topic Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible in Full Fibre

Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

Cube — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 17:45:57 GMT

Before switching to PlusNet I was with TalkTalk and I had almost zero problems with gaming. After switching to PlusNet, I experience issues daily while gaming on my PC via Ethernet - this includes things such as teleporting every few seconds and actions and commands being delayed in-game. Furthermore, this isn't just an in-game issue, it also happens when I am in voice chat as there are spikes of lag in the calls every few moments and it is really frustrating. I have tested pinging the gateway through Command Prompt and it shows those spikes that I am talking about. I would like to get rid of this lag because it never happened with my previous ISP.

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

EmilyD — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 19:35:58 GMT

Hi @Cube,

I'm sorry that you've been experiencing problems with your connection since moving to us and for the inconvenience caused.

I've tested your line however the test isn't picking up any problems from here:

GEA Test Detail
Circuit ID	NA	Service ID	BBEUXXXXXXXX


Test Outcome	Pass
Test Outcome Code	GTC_FTTC_SERVICE_0000
Description	GEA service test completed and no fault found .
Main Fault Location	OK
Sync Status	In Sync
Downstream Speed	78.9 Mbps
Upstream Speed	20.0 Mbps
Appointment Required	N
Fault Report Advised	N
NTE Power Status	PowerOn
Voice Line Test Result	Pass
Bridge Tap	Detected
Radio Frequency Ingress	Not Detected
Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise	Not Detected
Cross Talk	Not Detected
Estimated Line Length In Metres	201.6
Upstream Rate Assessment	Very Good
Downstream Rate Assessment	Very Good
Interference Pattern	Not Detected
Service Impact	No Impact Observed
Home Wiring Problem	Not Detected
Downstream Policing Discard Rate	0.0
Customer Traffic Level	Upstream and Downstream Traffic Detected
Technology	VDSL
Profile Name	0.128M-80M Downstream, Retransmission Low - 0.128M-20M Upstream, Error Protection Off
Time Stamp	2019-02-09T19:30:00

Parameters	MIN	MAX	AVG
Down Stream Line Rate	78.8 Mbps	79.6 Mbps	79.1 Mbps
Up Stream Line Rate	20.0 Mbps	20.0 Mbps	20.0 Mbps
Up Time	777.0 Sec	900.0 Sec	899.5 Sec
Retrains	0.0	1.0	0.0

Current and Last 15 Minute Bin Performance
Parameters	Last Traffic Count(Upto 15 mins)	Current Traffic Count(Upto 15 mins)
Start Time Stamp	2019-02-22T18:55:16Z	2019-02-22T19:10:16Z
Ingress Code Violation	5	4
Egress Code Violation	0	0
Errored Seconds	0	0
Severely Errored Seconds	0	0
Unavailable Seconds	0	0

We'll need to do some troubleshooting to try and narrow down the cause of this issue.

I'd recommend starting with basic checks here, If these checks don't resolve the problem, the next step would be to connect your router directly to the test socket, which is under the faceplate of your master socket and seeing if the drops stop. This rules out internal wiring, face plates and extension sockets as being the cause. Please see the following guide for instructions on how to connect to the test socket. https://community.plus.net/t5/Library/Testing-From-The-Master-Socket/ba-p/1322242

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 20:39:19 GMT

@Cube Instead of using 'ping' can you use 'mtr' (or maybe WinMTR for Windows) ?

The 'ping' trace you provided, is indicating that the LAN port of your router occasionally takes a long time to respond, but gives us no clue as to if that is just a local LAN issue, or whether it also affects your internet connection.

'mtr' builds a table showing the best, worst, and average latency for each hop of your internet connection, including that first hop from your PC to your router. Therefore it would be interesting to see if your latency problem is only on your LAN, or whether there are corresponding delay spikes on your internet connection.

It is likely that those ping spikes that you reported from your router's LAN interface are irrelevant, as it is probable that only the local 'ping' and not any real traffic is showing that symptom.

The only hop that actually matters is the last one, i.e. the latency from your specified target server.

