topic Re: steam connection problems in Gaming

steam connection problems

Blim — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 16:06:23 GMT

Turns out my network card is just fine btw.
Right so a problem thats been bugging me for ages now. It started with not being able to play steam games but now I've shouted about it seems to be limited to when downloading from steam. The problem is I shouted about it here and in steam forums so when things changed I cant tell what who did it because they never like to admit a problems and definitely don't like to tell when a setting has been changed so as a customer we are left in wonder.
But anyway, I wonder if anyone cant bring some light to this problem.
So I'm getting packet loss to my router when downloading with steam client and the speed is being limited. But when I start a game then return to windows and restart the steam download with the game running in the background. Not only does the packet loss stop but steam starts to download at full speed.
Any ideas? I think its a net limiter built into steam but it could just as easily be PN's traffic management system re classing the traffic when a game starts.

images:
1: nothing.
2:downloading with steam and showing packet loss to my router.
3:downloading but with a game open (mw3) and no packet loss
4:same as 3 but at the end of the download and end ping test with 0 packet loss.

Re: steam connection problems

orbrey — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 16:37:36 GMT

Looks like the line profile was way off, so it's likely a traffic management issue. Just tweaked it to match, please let us know if that improves things?

Re: steam connection problems

Blim — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 16:50:34 GMT

Can you tell me how that works please. How being at full speed gives me no problems but when steam forces a limiter I get packet loss. I must be missing something here.
Also how the fttc line profile would give me packet loss to my own router?

Why do I get the feeling your are taking the @~#&? maybe its because you limited my line speed by half with the comment that the profile is way off.

Re: steam connection problems

Blim — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 16:57:20 GMT

wtf man, this is going too far now.
I cant even test the problem as you have lowered my speed below the steam limiter.

Re: steam connection problems

Blim — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 17:02:47 GMT

~~If this does not get changed back tonight , I'm leaving.~~
I will not be asking for help here again.
Thanks.

Re: steam connection problems

Chris — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 20:22:31 GMT

We checked the profile of your line by running a line test directly against it, this showed a much reduced profile compared to the one we had you on. This is why Matt altered the profile on our side to match.
If the line profile on our side is higher than the BT profile, we can't properly control the QoS on the line and therefore this can cause packet loss.
The CSC agent you spoke to when you rang is has set your profile too high, this is *not* good. It should be slightly under the BT profile.

Re: steam connection problems

Chris — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 20:28:12 GMT

I now see you're syncing back at the full 80Mb, so I've set your profile correct for this. When Matt did the line test earlier it was showing (possibly incorrectly from your posts since) that your line was syncing at 40Mb, hence the profile Matt set.

Re: steam connection problems

Blim — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 23:49:05 GMT

I see, so in the space of half an hour my IP profile went from 80 to 40 and back up again. Maybe you should look more into that because I did a btspeedtest and checked my bt ip profile (after mat's post) and it was showing 77.4 as it always has but PN profile was 30 or 40. As I was downloading at full speed 30mins before hand, that leaves such a small space in time for my ip profile to jump around as you say.
Anyway, this wasn't a PN problem in the first place, its a steam problem. Despite what you say about packet loss, it has nothing to do with PN. I was simply asking for advice on what it could be. I know its a steam problem and it's built in limiter even when its set to "no limit" it still limits my speed and turns off when I load a game.

Re: steam connection problems

Mathias — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 10:25:52 GMT

Maybe a stupid question but where can the user check their plusnet IP profile? I'm guessing the BT profile is shown when using the BT speedtester?
How is it that these get out of line, is there not an automated process to refresh and sync these every so often?

Re: steam connection problems

Mathias — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 07:55:55 GMT

think i've found the spot in the members centre where the profile info is, although it wasn't easy to find.
Wouldn't mind an answer to my other questions as to why it gets out of sync.

Re: steam connection problems

chrispurvey — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 16:29:34 GMT

Hi Blim,
I can see the engineer has done quite a bit of external work today, not sure what he managed to check internally from the notes.
Let me know if there's any difference.

