Connection issues (packet loss)

[overqual]

After many years our house finally managed to get access to fiber (FTTH) so we decided to ditch the old DSL connection for a new 150Mbit/s one but as dumb as it sounds... we kinda regret it at this point because the connection has been far from "good" when it comes to stability and reliability.
Basically everything that needs some kind of real-time communication works extremely poorly - live streams are frequently lagging and buffering, voice/video calls are experiencing constant drop-outs and games are often unplayable because of the insane packet loss and rubber-banding, followed by high ping spikes.
The issue occurs very often and randomly, depends on how "massive" the dropout is, it's easily observed probably 1-3 times every 5 minutes.
It's been around 7 months and the ISP has been anything but helpful so far, I'd like to ask local network-wizards for some help with some more in-depth diagnostics so I have something to throw at my ISP.
I should mention that I have tried all the basic troubleshooting including changing both cables (PC>router and router>wall), trying different settings on PC and the router, changing the router itself etc. and I think I'm 99% sure it's not on my end.
I can provide more info if someone wanted or needed including wireshark logs etc., not including them right now with the post because I don't really want to share that kind of stuff publicly.
Any kind of help would be really appreciated, thanks.

 

[elghinnarisa]

throw some pingplotter logs in their face, that normally does it. Either way if it is as you suspect and it is not something inside your house. There is nothing else you can do than ask them to look in too it. Generally they should provide either information of what you can do to confirm the issue, or get a technician to look at it.
Easier said than done though, i spent almost 6 months throwing logs at my old ISP. From two computers in my home, and another 6 computers in 6 different homes in the same area. All with the same ISP, all with identical dropouts at the exact same timestamp each and every time and I was told "its your computer"
Ah yes. Its my computer sinking the network in what turns out to be an issue in the entire north part of this country.

I switched ISP and never had an issue again. I had better things to spend my time on then argue with them.

 

[Solaris17]

You could send your MTR (tracert) logs to them and ask that your route get switched. They may see something they can remedy in their NOC

 

[overqual]

That was the first thing I did long time ago, sent them pingplotter results and tracerts with visible timeouts and ping spikes, months later after asking numerous times for some kind of response was told that "testing through ICMP doesn't mean anything and it's probably on the server I'm trying to connect" even though our old DSL never had these problems and even switching to my phone LTE through hotspot tethering fixes everything (quite ironic that wireless would be better than fiber in this case).
I wouldn't say that pingplotter is reliable in this case because when I compare results from other PC's with different connections and 0 problems the results are not that different.
One of the tech support guys asked me for wireshark logs so I captured like 10 events in roughly 30 minutes and sent that to him but another week is over and I have yet to see some kind of answer...

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Sounds like yourt ISP doesnt like to work so it points the finger wherever it can so as not to fix things. Also, 150Mbit/s fiber is slow, for fiber, I hope you're not paying too much of a premium for it. if you are, I'd be calling tech support every day to fix the line drops.

 

[sneekypeet]

When I had a similar issue going to a new service tier, oddly with the same company.

Either way, it turned out to be a line issue between me and the company. They alluded to it being from someone like Comcast using the cables older in house system, yet still being connected to my cable company via the external splitters at the ground stake.

While ping logs and all are great, I had to elevate through the company until I got one guy who was a gamer and understood the frustration and looked deeper. Many don't care tbh and won't hunt the issue once it's past the PC they are working with.

Also, I am month to month, no contract, so they needed to move to get my money. On top of that, I demanded they refund the 3 months of billing while they hunted down and fixed the issue.

 

[overqual]

Yeah I definitely understand what you mean, I wish there was an option to actually talk to someone who really understands the issue and doesn't end up ignoring it just because they think it's not important.
I just realized that I probably should have not mentioned gaming at all, they seem to be obsessed with the connection speed since they repeatedly asked if the speed fluctuates and drops under certain threshold and if it doesn't - "everything is okay".
The IT/tech guy (who didn't even know what I was talking about when I mentioned things like live streams, discord calls and other real-time communication etc. by the way) basically told me something like if you can successfully visit things like wikipedia or youtube and watch a video without any issues that's enough, we don't really care if your video and voice calls and games keep freezing for 2 seconds every few minutes, we are not going to make any changes for a single person who's complaining.

 

[eidairaman1]

Could be the modem ethernet cord from ONT to Modem, ONT to fiber line all the way back to the curb cabinet card to the CO/ISP card. Could be provisioning as well.

 

[sneekypeet]

we don't really care if your video and voice calls and games keep freezing for 2 seconds every few minutes, we are not going to make any changes for a single person who's complaining.

