Need someone well versed in networking to help me diagnose port issue

So my networking acumen is fairly generic. Its never had to be anything but. Never ran into an issue.

Well, just upgraded to gigabit fiber which speed wise is amazing - but it has left me unable to forward ports (at least for inbound tcp?) which leaves it substantially closer to useless.

I expected to be able to forward qbittorrent ez pz and then move on to other more complicated things like plex (requires pointing an outside port to a diff inside port, not even sure if its possible on my gateway, it was not on my old one so i was stuck using upnp which this gateway doesnt have/include)

Anyways, the gateway is the Arris BGW BGW210-700.

I have it set to forward TCP/UDP to qbittorrent on the same port I have manually specified. It works when connected to the VPN (i forward the same port through their web interface) so I know its something specific with my gateway.

I used the trial of port forward network utilities and it says that port is open UDP, but closed on TCP. Ironically even though qbittorrent is set to use either, Im not connectable as TCP needs to be open.

I know theres means via command line to see whats pointing where, and someone with the know-how can whittle it down from there. Its just a bit above my pay-grade.

If anyone can help, id be eternally grateful. ive wasted several days on this now Router restarts. computer restarts. switch restarts. ip release/renews. dns flush. Dont know what else to do.

Hi xTL, thank you a TON.

I added the vpn within windows itself. it has its own tap9 virtual adapter.

Ill get you those screenshots now. BRB

I think this is what you were looking for. Its about as straight forward as it gets. Somehow, somewhere its differentiating between outbound and inbound, and receiving nothing inbound (except evidently UDP at least per the portforward.com app). The various websites simply say port not open, which I presume is due to them only checking tcp but thats just an assumption.

oh no, im trying to do this without the VPN. and starting small - just want to get qbittorrent working without the vpn (as it already does with).

then will work my way onto plex without the VPN, then plex with.

Starting small! (arguably more important anyhow). I rarely access plex remotely, whereas being unable to torrent (at least at reasonable speeds disconnected from vpn) sucks.

I use torguard fwiw though.

ill give them a try, either way the private tracker I use lists me as not connectable when im not connected to the vpn. Plus no seeding. Also the portforward.com tool. But ill check those, and bookmark em FFR.

honestly, I have no idea. Thats right about where my acumen (or lack thereof) gets shakey. If you can tell me where to look - I can check though.

I know i dont pay for a static IP. And I set a fixed internal IP to the PC im trying to get this working on. It shows up as the proper fixed IP in the device list, and via /ipconfig and the erased spot(s) on the screenshot are the hostname of the PC as detected by the router (just assume thats not a good idea to put on the net alongside the port).