Re: steam connection problems

Blim — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 17:12:16 GMT

The BTOR guy was happy with the line he found in the bunch of 50 that had been damaged along my road when that blow fibre line was install (past my house) a while ago. It would seem that my line got damaged by a fiber install but I'm not allowed a splice of it.
Nov 3 16:16:12 detect_link: WAN link down detected!
Nov 3 16:16:14 detect_link: WAN link restored!
Nov 3 16:17:37 inadyn[5771]: Inadyn version 1.99.2 -- Dynamic DNS update client.
Nov 3 16:17:38 inadyn[5771]: Resolving hostname [removd].asuscomm.com => IP# [removed]
Nov 3 16:17:38 inadyn[5771]: Checking for IP# change, querying interface ppp0
Nov 3 16:17:38 inadyn[5771]: No IP# change detected, still at [removed]
Nov 3 16:20:20 RT-N56U: Hardware NAT/Routing: Enabled, IPoE/PPPoE offload [WAN]<->[LAN]
Nov 3 16:20:20 RT-N56U: Hardware NAT/Routing: IPv4 UDP flow offload - ON
Nov 3 16:20:20 RT-N56U: Hardware NAT/Routing: IPv6 routes offload - OFF
This is the first log of my wan link down but its not the first time I've seen the connection syble in windows tray.
Gaming wise, other than steam games things seem to be ok. I mean I've played GW2 with not a single problem. When it comes to steam and the last 2 days, steam seems to lose connection and my game will freez. Steam closes and I have to force/kill process on the game.
I know steam community servers are offline but I've been having this problem for ages now. How do I wireshark steam when it loads its services with windows start up. Can it be done, I need to get the the bottem of why I cant play any steam games. All I do know is if steam loses connection while in game the game with freez up in the same way its been doing for me.

Re: steam connection problems

orbrey — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 13:29:06 GMT

Hi Blim,
If you want to wireshark steam, just close it (right click on the systray icon and exit from there) then start wireshark and then load steam? Should work fine, I've done it that way myself. Hope that helps?

Re: steam connection problems

Kelly — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 17:44:17 GMT

Might be worth running steam in tcp mode as well
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5623-QOSV-5250

