Is PIA London and Southampton now blocked for BBC Iplayer

eileentompkins

Iplayer was working for me yesterday. Today i'm gettng the location messages. I've tried deleting cookies, clearing cache, restarting pc, stopping and starting PIA. Is anyone else having this problem, any solutions other than a new VPN?

Thanks

Mutaupi

Same here - well almost the same.

I first noticed iPlayer not working as Eileen describes early on Wed 7 Oct (2015), trying to use the London server. It was OK a few days before.
Tried all the things Eileen tried - same result. However in my case Southampton server still works with iPlayer.
The only difference my end is that I had mistakenly attempted iPlayer access via London without VPN prior to it not working on VPN. I mention this in case it's relevant, though it may not be - because  I have since tried deleting bbc cookies, clearing cache, restarting Firefox, restarting PIA, and restarting the computer. I also tried the Firefox WebRTC fix referred to in other posts on this forum. And I tried using another browser (Edge). All to no avail.

Justauser

Same problem started 10/7/2015
tried same things as above.
I can still play stuff downloaded as of the day prior on the player but cannot access more content.


Since I only use the VPN for this, and PIA is able to fix this--

I will not e renewing my subscription of pia privet Internet access.
cancle auto renew.

yertchuk

Same problem here. Done all the things Mutaupi mentioned, and still no iPlayer. Have a trouble ticket in progress. Problem first noticed 10/7 at 4:00 pm Pacific Time,

dark

here's the instructions I got from online chat support:

 

"The BBC has changed their service to require 

location sharing ini order to connect.

This relies on stored cookies on your system. If 

you are unable to connect to the BBC player, please 

disconnect from the VPN, then clear cache and all 

cookies in your browser. Close the browser 

entirely, reconnect to the VPN, wait 30 seconds, 

and relaunch the browser. After that, go back to 

the BBC site, and say Yes to share location. This 

will generate a cookie using the new IP info from 

the VPN. This should allow you to connect to that 

service."

I'm unsure how to "go back to 

the BBC site, and say Yes to share location"... Has anyone seen that option on the site?

mpenning

I haven't seen anything about location sharing when I delete cookies/cache and go back to the BBC site ...

mt_phile

In Firefox and other browsers derived from its code (Pale Moon) you can change the location sharing by going to the web page and then from the menu select Tools->Page Info, Permissions  and then look for Share Location.

yertchuk

I haven't seen anything about location sharing when I delete cookies/cache and go back to the BBC site ...

I saw a message about cookies yesterday, but this morning it's not there. FWIW I've cleared all Firefox history, including cookies and cache, disabled location aware browsing and also webRTC. Still no go.

mpenning

In Firefox and other browsers derived from its code (Pale Moon) you can change the location sharing by going to the web page and then from the menu select Tools->Page Info, Permissions  and then look for Share Location.

Thanks - tried that too and still no luck (although I did it via right-click, page info).  I allowed location, cleared cookies again, quit the browser, reconnected vpn, and still no go.  I'm beginning to think that bbc is blocking based on IP range ...

dark

In Firefox and other browsers derived from its code (Pale Moon) you can change the location sharing by going to the web page and then from the menu select Tools->Page Info, Permissions  and then look for Share Location.

Thanks - tried that too and still no luck (although I did it via right-click, page info).  I allowed location, cleared cookies again, quit the browser, reconnected vpn, and still no go.  I'm beginning to think that bbc is blocking based on IP range ...

Not sure it's IP range blocking, our iPad is still connecting (knock wood)...  Or maybe they're rolling out IP range blocking starting with non-mobile devices.

FWIW, using Firefox and choosing to share location didn't work for me either...  Has anyone on this thread had any success yet? 

fc2000

The way you know it's not a browser issue is that if you have a TV show in iPlayer set for 'series record' it will start downloading for less than half a second, then stop and report "Unexpected error downloading. Removing programme.'

You would think this is an iPlayer problem, but obviously not when everyone is getting an IP restriction block using the website.

It sure looks like the IP addresses are blocked.

Australian_Derek

Keen to see this resolved promptly. I thought it was just me.

Doesn't seem to be any workarounds that are out there.

biggweilo

It sure looks like the IP addresses are blocked.

Definitely.looks that way. Whether it has been done on IP range or single addresses is something for PIA to investigate.

Has anyone formally logged this with PIA for them to test?

biggweilo

Ok guys, mine is now confirmed working, so IP is not blocked.

Other than deleting cookies, my problem was that I was using Firefox and the old version of Adobe flash.This was blocking the question about if I have a TV license.

