ok, thanks

The firewall in 14.04 is not enabled by default, in the 12.04 series it was, perhaps they are getting stuck even when 'disabled' in 12.04, we did try a few different ways to 'clear' them in this thread but they didn't seem to work.

The difference between the two that seems the most plausible is the firewall. Enabled by default in 12.04 and wasn't in 14.04. 

The biggest reason it wasn't enabled in 14.04 is because it was frequently overlooked and caused a lot of question in the forums, usually related to network printer, and at times ssh. To which I usually replied turn off the firewall, which they did and it work, I was trying to avoid that in 14.04

Regardless, your guess is as good as mine as why 12.04.4 simply refused to 'connect'.