Huge online service issues - seems to be upload related

[#1]

Hi folks,

I've had an open support ticket with Plusnet for over a month now with no results and this issue has been ongoing for coming up on two. We've had the Signal-Noise ratio raised, interleaving enabled, etc, and nothing is working. One network team tech had the gall to say nothing was wrong. I'm on the verge of leaving, demanding a refund for the past two months and just getting a 4G mobile dongle. Hopefully someone can come up with the reason for these horrific issues that are making the service almost completely unusable.

The basic issue is mainly that games and online services that require a constant internet connection are repeatedly, randomly losing connection or experiencing huge response times extremely frequently.

For example, Steam (which is open constantly when using the PC) extremely frequently loses connection and reconnects again less than a minute later, with a frequency of dozens of times per hour. World of Warcraft is unplayable 90% of the time as the latency is at the point where it can literally take several minutes for my actions to be transmitted to the server, i.e. movement, ability use, etc. I cannot play a game of Rainbow Six: Siege as I will be disconnected from the Ubisoft servers within a minute of a game starting, if I manage to get onto the servers at all.

This isn't an issue with the games or services, as evidenced by this happening with any online service I try.
It isn't a home-network issue as I've tried wired ethernet, two different wireless cards, etc.

The weird thing is that all of these issues seem to be on the upload side of the connection - for instance, World of Warcraft sends its data to me perfectly fine - I can see the movements, abilities, etc of anyone I'm playing with without any lag or issue, it's purely my actions and movements that are not being executed within the game without a massive delay. Another example - on Discord voice chat, I never lose connection to the voice server nor lose any incoming voice from others, but my voice data will lose so many packets that no one can even hear me.

This is not a 'constant' issue - sometimes the service seems to be flawless for an hour, with no problems or connectivity issues at all, then suddenly everything descends back to the usual unplayable state for hours at a time. However, it is a 90% present issue that makes the service unusable for 90% of the time.

The following is a pathping executed to my World of Warcraft server (Argent Dawn). As you can see, the packets never reach Blizzard's servers (located on Telia.net) and are lost somewhere in the network.

Tracing route to 185.60.112.157 over a maximum of 30 hops

  0  DESKTOP-6DP4U8J.lan [192.168.1.64] 
  1  dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254] 
  2  lo0-central10.pcl-ag02.plus.net [195.166.128.183] 
  3  link-a-central10.pcl-gw01.plus.net [212.159.2.164] 
  4  xe-10-1-0.pcl-cr01.plus.net [212.159.0.196] 
  5  195.99.126.96 
  6  core3-te0-2-0-18.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.249.1] 
  7  213.137.183.34 
  8  t2c3-xe-2-0-0-0.nl-ams2.eu.bt.net [166.49.208.83] 
  9     *        *        *     
Computing statistics for 200 seconds...
            Source to Here   This Node/Link
Hop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address
  0                                           DESKTOP-6DP4U8J.lan [192.168.1.64] 
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  1    0ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254] 
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  2   36ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  lo0-central10.pcl-ag02.plus.net [195.166.128.183] 
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  3   32ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  link-a-central10.pcl-gw01.plus.net [212.159.2.164] 
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  4   32ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  xe-10-1-0.pcl-cr01.plus.net [212.159.0.196] 
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  5  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  195.99.126.96 
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  6  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  core3-te0-2-0-18.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.249.1] 
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  7   31ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  213.137.183.34 
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  8   38ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  t2c3-xe-2-0-0-0.nl-ams2.eu.bt.net [166.49.208.83] 

Trace complete.

Hoping someone can help me out here, I'm at the end of my tether.

[#2]

@BeaconDev - I don't know if this is still relevant but Blizzard's ISP were suffering from a DDoS attack but that was the yesterday so I don't know if this is part of it or a side effect, or indeed totally unrelated.

[#3]

Hi Mook, thanks for the reply. This has been going on for weeks and weeks, across other services than just Blizzard's, so it's unfortunately unrelated.

[#4]

[#5]

First thing you should always use wired connection for games , what is your current line speed ?  also it may sound daft does your PC reach the minimum specs for the game ?

[#6]

Hi rongtw,

Thanks for your reply.

Naturally, I always use a wired connection, however I have also tried two different wireless cards and two different ethernet cables to see if the problem lies somewhere in my own connections, however the problem persists.

Here's my current line speed, apparently. Right now it seems extremely low, but the issue seems to have been getting worse over the last few days with websites now sometimes not even working and giving timeout errors...

 My PC is a high-end gaming PC (i5, 980Ti, etc) so it's definitely not that.

[#7]

BeaconDev Your speed is terrible    what should you be getting ?  acording to PN

have you tried to raise a fault on your line Via member center , you need to log in ,, https://portal.plus.net/apps/kbdfaults

[#8]

Tell me about it... Apparently I should be getting about 6 meg down and 1 meg up.

Like I said in my OP, I've had a fault ticket open for weeks and weeks which is going nowhere.

[#9]

did you open your ticket as a broadband issue as in speed related specifically  or just as a gaming issue ?

it shouldn't matter but it might change the responses from the agent that deals with the ticket....

what router are you using how old is it and have you tried switching it off + unplugging it for at least 30 minutes to see if it fixes the problem ?

are you able to upgrade to fibre in your area ? it might fix the problem if your area suffers from  high contention ratios on adsl services, but those up/down numbers are too low for speedy browsing never mind gaming or voice services

[#10]

It's opened as a fault on the line. I've had responses from first level support, fault team support and even networking team support, but no one is being very helpful and even have the gall to suggest there are no issues...

I'm using the supplied Plusnet Technicolour router, only started the service a year ago... Not tried a 30 min reset, can that seriously cause an issue of this magnitude?... I've done several factory restores. God no, no chance of fibre in the middle of nowhere where I am. It's ancient copper cable.

[#11]

shame about the fibre,

as to the router causing the problem its possible but it shouldn't do, when you touch the thing is it noticeably warm or hot or not ?

if its warm verging on hot its possible that its either faulty or on the way out and causing problems, especially if its not been switched off for ages (had that with an old bt voyager many years back) 

[#12]

It is warm yes, but it's very warm here at the moment anyway and it's only a small thing, it doesn't seem /too/ hot. I'll try switching it off and cooling it down and seeing if that helps, thanks. Any other suggestions are welcome in the mean time.

[#13]

It could be a similar issue to what the fella in this thread was experiencing:

https://community.plus.net/t5/Gaming/100-Packet-Loss-Xbox-One-S-2TB/td-p/1357902

Are you able to try a different router at all?

[#14]

Hm, he was using the same router, the Technicolour... I have another router I've tried to use, but it claims there's no NAT cable plugged in when I try to set it up on its admin page. I don't know if there's something about the service that requires a specific router, or something?

[#15]

Could be worth a call to the helpdesk to see if they will send you a new one for free?