Updating flash fixed this for me.

fc2000

I've had the latest version of Flash installed all along.

UPDATE:  I just got rejected by London, and without making _any_ configuration changes, got accepted by Southampton (which had been rejecting me previously). So it looks like most IP addresses are blocked, but not all.

burritoker

Both are blocked now. I can't log on using London or Southampton on my iPad.

I hAve uninstalled and reinstalled the BBC iplayer app all to no avail.

Is PIA looking in to this?

Kat

We add and change IP addresses from time to time. Since there are no new IP addresses anymore, we have to move them from another location to add more bandwidth to a server. The databases that control the geographic location of IP addresses are updated manually by an independent organization. Because everyone has to move IP addresses when they want to add a new one to their service, there is a fairly large backlog when it comes to updating the location of IP addresses.

The IP address actually is in the area in question, but the database just has not been updated yet. This issue usually resolves itself within a week or two, but can certainly take longer. 

The only thing that we can suggest is to try disconnecting and reconnecting to to the UK servers until you gain an Ip address that hasn't been added. Our Southampton server has provided better connections for UK content. Currently the IP address that many users have been able to connect to on Southampton is: 5.63.145.252

If you're using a manual connection you can replace the server name with this Ip address and this will allow you to access UK content. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your patience in this matter. 

Thanks,

Update: We no longer assist in bypassing geo-locked content, please read our policy regarding this at https://support.privateinternetaccess.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/143

yertchuk

Further update: after some random tweaking and changing, I finally managed to access iPlayer. External IP address is shown as 185.2.139.12. I suspect this had nothing to do with anything I changed, but was just a random piece of luck in finding an unblocked IP address.

It does show, though, that there's nothing wrong with my browser setup. Hoperfully PIA can find a way round this issue.

p3493521

Windows 8.1 gives me this

I have only had 8.1 for less than a month as my windows 7 computer fan died and it is taking some time to get the right one.  



Please tell me that this situation is not permanent?  I have been spoiled by just clicking on PIA "bot" and telling it where to connect.

Thank you.

paulinsf

Well, I'm glad to hear that it not just me.  Hopefully this will straighten itself out soon.

fjdupuis

Neither london or Southampton work now for BBC, it's being blocked, have followed all the steps outlined in the forums and it doesn't work.

I hope it can be resolved quickly, but will have to investigate alternate providers in the meantime

grw678

As suggested above in your settings.

Replace : uk-southampton.privateinternetaccess.com
With : 5.63.145.252

Reconnect and that should work (it did for me).

johnnieb

How come Zenmate has connected as UK to BBC with no problem over this period?

scol

Same here. Cannot access Iplayer.

This makes pia useless for me.

Fix it, or lose us.

biggweilo

Could someone having issues with iplayer try to stream live TV through their browser first and see if that works?

There is a question asked about if you have a TV licence that you need to afree to in order for the cookie to be updated.

It would be good to isolate if this is an iplayer issue or a cookie issue.

mt_phile

https://torrentfreak.com/bbc-iplayer-blocks-uk-vpn-servers-over-piracy-concerns-151016/

Dogbert

Same problem here, I cannot access the BBC iplayer either through London or Southampton.

It was all working yesterday but not today.  I hope this can be resolved as access to the BBC was my main reason for joining PIA.

p3493521

I am able to watch live, by clicking that I do have a license. 
It is hit and miss now.  I was just grateful I was able to watch Doctor Who live, today. 

ALSO: My BBC iPlayer Downloads had a fit earlier this evening and wanted me to delete it all and restart.  I just copied the folder, and that helped.

I do honestly hope this is resolved, been over a week now, and I am unable to connect via that L2TP, no matter how hard I try.  As posted above I get an error doing that, even tho I followed every step.  I love PIA.

txykumut

It seems like this is the end of free BBC. But what I want to know is why every new install of LInux is able to connect and watch/download using mpv/youtube-dl. After a day or so, it will stop connectiing and gets banned from the site. this whole thing started to happen after I made an account with iplayer.   It seems like there are some issue on my end because my linux mint cinnamon wiit PIA app can connect and download all BBC stuff still.

p3629736

BBC Iplayer works if you use a service such as Smartdnsproxy or unlocator

Osborne_Cox

BBC are playing the game of whack-a-mole IP. It may not be long before all PIA address ranges are banned.

It is likely they have subscriptions to the most popular VPNs to make their ban lists. Something akin to Hola is harder to tackle without affecting legitimate IP ranges as they are user IPs rather than datacentre.