So for example, if I 'mtr' to the BBC, I get -

$ mtr bbc.co.uk
                                               Loss%    Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1.|-- My-Home-Router                          0.0%    100    0.1   0.1   0.1   0.2   0.0
  2.|-- vl241.ptw-ag02.plus.net                 0.0%    100    7.7   7.5   7.2   8.4   0.0
  3.|-- 84.93.253.123                           0.0%    100    8.3   8.3   7.8   9.0   0.0
  4.|-- core1-BE1.southbank.ukcore.bt.net       0.0%    100    8.6   8.4   7.9   8.8   0.0
  5.|-- peer8-et-0-0-2.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net  0.0%    100    8.8  10.2   8.3  16.7   3.2
  6.|-- 195.99.126.83                           0.0%    100    8.6   8.8   8.5   9.2   0.0
  7.|-- 151.101.128.81                          0.0%    100    7.6   7.8   7.4   8.4   0.0

Ideally as you are having problems during gaming, then doing 'mtr' traces to the gaming servers would be worth looking at.

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

Cube — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 21:38:36 GMT

I know it does effect my internet connection because these spikes occur when pinging other sites and not just the local gateway as shown in the screen shot attached. The lux.valve.net is one of the game servers that I play on which is EU West.EU West game serverSteampowered.com

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

bobpullen — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 21:41:53 GMT

Is it a direct ethernet connection or are you routing via Powerline adapters/a switch etc.

Whilst unlikely to be the cause, have you tried swapping the ethernet cable out?

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

Cube — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 21:52:50 GMT

It's not a direct Ethernet connection - I am using Powerline adapters but I have never had a problem with them before. I have tested the connection on another computer using another one of the Powerline adapters and still the same problem is present, so I don't think that changing the Ethernet cable would solve the issue if I am not mistaken.

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

bobpullen — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 21:56:20 GMT

Definitely worth ruling out the Powerline adapters. I don't know of any acknowledged problems with the Hub One that would cause latency spikes like those you're describing.

Also, I assume both computers are using the same ethernet cable between router and Powerline socket?

Edit: you can rule out the Internet connection itself by running the ping tests to the gateway with the DSL cable unplugged.

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

Cube — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 21:57:13 GMT

That is the hub that I am using currently - does it usually suffer from multiple devices using the network at once?

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

Cube — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 22:11:59 GMT

The Powerline adapters are not all using the same exact Ethernet cable.

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

Cube — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 22:27:16 GMT

Whenever I do a tracing route test the 2nd hop always results in "request timed out" no matter what site I am tracing. From what I have heard, this means that the gateway does not respond to ICMP, meaning a firewall must be preventing it from doing so. I am not sure if this is a problem or not.

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

annie2355 — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 08:27:36 GMT

Yes it does. I have had the same problem, wired and hugely so with appalling WiFi for years but Plusnet keep telling me they dont know what is causing the problem so I have been researching outside their bubble and apparently their hubs are insufficient for 21st century broadband traffic. Get yourself a BT broadband router and you should be fine. I shall be leaving PN as soon as and going to BT, as they guarantee full strength signal in all rooms.

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 09:58:00 GMT

There is another recent thread with this same problem - Very high ping spikes ALL THE TIME.

I agree with @annie2355, that the answer is to use another router.

Using a router of your choice gives you the option of controlling gaming traffic priority using QoS, using a ping monitor (such as TBB BQM) to keep an eye on your connection, using an IPv6 tunnel for gaming, and regular firmware updates and support from the manufacturer, - none of which can be done with the Plusnet device.

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

bobpullen — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 10:41:17 GMT

@Cube wrote:

That is the hub that I am using currently - does it usually suffer from multiple devices using the network at once?

No. I'm not using a Hub One at the moment, but when I have, it's worked satisfactorily on my network at home. I have approaching 30 connected devices, 8 of them wired, I'm using Powerlines, and I'm running 9 externally facing servers. Seeing the spikes you are would have definitely caused me problems.

@Cube wrote:

The Powerline adapters are not all using the same exact Ethernet cable.

Perhaps I've misunderstood. When I asked you to look at swapping the cabling, you replied to say you'd tried from another computer using a different Powerline socket so it was probably not worth doing. I (perhaps incorrectly) assume things are set up like this though?

Meaning there is a common ethernet cable in use irrespective of the computer you're testing from (arrow). It's this cable it would be worth swapping (assuming I've not got the wrong end of the stick).

