PPPOE not working after a recent firmware update

[shlomithemoney]

Hello,

I know this is a grey zone and is not officially supported but like a lot of Bell users i use my own routing equipment and like other users i have found that since my modem rebooted on the latest firmware, pppoe from the router is not working anymore.

There is already a reddit thread discussing the details here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/bell/comments/1u2k2rb/did_bell_start_blocking_pppoe_connections_entirely/ 

Basically the bug seems to be that "Any packet over certain size would trigger incorrect PPP frame length meaning that the length reported in the header was different from the actual payload size."

Is it possible to know if this is related to some firmware issue and a fix is coming or if it was deliberate change from Bell?

Any info about this would be appreciated since its currently starting to impact more users and we are all on our own so far wasting our time debugging this.

Thanks!

[TheInvisibleCustomer]

I spoke to an agent and their canned response was "3.11.6.3 will be rolled out in due time. That could be days, weeks or months, and we cannot tell you when it will happen."

What's the impact of having a double NAT?

[Vanadiel]

See here. 

Practically it's not the end of the world to have double NAT.

[Vanadiel]

The majority of people will not use PPPOE to establish a secondary direct connection. It's a limited amount of people who use it.

That is why it's a bit slow to be updated. If this firmware would have caused complete connectivity loss for customers you would see a much faster fix since it's would be way higher on the priority scale.

A roll back might also not be possible as we do not know what this firmware repaired in terms of security flaws or other issues. Rolling back might sound easy, but might not be advisable due to security or other risks. Bell does not provide changelogs for their firmware.

It does look like a new firmware version is being rolled out to address the PPPOE issues, and they are typically rolled out in waves just in case something unusual happens and things don't work as intended.

You can try powercycling your modem and it might update to the latest firmware.

[Kroma]

Just to add some more info on this thread. It's not just on the Gigahub they broke PPOE on , it's on the HH4000 also. I have been running at full speed (1.5 Gbps) on PPoe with no issues for years and it broke about a month ago. If I try putting my router on the ADMZ , the same thing happens as what is reported in this thread, drop of connection every 10 minutes.

It is running firmware: 6.4.1.0-300-84b3688-local

[dg6464]

Double NAT essentially is your public IP being two layers up from your client devices... so for any type of services you host, or if you access your home remotely in any way, it makes it more difficult.

The major area you will see an impact is if you have gaming consoles from Xbox, Nintendo, Playstation, or do PC gaming... as many require port forwarding to be seen as proper "Open NAT" or a high-quality NAT rating in their multiplayer environments (even with UPnP enabled).

Many services have NAT Traversal built in and have some form of meet in the middle "helper" type server architecture that bandaids the issue though, so for the average user it's not as big of a deal... but for any family with gamers or prosumer/tech-forward folks, it can be an issue for sure.

[dg6464]

I'd say this is true for the most part.

However... that's been changing over the last few years with mesh wifi systems being utilized much much more and offering significantly better performance, coverage, EASIER management than Bell Pods... along with no ridiculous monthly fees (they are way less expensive now).

Mesh systems are now a massive market that is no longer geared towards a prosumer... those folks are now more typically in the Ubiquiti world.

All of those mesh systems use PPPoE bypass for the most part... and offer great coverage, easier management and higher throughput than modems provided by ISP's.

So... this is a bigger issue than I believe Bell thinks.

It's just many folks haven't discovered it yet... with the major reason being ths throttle is often between 300-450Mbps. The average home (even with gamers, multiple people) doesn't really see a major difference in performance when gaming or scrolling with top-end services like 1-8Gbps symmetrical download and upload.

I can say in our household... I just started to notice this in the last few months myself when I would download Xbox games or Steam games, or do updates it would show speeds in the 250-450Mbps range and my family would report their stuff would get slow.

Regarding the roll-out of the firmware for 3.11.6.3 that is meant to fix this issue... I called Bell last night and am waiting on a Level 2 Tech to call me back as "none were available at this time" (fair, it was between 10-11pm)... this has been the timing on my modem of previous firmware updates, which are NOT OFTEN, so I am hoping Bell rolls this out quicker than most previous updates in the past (happening ~1 time per year, around November-December):

• May 20, 2026 04:25:13 → Bell ACS/TR-069 pushed firmware 3.11.6.2.
• 2025-11-04 04:24:44–04:25:17 firmware update
• 2024-12-13 02:43:39 firmware update
• 2023-12-07 02:50:55–02:51:25 firmware update

Here's hoping Level 2 calls me back today, as Level 1 just doesn't know much about the networking world and is trained not to go off script for that reason. I was told "your modem is running the latest 3.11.6.2 firmware and is in a working state, there is no 3.11.6.3 firmware version that I can see available".

I ran a "Reset Bell Settings" from the modem to no avail.

I ran a "Factory Reset" from the GUI to no avail (it set the modem admin password to something other than what I had set and something other than the modem Serial# on the back.

I ran a "Factory Reset" by holding the button on the side of the Gigahub 1.0 for longer than the period that the screen says it's going to reset... (I held it until the screen turned off and it fully rebooted). Then the admin password was set back to the Serial# of the modem... however the issue still persisted and no 3.11.6.3 firmware was pushed, so my modem clearly isn't in the queue for rollout.

