topic Re: IP Profile Stuck? in Broadband

IP Profile Stuck?

dgilbert2 — Sat, 14 May 2022 06:01:24 GMT

I upgraded to Unlimited Fibre Extra a few days ago and the DLM is doing its "stuff" to lower the SNR margin towards 3db and increase the connection speed, Current line stats below:

Connection Stats

My issue though is that the IP Profile has stopped increasing and is currently stuck at 49.47 Mbps, see below:

IP Profile

Could a member of the PN team please check this for me and reset the IP Profile, thank you.

(I suspect this is a hangover from a street cable fault we had a couple of years) when on Unlimited Fibre.)

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

Townman — Sat, 14 May 2022 06:48:26 GMT

If you are not on a static IP address, Plusnet's IP profile will have no affect on your data transfer rate. Regardless of that the IP profile reported here is that of BT Wholesale and TTBOMK Plusnet has not influence over that.

Depending on the level of error recovery (interleaving) on your line, the IP profile could be as low as 91% of the sync speed and then you need to deduct a little on data tests for message over heads. The stats below indicate that interleaving is being applied to the DS. Your BT IP profile is probably about right.

If you are on a static IP address, there is a slight possibility that the Plusnet profile is a little behind the curve.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

dgilbert2 — Sat, 14 May 2022 08:09:01 GMT

Thank you @Townman for your reply which I understand.

The reason for raising this request for help though is that the IP Profile is not changing from exactly "49.47" as the connection speed is increasing through 6 to 5 to 4 SNR margin changes. I am therefore not seeing the benefit of the improved DLM performance settings. In fact, the delta between connection speed and IP Profile is currently sat around 89%, steadily reducing as DLM makes improvements. I suspect in a couple of days when it goes to 3db, I'll be at a delta in the order of 86 / 87%, but time will tell on that.

If the IP Profile cannot be "adjusted / reset" by BTW, I believe my request therefore is for PN Staff to kindly review and request a full BTW DLM reset, especially following the previous line fault I had which looks to have locked my IP profile somehow.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

dgilbert2 — Sat, 14 May 2022 14:58:20 GMT

Troubleshooter ticket #224452662 raised to assist.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

dgilbert2 — Mon, 16 May 2022 05:46:04 GMT

Update

DLM has now completed its change to 3dB SNR margin, achieving a connection speed of 60192 kbps. Unfortunately the IP Profile remains stuck at 49.47 Mbps, now 82% of the connection speed. I have attached the respective screen shots below including my CRC and ES graphs which show zero issues apart from the modem resync itself at about 4AM, showing that the line is handling the 3dB SNR connection very well.

Could a member of PN staff please review how to resolve the stuck IP Profile as discussed earlier, so that I can benefit from the lines full capability. Thank you.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

Gandalf — Mon, 16 May 2022 12:41:53 GMT

Hi there,

Our tests are indeed showing a profile mismatch, so I've done a DLM reset for you now.

Can you let me know how it goes over the next 24 hours?

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

dgilbert2 — Mon, 16 May 2022 13:12:08 GMT

Thank you @Gandalf , I can see the DLM reset has already been applied to the connection.

One question, I see that G.INP has remained enabled. In the past I recall this cleared on a DLM reset, so does it default to enabled now?

I see the IP Profile has remained on exactly 49.47 which surprised me, but I guess we need to leave things now for a few days for DLM to do its thing again? I'll post back how things go.

Thanks again.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

Gandalf — Mon, 16 May 2022 14:12:15 GMT

Cool. No worries, I don't know what the default configuration is for G.INP, but let's see how it goes over the next few days.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

Champnet — Mon, 16 May 2022 14:41:13 GMT

@dgilbert2 I had G.INP enabled before a DLM reset, It's still enabled.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

dgilbert2 — Mon, 16 May 2022 15:06:43 GMT

Thanks for the info @Champnet 👍

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

RealAleMadrid — Tue, 17 May 2022 06:50:20 GMT

@dgilbert2 I saw your post on TBB forum so will also put a different version of my post here.

I don't think Plusnet's Current Line Speed profile is to blame in this case, it only affects users on a Static IP.

The BT Wholesale IP profile is stuck at 49.47Mbps. When DLM reduced the SNRM target to 3dB resulting in a increase of around 4.5Mbps the IP profile did not change.

@Gandalf the line was not banded so what would DLM reset achieve? Was it actually a DLM reset as I thought you couldn't action one unless the line was banded? It hasn't done anything to solve the problem just increased the SNRM to 6.3db so the sync speed has dropped to 52.15Mbps but the IP profile is still stuck, it should be around 47.45Mbps or even less because the line appears to be on G.Inp with retransmission high.

The problem is the BT Wholesale IP profile is not tracking the current sync speed.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

Gandalf — Tue, 17 May 2022 07:22:47 GMT

We’ve got a shiny new tool to carry out DLM resets ourselves, but agreed I’ve only done it so far if a speed’s banded, or in this case to fix the profile mismatch, which our tests showed. Granted though the sync speed dropped which had effectively sorted out the mismatch.

As far as I’m aware through the conversations I’ve had with our suppliers, for FTTC the IP profile is managed by Openreach, and Wholesale have no control over this.

Also I agree the ‘current line speed’ profile wouldn’t have any effect in this case as they’ve got a dynamic IP.