@Cube wrote:

Whenever I do a tracing route test the 2nd hop always results in "request timed out" no matter what site I am tracing.

That's expected behaviour.

@annie2355 wrote:

Yes it does. I have had the same problem...

Sorry to hear. Are you able to share some evidence of this (the wired problem, not the wireless), and explain a bit about how your home network is set up?

@Anonymous wrote:

There is another recent thread with this same problem - Very high ping spikes ALL THE TIME.

That's not the same problem. The poster over there has confirmed that they *don't* see ping spikes across the local link.

@Anonymous wrote:

... and regular firmware updates and support from the manufacturer, - none of which can be done with the Plusnet device.

We've pushed out several firmware updates over recent years. In fact we're 20% of the way through one now

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

Cube — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 13:09:50 GMT

I don't really see how changing that specific cable would solve the issue as this problem has only occurred when changing to PlusNet and using the router you gave to us (PN Hub One). Before PN it was all working perfectly...

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

Strat — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 13:16:37 GMT

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from ADSL Broadband to Fibre Broadband.

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

bobpullen — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 15:56:59 GMT

@Cube, situations change. I've known many a motor vehicle work perfectly fine before developing a fault
Bad analogies aside, fact is we've hundreds of thousands of Hub Ones in circulation that do not exhibit this behaviour.

We cannot rule out your local network from this side. You can from yours.

Ideally, I would suggest you try repeating your tests direct to the router and remove the Powerlines from the equation entirely.
Calling from personal experience again...

Last night my Samsung TV was repeatedly buffering attempts to stream content from my media server, which is connected via Powerline. External access to this server is also possible from the wider Internet, where there were zero reports of problems (also routes over the Powerline network). Upon running a continuous ping between server and TV, I saw intermittent latency spikes > 100ms. I accessed the network adapter properties on the server, had Windows validate the settings and the problem went away. As mentioned, I'm not using a Hub One, however this is a good example of everything working perfectly fine, me changing absolutely nothing, and a fault condition arising out of the blue. Needless to say, it had nothing to do with the actual Internet connection North of the router.

I'm not saying this is definitely your problem, but the evidence you've provided suggests that you need to rule out as much of the local network as possible.

Re: Switched to PlusNet, gaming experience is horrible

DS — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 14:44:02 GMT

The following could be irrelevant but thought I'd share this just in case it's related to the problem.....

Many moons ago - Primary BTHH serving wifi and ethernet in living room, PLA1 (next to primary hub) serving (via PLA2) a secondary BTHH upstairs (giving 3x ethernet and another wifi network) - we therefore have 2x wifi networks and the upstairs PLA serving xbox for gaming etc. This setup worked well.

We then moved to $ky and kept the same setup (sky router to PLA to secondary BTHH) - We had to powercycle the PLA's and again this worked well

Came to PN and swapped out the $ky router for a PNH1. (Ignoring YV issues and a replacement PNH1, oh and the odd connection issues) and this was working well for a while.

Skip forward a little and gaming became this plus streaming plus then one smart TV. We then had issues with devices running via the secondary HH. I initially thought the HH was failing so swapped it for one of several I have, but the issue persisted.

Cut a long story short and after some testing we found the PLA's were only allowing 5Mbps though them - gaming was nigh on impossible (my son kept getting stupidly high lag and was forever getting kicked from sessions etc) - multiple attempts of resetting them and eventually they paired correctly and are currently allowing the full speed through them. He was then able to game again without issues.

So, did you ever reset your PLA's to run on the PNH1 default ip range or could they be on the Talk Talk ip address range - they should work not matter what, but they can sometimes 'hide' themselves on the hubs home network page. I still can't understand why they worked well for years and suddenly went wrong.

You'll see them (if the hub sees them) on this page - http://192.168.1.254/index.cgi?active_page=9133 (once you type in your hubs password that page will refresh a few times)

Having said that, we now use the hubs other ip range of 172.16.0.1 (for the UI) and the DHCP range of 172.16.0.64 - 172.16.255.254. Again powercycling the PLA's helped them move to the second ip range available.

The hub will show them as gaming controllers!!

But I could be wrong and your issue is entirely different and I'm sure someone will correct me if this is the case

Consider what I've suggested before jumping in as resetting our PLA's was a choir in itself - I almost gave up as I thought they were broken.