However, the Factory Resets fixed some issues of other services not showing as available on the modem (I don't use Phone or TV anyway, but they showed as working after resetting). Also... the "Speedtest" function both on the modem main panel and in the Bell Gigahub GUI was also not functioning previously... but now is working properly.

So I am hoping the Factory Reset will allow for more stable usege of Advanced DMZ than I have experience in the past (used to be "Flaky").

Will report of any major issues as I've now swapped OPNsense from PPPoE passthrough (being limited to 300-450Mbps) to Advanced DMZ (seeing full speeds).

I also verified the Double-NAT scenario (essentially just getting DHCP from the Bell modem on your Router/Firewalls WAN) provides full speeds. 

Both Double-NAT and Advanced DMZ are the same configuration on your Router/Firewall (WAN DHCP), but Advanced DMZ shares the Public IP that the modem gets directly with the Router/Firewall's WAN DHCP. You just need to get it configured properly and probably benefit from a Factory Reset beforehand to clear any other long-term modem quirks after years of firmware updates importing and re-importing older config files.

Two things I noticed after Factory Reset as well... the GUI speed was much better, as well as IPv6 showing as a toggle on the Gighub "Advanced tools and settings" under "Networking". I'm not sure if it was there before or functioning; I have not verified if it's actually being used in practice on the WAN, or just offering IPv6 leases internally to clients.

[dg6464]

Correct, this PPPoE Bypass throttling issue seems to be appearing in Gigahub 1.0, Gigahub 2.0 and HH4000.

Not sure about HH3000 though.

I've verified with some friends that only some of them are affected... so possibly they have the 3.11.6.3 firmware already, or haven't received the 3.11.6.2 push yet.

[Khorem · Accepted solution]

Just an update on my setup in case this helps anyone else following this issue.

I'm still running Giga Hub firmware **3.11.6.2**.

Today I decided to switch my **UniFi UDM-SE back to PPPoE** and reboot the UDM-SE. To my surprise, PPPoE is now working normally and I have Internet connectivity.

Previously, PPPoE on this same firmware would obtain a public IP but I could not get working Internet connectivity, which is why I had temporarily gone back to regular DHCP behind the Giga Hub.

Current setup:

* Bell Giga Hub firmware: **3.11.6.2**
* Router: **UniFi UDM-SE**
* WAN: **PPPoE**
* Advanced DMZ: **Not being used**
* Static route workarounds: **None**
* PPPoE Internet: **Working**

I haven't been running it long enough yet to comment on long-term stability, so I'll leave it running and report back if I experience any disconnects.

Interesting that PPPoE is now working for me without the Giga Hub having been upgraded to 3.11.6.3.

[dks]

Thank you for the update. That's great information for other users with similar equipment! 

[TechBoyJL]

Please let us know after a few days what your experience has been.  This is encouraging.

[NinjaNet]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to test this one out, as I am in a similar situation with still a Giga Hub Firmware 3.11.6.2, with PfSense and UniFi infrastructure. But it seems the PPPoE reduced speed throttling issue is still present, without any signs of improvement unfortunately, back to work around solution for now. We are hoping Bell could provide some clarify and further updates when a new working firmware will be pushed to everyone. Please let us know, Thank you!

[bpsmicro]

This is the critical bit. Some people stated that PPPoE was totally not working, but that seemed to be the minority. Most (which included myself) were in the situation where it "worked", but speeds were abysmal. So anybody claiming that it's "fixed" would have to report full speeds (for me, that was 3Gbps down and just over 1Gbps up when it was working, which apparently is a recognized PPPoE limitation depending on your router/etc).

Alas, I can't test myself because I swapped the modem out for a stick & media converter, and have had zero downtime in 4 weeks now. 🙂

[Randal]

So you’re saying I picked a bad day to convert to this? What was the cost of bypassing the GH with a media converter? Do you have any details on how you did this? 

I guess I’ll go back to regular DMZ as I can’t even get ADMZ to work for some reason. 

[somehelmet]

I second what bpsmicro said. I'm no networking wiz but here's what I can gather.

I'm still on 3.11.6.2 for the GigaHub, UniFi Dream Router 7 OS version 5.1.19.

Reconnected pppoe on my router > internet "works", I get a public IP but all speedtest fails, with any sites. Steam downloads don't work -- but for some reason, I can surf the web though latency is very shotty at best; pages take 5 to 10 seconds to load versus the usual <1 to 2 seconds norm. I've already cleared cache, flushdns, tried from laptop Wi-Fi and desktop through 2.5g ethernet connection.

Disconnect pppoe on router, speeds are back to normal. 1.5Gbps DL & UL.

It’s pretty frustrating that a single reply on this thread was marked "accepted as a solution" based on just one person’s feedback without actual verification or testing on their part. No offense, Khorem, you good, it's just the jumping to conclusion that's pretty short-sighted.

[PJ97]

I wouldnt hold my breath for it "working" now. My modem randomly stopped allowing pppoe until i manually re-entered my credentials 3 times now.

Definitely not resolved