Recently, I noticed almost overnight I was having problems with my internet connection. Something had changed because it wasn’t always so . . . .
While surfing the internet, my connection would just die. The pages would stop loading. I would have to reboot my router to solve the problem. This usually worked.
But sometimes it wouldn’t. So I would reboot it again. That would fix it.
Sometimes, if I simply waited long enough, then my connectivity would be restored. Whatever got “hung” simply became “unhung.”
It turns out I was having IPV6 problems. That means “Internet Protocol Version 6.” It is intended to replace IPV4. Standard ip addresses are in the format 255.255.255.255. Your computer has an IP address. Every internet-connected device has an address.
But there are so many devices being connected that we are running out of unique addresses. IPV6 is supposed to remedy this problem. IPV4 has room for 4.3 billion addresses (4.3 x 10^9), but IPV6 has room for 3.4 x 10^38.
That’s practically infinity these days.
Anyway, as it turned out, my internet service provider upgraded my connection from IPV4 to IPV6. My router was incapable of properly supporting IPV6, so it would hang every so often. I had to replace it with one that was IPV6-capable. That fixed the problem.
One way to test whether your network is IPV6 compatible is by running tests. Here are two websites that offer two different tests. Both check your IPV6 connectivity. It’s good to run both.
The tests run automatically when you load the website: