High packet loss and other DNS issues

[#1]

@dave I only ever had very minor issues watching videos.  Not too surprising as the buffering would take up any loss and so you'd only notice video issues when the packet loss was really bad.

The www.google.co.uk sites are interesting because, of course, they are co-located in a Plusnet data centre and you'll get one of a few different IP addresses each time you try.  I showed right near the beginning of this thread, packet loss to one of those servers and not another.  Each server being on a different route.

I'm on a static IP now, solely to solve this problem, and so not in a position to do any more testing.

[#2]

@dave

Videos for me work as expected on all sites, but they seem to take longer to buffer than usual, and when raising the quality, it sometimes refuses to load the video unless I refresh or wait a long while. As a side note, gaming is impossible for anyone with this issue, I'm sure many people will tell you and have told you that it's not just video streaming that is compromised, but video streaming has more noticeable buffer times from what I've found.

Graph from yesterday. Still on the 209. IP range. Always starts around 10am, seems many people are seeing the same. And (possibly luckily for the sake of testing), I am not spending £5 on a static IP to see if it fixes it. I'm not spending more money, no matter how little it may seem, on a service which hasn't been up to standard for our usual payment for what will be 6 weeks before I leave. I will provide as much as I can to help others fix this issue however.

[#3]

@andyr700 Yeah any tests would be useful.

@TheHorseman That's interesting that the streaming seems OKish because 35% packet loss you'd think would be enough to cause to fail, it fits in with what we're thinking.

@jtjacques Thank you very much for the Pi login, really useful to see what you're seeing. Do you have a TBB graph set up (might have missed it if you have)?

@Riza @mac1 @eatyourteeth and anyone else with gaming issues which games are you playing and which console/PC/phone? Are there any games that work OK? Is it better or worse at certain times of day? Your TBB graphs don't look bad in comparison to TheHorseman but for you the loss could be occuring on a different route across the Internet and the TBB traffic may take a different route to the others too.

Our new network has four Internet Routers (PCN-IR01, PCN-IR02, PSB-IR01 and PSB-IR02). Your traffic out to the Internet will pass through one of these (may not always be the same one) but could come back through one of the others, a traceroute will show the way out but not the return path. The problem with a packet loss type issue is that the packets could be being lost in either direction and could be across one of several routes in our network and then even more routes when it gets out to the wider Internet.

@NiM thanks, really useful

@oscarthecat the Google content on the old network or if you have a static on the new network will largely be within our data centre but the new network on a dynamic isn't in one of our sites. Has the static IP fixed all the problems you were seeing?

[#4]

@dave No problem. As I said, I'm happy to leave the device for the foreseeable if this will help resolve the issue.

I don't have a TBB graph as I didn't want to be chasing a dynamic IP, but I've set up this one for now:

    http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/46c191bde59baf5e212bb79c259d6ee6.html

Hope that helps.

[#5]

@dave

Any game that uses internet to stay connected is seeing this issue as you would expect, counter strike,team fortress, league of legends etc, each game may show different symptoms, but packet loss still affects them nonetheless. I mainly use a PC and Laptop, so that's where I'm vouching from. It's much worse in the evening, as you can see from the many graphs I've posted, reaching around 50-70% packet loss at peak, which is when I see the disruptions in video streaming, as even 1% loss is noticeable in gaming. If there is any more information, I'll hopefully be able to provide it when necessary. I'm still getting around 75+% loss on tracerts to google from "141.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk", which seems to crop up in this forum quite frequently.

[#6]

@jtjacques Thanks, curious to see whether it has the same pattern as @TheHorseman or if it's more like 1 or 2% at peak

@eatyourteeth Thanks, I'm guessing the packet loss has started today. Your TBB graph for the last couple of days shows ~40% loss but Friday and I think Sunday were under 5%. Are there any days apart from yesterday and Monday where your TBB graphs shows the big 40% loss? Also are you able to look back and see what day the packet loss started on the TBB graphs?

As a sidenote, we made a change to try and resolve the VPN issue that people have been seeing last night and our testing is showing that the VPNs we have access to are all now working. If there's anyone that was still seeing issues with this can you let us know if it's working now or not please. I've posted this here as well as the VPN thread for visibility.

[#7]

@dave

The static IP has (probably) solved the issue for me.  Attached is a graph of pinging my VPN/VOIP provider plotting percentage packet loss over time.  20-Aug-2016.  Around 22:30 I took a static IP.  You can see the router reboot and then the packet loss completely went away.  It was like flicking a switch - which, of course it was.

8.8.8.8 was showing I think 40% loss before the switch and zero immediately after.  I tried a bunch of websites that had previously shown issue and all passed after the switch.  I did all this around 22:30 at the height of the problem for me.

Since then, I've seen maybe two or three single ping timeouts and I have stopped monitoring.

I took my first VOIP call yesterday and it was a huge improvement over the past results.  It did drop the resolution once and I had to disconnect and reconnect.  I don't know if that was an anomaly.  The rest of the call was fine.

So definitely the static IP is a huge improvement for me.  Too early to say whether it has completely solved it - I need to take a few more VOIP calls - but the difference is clear and tentatively just like it use to be.

Though, my download is now capped to 38.  I've added that to my ticket.

Am I able to switch between static and dynamic IP without any further charge now that I've paid once?  I'd be willing to do that to test things out.  I'm particularly interested in the VPN changes you made as it was VPN that was really the most noticeable issue for me.

[#8]

@dave

Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd are the graphs which show the larger amount of packet loss. It's only actually gone this high as of late, it usually seems to be around 5-10% loss every other day. I've had packet loss since past 5 weeks, but only started the monitor about 2 weeks ago.

[#9]

Today's graph

Very tiny amounts of packet loss but the large spikes are now happening randomly for me. I can't see anything wrong with my connnection streaming wise, probably too small to notice.

Edit: The packet loss is unbearable, whilst typing this I cannot even edit anything. After 3:45 a peak of packet loss occurred and is still on-going, I can do a couple of tests now on pingplotter.

This is the first time I have experienced this amount of packet loss, I did have it before but not at vast amounts like this...

[#10]

Pingplotter tests. Quite high pings on nhl.com imo I've never seen this before on fttc nevermind adsl  1478ms.

However, no lag on online gaming or youtube. Not sure what is going on though.

Test was over AC wireless, close proximity to router (2m) and have had no wireless problems before.

[#11]

Here we go again, videos starting to buffer more, gaming impossible, same time as past two days.

[#12]

Confirm my is the same as eatyourteeth Are we all in the same region of the UK? I am in Felixstowe, Suffolk.

[#13]

As alluded to by Dave, we're still very much looking into these reports, sorry to those still suffering!

Reading back through previous posts, I just thought it worth mentioning that the packet loss across hiperxx routers may not be related. It's my understanding that those devices won't necessarily respond to ICMP probes depending on what they're doing at the time.

So packet loss across the hiperxx links are not necessarily indicative of the problem e.g. I see that on one of my lines that's seeing zero packet loss in other respects.

[#14]

Another miserable night this is the worst for me usually just spikes now it a mass of red looking very like most of the TBB posted today

[#15]

Tonight's graph:

Again my NowTV box has been ok, it is only 720 though and not full HD,