If that is the truth, I would either elevate the complaint to whoever will listen, or, get another provider who will care.

 

[overqual]

It's a smaller local ISP so yeah, I'm not getting my hopes up. Also the person I was speaking with was the owner so that makes it even worse, my emails with logs indicating that the first two devices after my router are frequently timing out and having high ping spikes when the problem occurs are still being ignored.
I have already contacted my previous ISP and I'm sadly going back to DSL, the higher speeds were nice but stability and reliability is more important to me so I'm willing to go back if it gets rid of the issues. The line is ready for bonding so this time it should be a bit faster than before.

 

[Solaris17]

That’s your answer then. Nothing we can do to help this is an upstream problem.

 

[bonehead123]

Sounds like it's time to file a formal complaint with your local PUC (public utility commission, or whatever they call it where you live). Also complain to your state's Consumer protection or Consumer Affairs agency, and the Attorney General's office too...

 

[Final_Fighter]

can you change the MTU in your router? if the number is to large you can get fragmenting and possibly packet loss as a result.

 

[Steevo]

Use the following commands in a CMD black screen.

Run new task
CMD
"Tracert" without the quotes, you can add the command to print to a text file by adding
> tracert.txt and it will create that file, or you can add the path to your desktop before that to create it on your desktop.


Once you have the list of hops/NAT devices along the route to say 8.8.8.8 you can use the following command to ping them (even with different packet sizes) to determine where the loss is occurring.

Use command

Ping **insert each next hop IP address** -ttl

Use ctrl+c to end the run, I would run it for at least 5-15 minutes per IP and start with the next hop the trace route lists.

Once you find the lossy node, use the command with varying packet sizes to hammer it for awhile then you can send a screen shot to whoever owns/maintains the node with the loss.

Use
Ping IP address -I 64 ** or 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048**

This should show how breaking packets are handled of over MTU of each or any device along the path.

 

[overqual]

can you change the MTU in your router? if the number is to large you can get fragmenting and possibly packet loss as a result.

Yes, something I have already tried at the very beginning. Tried multiple smaller values, didn't help.

Use the following commands in a CMD black screen.

Run new task
CMD
"Tracert" without the quotes, you can add the command to print to a text file by adding
> tracert.txt and it will create that file, or you can add the path to your desktop before that to create it on your desktop...

The very first tracert I just did basically caught the issue, the 2nd hop has a timeout and a 45ms delay (normally has around 1-5ms), the ping spike varies from let's say 40ms to like 2000, depends on the severity
Pinging the first hop (the address directly under my router) just for few seconds looks like this
Pinging the 2nd hop like this
I can try different packet sizes but it's always pretty much the same, just with more timeouts or more frequent/extremely high ping spikes.

 

[eidairaman1]

It's a smaller local ISP so yeah, I'm not getting my hopes up. Also the person I was speaking with was the owner so that makes it even worse, my emails with logs indicating that the first two devices after my router are frequently timing out and having high ping spikes when the problem occurs are still being ignored.
I have already contacted my previous ISP and I'm sadly going back to DSL, the higher speeds were nice but stability and reliability is more important to me so I'm willing to go back if it gets rid of the issues. The line is ready for bonding so this time it should be a bit faster than before.

Just means 2 copper pairs are used, which either increased speed or distance a service could reach.

In 2013/14 bonded pairs were a pita to keep in sync due to crappy inids att used.

 

[Steevo]

Yes, something I have already tried at the very beginning. Tried multiple smaller values, didn't help.


View attachment 243857
The very first tracert I just did basically caught the issue, the 2nd hop has a timeout and a 45ms delay (normally has around 1-5ms), the ping spike varies from let's say 40ms to like 2000, depends on the severity
Pinging the first hop (the address directly under my router) just for few seconds looks like this
Pinging the 2nd hop like this
I can try different packet sizes but it's always pretty much the same, just with more timeouts or more frequent/extremely high ping spikes.

What’s the IP, or use Whois to determine who owns that node.

WHOIS Search, Domain Name, Website, and IP Tools - Who.is

Find information on any domain name or website. Large database of whois information, DNS, domain names, name servers, IPs, and tools for searching and monitoring domain names.

who.is

Type the IP into this and see who it is, but based on your IP scheme it seems the issue is between your house and the local node, if there is no difference in packet size and loss that tells me there is either a hardware issue with the node, or the fiber installation there or at your home.

I would hammer the node with large packets overnight using ping time to live and then send that to your ISP and demand they fix the issue or you will contact the BBB (or equal if not the US) and leave bad reviews and demand an refund and change service.

Inhad the same experience with Centurylink here in MT and they refunded everything and sent me a gift card for diagnosing their service issues.