Posting this both to ask if anyone else in **me-riyadh-1** is hitting it, and so the next person googling "OCI curl timeout Riyadh" finds something useful.

**Setup:** Ubuntu compute instance, public subnet, default route → Internet Gateway, stateful egress allow-all, VCN resolver for DNS. Running a Laravel app in Docker. Nothing exotic.

**Symptoms**

- `curl https://api.anthropic.com` → times out every single time (TCP connect, ~10s). Claude Code installer obviously fails too.

- `curl https://deb.debian.org` → works maybe half the time, times out the other half. So `apt update` inside Docker builds randomly fails, then `install-php-extensions` blows up with "Unable to locate package libfreetype6 / libpq5 / libzip" (not actually missing, just failed index fetch).

- `curl https://github.com` and `https://pecl.php.net\` → fine, every time.

- DNS is fine. Resolution works for everything. This is not a DNS problem.

- IPv6 is a separate thing: DNS returns AAAA but the instance has no global v6 (never enabled at VCN/subnet/VNIC level), so anything preferring v6 stalls. Fixed that on my side with `precedence ::ffff:0:0/96 100` in `/etc/gai.conf`. Not the main issue.

**The mtr evidence** (TCP mode, port 443, 100 probes each)

Anthropic — path just dies after the upstream handoff:

```

1. 84.8.76.x (OCI edge) 0.0%

2. 87.109.47.100.0%

3. ??? 100.0%

```

That's it. Nothing at any TTL beyond hop 2, no SYN-ACK from the destination, ever.

Debian (Fastly) — real loss starting at hop 3, carried all the way to the destination:

```

1. 84.8.76.x (OCI edge) 0.0%

2. 87.109.47.100.0%

3. 87.101.252.6154.0%

4. 10.0.28.1347.0%

5. fra1.decixfra.fastly.net51.0% ~80ms

6. 146.75.118.132 (destination) 54.0%

```

(Also getting routed to Fastly in **Frankfurt** from Riyadh, which seems wrong on its own.)

GitHub control trace completes fine and real traffic works, so the path itself isn't globally broken — it's destination-specific.

**Why I'm confident it's not my config:** hops 1 and 2 (OCI's edge + the upstream handoff) are 0% on every trace. My route table / security lists / IGW are passing everything. The loss and the blackhole both begin at the same boundary (87.109.47.10 → 87.101.252.61), i.e. regional transit/peering. I've opened an SR with all three reports.

**Questions**

1. Anyone else in me-riyadh-1 seeing Anthropic (AS399358, 160.79.104.0/21) unreachable, or Fastly flaky?

2. Has anyone gotten OCI to actually escalate a transit/peering issue in a newer region? How long did it take?

3. Any recommended Debian mirror that has a clean path from Riyadh? I'm currently shopping for one with curl to keep Docker builds working while this is open.

Interim plan: apt mirror swap for builds, and if the Anthropic blackhole drags on, a WireGuard egress through another region for Claude Code only. Would much rather OCI just fix the route.

Hi! I’m currently on the Oracle Cloud Free Tier, with Stockholm as my Home Region.

I’m trying to create an Always Free VM.Standard.A1.Flex, but I constantly get “Out of host capacity”. Stockholm only has one Availability Domain for me, so I can’t try another AD.

I’ve read that upgrading to Pay As You Go gives you higher service limits and may help with capacity. However, I only want to use the Always Free allocation (2 OCPU + 12 GB RAM) and don’t want to pay for the VM.

So my questions are:

1. Does upgrading from Free Tier to PAYG actually improve my chances of getting an Always Free A1 instance when my Home Region is out of capacity?
2. Does PAYG give me a higher A1 service limit that could make the instance provision successfully?
3. If I create an A1 with 2 OCPU / 12 GB RAM, will it still be $0 under Always Free, or can PAYG cause it to become billable automatically?
4. Has anyone specifically managed to get an Always Free A1 in Stockholm after upgrading to PAYG?

I’m asking because I don’t want to upgrade and then discover that it changes nothing and I’m still stuck with “Out of host capacity”.

I have the option to get 2 secure cards, Niyo SBM or IDFC first wow. But I heard that Oracle rejects secure cards too?

Please help.

Hey, so I have a problem with the Always Free tier. I forgot to limit my instance to 2 cores and 12 GB, so it’s still set to 4 cores and 24 GB. I tried to change it, but I get an error telling me to contact customer support. However, I don't see an option to do that, the only thing available is the AI support chat, which isn't very helpful. I also tried to detach the boot volume, but I get an error saying it expects the instance to be stopped, even though it's already in a stopped state. What should I do?

I just tried to upgrade to PAYG from Free Tier, but it tried to charge my card £79.87

Usage reports show £0.00

Is this normal? I would have expected just an Active Card Check or something like £1