I removed the test rules that I had added for debug, and the pings started working while using the kernel posted a few replies above.
I then upgraded to the latest 24.7.3_1 and installed the 24.7.3 kernel and pings are still working.
So it seems the firewall rules I added to try to solve the problem ended up being a problem once the kernel regressions were implemented.
I then upgraded to the latest 24.7.3_1 and installed the 24.7.3 kernel and pings are still working.
So it seems the firewall rules I added to try to solve the problem ended up being a problem once the kernel regressions were implemented.