so I don't think that's the problem.

I've had numerous chats with support and on the first one the agent told me they were going to do a "Network Sync". No clue what that means but the morning afterwards (the chat ended at like 12:30 AM my time ) the forwarding worked for a little bit, I remember checking it at maybe 7/8 AM. Later on in the day, maybe around 2 or 3 PM though it stopped working when I tested it so I'm not sure if I just dreamed it working...

Sorry if the post is a bit rambly. I'm completely out of ideas at this point, anyone able to help? No clue what else I can do or if I just need to keep bothering Verizon support about it.

Accepted answers

Cang_Household

Port Forwarding is outside the scope of the official support.

Do NOT lower the Firewall security level. Port forwarding, that is pre-routing chain, takes precedence over filtering chains.

Do NOT disable the DNS re-bind protection. There are simply no reasonable scenario that requires its disablement.

I need to see the netstat listening state of your Windows computer, and the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security settings. How are you so sure about Windows Firewall lets the traffic through?

Check this out too, https://community.verizon.com/t5/Knowledge-Hub-Popular-Articles/All-About-Port-Forwarding/ta-p/1696272

All comments

Cang_Household

Port Forwarding is outside the scope of the official support.

Do NOT lower the Firewall security level. Port forwarding, that is pre-routing chain, takes precedence over filtering chains.

Do NOT disable the DNS re-bind protection. There are simply no reasonable scenario that requires its disablement.

Check this out too, https://community.verizon.com/t5/Knowledge-Hub-Popular-Articles/All-About-Port-Forwarding/ta-p/1696272

AlWor

Firstly, thank you so much for your quick response. I've seen you on other posts and was hoping you'd be able to help me out

I re-enabled the rebind protection and reset the router firewall security to the default. When I was exporting my Windows firewall rules to show you I noticed that there were some mistakes in the protocols I had assigned (for example I duplicated a UDP rule and didn't make a TCP rule). I fixed them and, for now at least, things seem to be working.

Apologies for wasting your time but I probably wouldn't have gone back through the Windows Firewall rules without you needing to see them since I was quite frustrated after days of troubleshooting. I've gotten a positive response from Canyouseeme.org before so I'll check again tomorrow but it seems to be working as of right now!

If I run into any problems tomorrow I'll update with all the requested info but for now this seems to be a bit of user error on my part.

For anyone who stumbles on this while troubleshooting double check yourself, even if you're frustrated

Thanks again @Cang_Household
!

Cang_Household

Not at all.

I still need to point that one should not blindly port forward both TCP and UDP. There should always be a use case for forwarding one protocol over the other.

If only TCP is required, do not port forward the UDP, and vice versa. Port Forwarding is really opening a hole on the Firewall with no further filtering, so additional security hardening needs to happen at the receiving device, the computer.