Port forwarding on app "Something unexpected happened"

I'm really angry now. This issue has been posted in the forum for many years.

I need to set up port forwarding. Telling me "We encountered an issue" is not acceptable. I NEED TO SET UP PORT FORWARDING, PERIOD.

I know my account can do it because other port forwards are working. I just can't set up a new one.

I have been easily setting up port forwarding on home routers since 1997. Why does Xfinity not have the bugs out of this yet? Why is this so incredibly difficult, when I'm paying $1200/year for this service?

The above linked reddit thread doesn't work. The idea I can only access port forwarding through the help chat system is stupid enough — on top of the incredibly user-hostile, already totally moronic stupidity that I can only access my router's internal settings through a smartphone app — but even following the recommended steps to set Chrome as my default browser doesn't even allow me access to the the help chat, just a blank screen, so that advice isn't usable. Your app is totally broken.

This is the most user-hostile thing I've ever seen. There is no excuse for this happening. I pay you $1200/year and you're making it impossible for me to set up a simple forwarded port. I've already lost 2 hours on this, something that should take 45 seconds. And there are complaints about this on these forums going back years and it's still not fixed. For $1200/customer/year. Unbelievable.

EDIT: So, after about 15 tries, it suddenly opened the chat assistant. The prompts were nothing like desscribed in that reddit post, all it ever lets you do for issues with your netowkr is choose "See my network info", "Extend my range", and "troubleshoot slow speeds", as if those are the only possible problems you can ever have. Then I discovered if you keep entering "xfi" over and over again, eventually it offers you "network" as an option, and if you click that, it offers you "advanced" as an option, and then, from there, you can get it to successfully open the port forwarding settings. So you enter a new port forward, and hit submit.... AND IT SAYS, "WE'RE HAVING SOME TROUBLE, PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER" AND YOU CAN NEVER ACTUALLY SET UP THE PORT FORWARD.

This is the worst, most-user hostile system I have ever seen. I am leaving negative reviews of Xfinity on every reputable consumer site that I can find to. I don't understand why over time I pay you more and more money and yet your service just keeps getting even worse. You now force us to use a smartphone app for local settings; but the only smart phone app you provide is BROKEN!

I NEED TO SET UP A PORT FORWARD! EVERY SINGLE OTHER ISP I'VE HAD SINCE 1997 HAS ALLOWED ME TO DO THIS IN UNDER 45 SECONDS! WHY DOESN'T THE BY FAR MOST EXPENSIVE INTERNET SERVICE I'VE EVER HAD ALLOW IT AFTER HOURS OF STRUGGLING? FIX YOUR SYSTEM!

At this point, you have a monopoly in my city so if I want high speed internet I literally have no choice but to put up with your garbage. Even so, Xfinity will be VERY lucky if I do not decide to go with a much slower service just to get away from you. It would be worth it. Not being able to forward ports when I need to means I don't have internet service AT ALL for the biggest things I need internet service for. Every single other thing I need the internet for besides the things I need to forward ports to do, I can do on my phone, which is through a different carrier. So you have finally reduced your service to where it is literally no better than if I just cancelled it, I am paying $100/month for literally nothing, it's a complete waste of money for me now.

You can't just waste hours and hours of your customers' time like this, or they won't be your customers anymore!

EDIT 2: I figured it out. Choosing the correct device results in the vague, 100% unhelpful "We're having some trouble" error, because your inexcusably broken, user-hostile app shows the wrong device names, different than the correct names shown in the router admin screens! I was able to get the port forward working by finding a working port forward to the same machine, noting the INCORRECT name displayed for it displayed in your broken app, and setting up the port forward to that INCORRECT name. Now the router is correctly forwarding the port to the device I wanted it to, the device whose correct name from the router's own admin screens caused only the vague, completely unhelpful error when I specified it in the app as the destination for the port forward.

There is no excuse for any of this! This should not have wasted 3 hours of my time, it should have taken 45 seconds like it has with every other router and ISP I've ever used in the last 30 years. Your system is broken, from comments in these forums it obviously has been for years, this is all totally user-hostile and disrespectful of your customers and the truly stupendous amounts of money you charge for this broken system, and I am going to go ahead with leaving lousy reviews of Xfinity on the consumer review sites. Your system fought me and gave unpredictable and unhelpful errors literally every single step of the way on this! Not one single step of this already massively inconvenient system even worked as it was supposed to!

What a pathetic company Comcast / Xfinity is!!! For being a communications company/ISP, their lack of quality support is mind blowing. The genius who thought it would be a good idea to put the port forwarding and dmz on the app instead of on the modem itself, where it belongs, should be fired (on). I was hoping to set my computer up with port forwarding before I leave to go to Europe to do the same to another computer there and after two days of working on this I've run out of time. That's it, I'm so done Xfinity!!! At some point you realized that it's not just a bad agent you ended up with! It's the whole company, the whole operation stinks from the top down! When I get back I'm dropping Xfinity Internet AND Mobile, and I'm never coming back!

(new workaround discovered)

If anybody is still dealing with this issue, I have found a new way to get the chatbot to take you to the port forwarding page.

In the Xfinity app, go to the chatbot and do the following:

1. Write "Take me to the port forwarding page"

2. Select "Network"

3. Select "Open advanced settings"

4. Select "Port forwarding"

The old workaround on Reddit doesn't work anymore, but this one does at the time of writing. Good luck, and this company is terrible!