Re: steam connection problems

Blim — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 14:05:51 GMT

Nov 20 06:25:26 pppd[896]: LCP terminated by peer
Nov 20 06:25:26 pppd[896]: Connect time 3441.7 minutes.
Nov 20 06:25:26 pppd[896]: Sent 145089601 bytes, received 528384889 bytes.
Nov 20 06:25:26 RT-N56U: wan down (ppp0)
Nov 20 06:25:26 PPPoE: Disconnected
Nov 20 06:25:29 pppd[896]: Connection terminated.
Nov 20 06:25:29 pppd[896]: Sent PADT
Nov 20 06:25:29 pppd[896]: Modem hangup
Nov 20 06:25:56 pppd[896]: PPP session is 224 (0xe0)
Nov 20 06:25:56 pppd[896]: Connected to 00:30:88:00:00:07 via interface eth3
Nov 20 06:25:56 pppd[896]: Using interface ppp0
Nov 20 06:25:56 pppd[896]: Connect: ppp0 <--> eth3
Nov 20 06:26:27 pppd[896]: CHAP authentication failed: CHAP authentication failure, unit 3061
Nov 20 06:26:27 pppd[896]: CHAP authentication failed
Nov 20 06:26:33 pppd[896]: Connection terminated.
Nov 20 06:26:33 pppd[896]: Sent PADT
Nov 20 06:26:33 pppd[896]: Modem hangup
Nov 20 06:26:49 pppd[896]: PPP session is 712 (0x2c8)
Nov 20 06:26:49 pppd[896]: Connected to 00:30:88:00:00:07 via interface eth3
Nov 20 06:26:49 pppd[896]: Using interface ppp0
Nov 20 06:26:49 pppd[896]: Connect: ppp0 <--> eth3
Nov 20 06:27:02 pppd[896]: CHAP authentication failed: CHAP authentication failure, unit 3918
Nov 20 06:27:02 pppd[896]: CHAP authentication failed
Nov 20 06:27:08 pppd[896]: Connection terminated.
Nov 20 06:27:08 pppd[896]: Sent PADT
Nov 20 06:27:08 pppd[896]: Modem hangup
Nov 20 06:27:53 pppd[896]: Timeout waiting for PADO packets
Nov 20 06:27:59 pppd[896]: PPP session is 113 (0x71)
Nov 20 06:27:59 pppd[896]: Connected to 00:30:88:00:00:07 via interface eth3
Nov 20 06:27:59 pppd[896]: Using interface ppp0
Nov 20 06:27:59 pppd[896]: Connect: ppp0 <--> eth3
Nov 20 06:28:05 pppd[896]: CHAP authentication succeeded
Nov 20 06:28:05 pppd[896]: CHAP authentication succeeded
Nov 20 06:28:05 pppd[896]: peer from calling number 00:30:88:00:00:07 authorized
Nov 20 06:28:08 pppd[896]: local IP address 80.229.1.104
Nov 20 06:28:08 pppd[896]: remote IP address 195.166.128.186
Nov 20 06:28:08 RT-N56U: wan up (ppp0)
Nov 20 06:28:08 inadyn[1220]: Inadyn version 1.99.2 -- Dynamic DNS update client.
Nov 20 06:28:08 inadyn[1220]: Cached IP# 80.229.1.104 from previous invocation.
Nov 20 06:28:08 inadyn[1220]: Checking for IP# change, querying interface ppp0
Nov 20 06:28:08 inadyn[1220]: No IP# change detected, still at 80.229.1.104
Nov 20 06:28:08 PPPoE: Connected to ISP
Nov 20 06:28:14 NTP Scheduler: Synchronizing time to pool.ntp.org.
Nov 20 13:17:13 pppd[896]: LCP terminated by peer
Nov 20 13:17:13 pppd[896]: Connect time 409.1 minutes.
Nov 20 13:17:13 pppd[896]: Sent 10309401 bytes, received 56583155 bytes.
Nov 20 13:17:13 RT-N56U: wan down (ppp0)
Nov 20 13:17:13 PPPoE: Disconnected
Nov 20 13:17:16 pppd[896]: Connection terminated.
Nov 20 13:17:16 pppd[896]: Sent PADT
Nov 20 13:17:16 pppd[896]: Modem hangup
Nov 20 13:17:26 pppd[896]: PPP session is 1694 (0x69e)
Nov 20 13:17:26 pppd[896]: Connected to 00:30:88:00:00:07 via interface eth3
Nov 20 13:17:26 pppd[896]: Using interface ppp0
Nov 20 13:17:26 pppd[896]: Connect: ppp0 <--> eth3
Nov 20 13:17:28 pppd[896]: CHAP authentication succeeded
Nov 20 13:17:28 pppd[896]: CHAP authentication succeeded
Nov 20 13:17:28 pppd[896]: peer from calling number 00:30:88:00:00:07 authorized
Nov 20 13:17:28 pppd[896]: local IP address 80.229.1.104
Nov 20 13:17:28 pppd[896]: remote IP address 195.166.128.101
Nov 20 13:17:28 RT-N56U: wan up (ppp0)
Nov 20 13:17:28 inadyn[1281]: Inadyn version 1.99.2 -- Dynamic DNS update client.
Nov 20 13:17:28 inadyn[1281]: Cached IP# 80.229.1.104 from previous invocation.
Nov 20 13:17:28 inadyn[1281]: Checking for IP# change, querying interface ppp0
Nov 20 13:17:28 inadyn[1281]: No IP# change detected, still at 80.229.1.104
Nov 20 13:17:28 PPPoE: Connected to ISP
Nov 20 13:17:51 NTP Scheduler: Synchronizing time to time.nist.gov.