I think it’s worth seeing if the IP profile increases, should the sync speed go up over the coming days.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

dgilbert2 — Tue, 17 May 2022 07:37:04 GMT

@RealAleMadrid @Gandalf , thank you both for your help on this, it is appreciated.

If history repeats itself, DLM will probably put me on to a 5dB SNRM on Thursday morning, so fingers crossed we'll then see the IP Profile increase. Until then, I must admit I'm suspicious as to why the IP Profile is still *exactly* 49.47, even this morning, but hopefully I will be proved wrong shortly 😉 🤞.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

Gandalf — Tue, 17 May 2022 07:44:28 GMT

No problem, aye let’s see what happens.

If the IP profile does remain stuck after the sync speed increases, it may be worth arranging an engineer as that’s the only way we’ll be able to involve Openreach.

But let me know how it goes.

FWIW I’ve read your ThinkBroadband forum thread.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

dgilbert2 — Wed, 18 May 2022 07:34:27 GMT

Update

Following a suggestion from the TBB forum, yesterday afternoon I decided to disconnect for 30 minutes (dropped PPPoE, wait 30s, dropped VDSL, wait 30 minutes, re-established VDSL then PPPoE). I also followed this with a quick reboot this morning. I then must have been bored, (or something like that 😜) and put a summary table together of what has been happening:

I will not be manually touching the modem again to avoid upsetting DLM!!!

The 30 minute disconnect seems to of had a positive impact:

a) I've now got a new IP, the old one I'd had for almost 6 months, in fact I was beginning to think the system had stopped renewing them after a period of time.

b) The IP Profile changed to 46.85 and again to 48.08 on the last reboot. Now in my mind this is perhaps a positive sign? I.e. the IP profile has actually changed now, tracking the connection speed at around 92.5%, which seems to make sense?

So I'm beginning to hope, with fingers crossed, that when the SNRM starts to drop, I will start to climb above the dreaded stuck IP Profile of 49.47. Now I know I'm tempting fate, but I wonder if in the next couple of days it will increase to around 50.2 😮, lets see.........

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

Townman — Wed, 18 May 2022 08:28:27 GMT

One wonders how much discernible difference that will make to your internet usage experience? Sometimes pushing the sync speed to its limits only serves to introduce higher error rates with a consequent fall in useable data transfer speeds.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

Gandalf — Wed, 18 May 2022 08:44:33 GMT

Cheers for the update,

Glad that the IP profile is no longer stuck so the DLM reset did the trick, even though the sync speed dropped as a result.

Dynamic IPs in our network are assigned from localised, relatively small pools specific to an exchange, so that'd explain why they're "sticky" and don't change very often.

Just to clear a couple of things up which adslmax suggested in the thread on the ThinkBroadband forums, although you may already have worked it out. I haven't responded over there as I don't have a 'staff' account and I don't fancy opening a flood gate for people to PM my personal account.

The "current line speed" profile our side (known internally as the workplace profile) will have no effect on your throughput as you've got a dynamic IP, but even with a static IP, it doesn't affect DLM.

Also, we haven't charged a call out fee for an engineer visit as part of a fault investigation for almost a year.

All that said, and while I sort of agree with Townman in that it's mostly academic, interesting stuff!

Keep me posted on how you get on.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

dgilbert2 — Wed, 18 May 2022 09:18:28 GMT

Thanks @Gandalf . I'm just hoping that I've not spoken too soon, but things do seem to be working as they should at the moment. If the IP Profile changes as SNRM reduces in the coming days, that will be the final conformation that all is good again 🤞

Whether it was the DLM reset, or the "reset" triggered by the 30 minute disconnect that has woken up the IP Profile system, we may probably never know. However, at least this has shown two "toolbox" options if this occurs again for standard Dynamic IP users.

Hi @Townman , in fairness I've not raised user experience, (or throughput speed) at any point during this, simply that I was seeing a problem which was later confirmed as a "profile mismatch" fault by the BTW system. There is no harm in understanding a fault and trying to fix it in my view and it may also benefit other users in the future. However, since you ask, when I get back to 3dB SNRM, with a rough estimated IP Profile 55.7, that's around a 10% throughput improvement from the stuck profile and 50% improvement before upgrading to Fibre Extra (I've also based this on when I was on Fibre Extra in the past). As our household streams more and more HD/UHD TV in different rooms these days, I'll take that improvement any day before having to consider FTTP 😉

Just hoping things really are resolved now .......😲

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

Gandalf — Wed, 18 May 2022 09:23:37 GMT

No problem @dgilbert2, it's a mystery but fingers crossed all is good now moving forward.

Re: IP Profile Stuck?

dgilbert2 — Sun, 22 May 2022 08:36:39 GMT

Update - Umm, interesting!?

DLM has finally started to make changes. It seems to have taken a couple of days longer this time, but I assume it was down to the restarts I did earlier and DLM wanting 3 clear days before doing anything.

Anyway, I've updated my table with the current situation;

So I'm still on 6dB SNRM, but changed to retransmission low, INPRein 0. In my opinion it looks like the IP Profile has been locked again, this time to 48.08 as it should be more in the region of 50 with retransmission low. I'm therefore starting to wonder if the overall system logic has been changed to lock the IP Profile when DLM tries making improvements and once concluded, the IP Profile is then unlocked (this does give a consistent user throughput experience during DLM activity), but I could be completely wrong!! More, do nothing, waiting game to see where I end up!.............