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402PrimeTime's avatar
402PrimeTime
New Contributor III
6 years ago

COX Fortnite Packet Loss - Customers Please Read

I'm submitting this post to illustrate what's happened with my situation thus far so others can gain insight as to what's going on and hopefully help if they have same issues I've been having. This is specific to a game, but this problem has been, IMO, extended to other streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube TV. 

Problem: Gross packet loss while playing Fortnite via COX.

Summary: ~3 months ago my connection to Fortnite (AWS servers) became unplayable. Extreme bouts of packet loss were/are experienced, rendering the game virtually unplayable. Packet loss is constant (1-5%), however, extreme packet loss (25%+) is common, especially during peak hours (~5-11PM). This does not happen to any other users I observe on Twitch or talk to with another ISP. At first I thought it was a problem with my equipment or local connection, so I began swapping parts and having techs out to my house. I've recapped all steps taken below to summarize troubleshooting done myself and with COX. 

1. Swapped routers (Ubiquit Mesh Wifi HD > RTN66U) (no fix)

2. Removed router, hardlined to modem (no fix)

3. Upgraded service - Premier to Ultimate 

4. Replaced Modem (Arris SB6141 > Netgear CM1000) (no fix)

5. COX ran new line in house to main box (no fix) 1st visit

6. COX removed splitters and amplifiers from line previously put in by other techs (no fix) 2nd visit

7. COX ran new line to house from junction box outside of home (no fix) 3rd visit

8. Filed FCC complaint

9. FCS techs visited house ran test on line and tracerts and ping test. Determined noise from Node. Created escalation ticket to Operations team to correct. 

Through all of the above steps I've called in to get technical assistance, monitored my connection, tracked packet loss, run tracerts, run ping test, supplied forums with information, posted on social media, filmed my experience (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPs3LaQgFhk&lc=z233dzbq5krhwhdgt04t1aokgrgxnsurvkden0hztiexbk0h00410.1537946535538895) and its been exhausting. 

The only solution to the problem is this: Remove COX as ISP and the problem goes away completely. When I hotspot to my phone from my computer (Verizon LTE) or use a private VPN (Seepdify) the problem completely goes away. Ping gets higher due to latency involved with those connection types, but ZERO packet loss. 

The comforting part is that the FTS technicians clearly acknowledged this is a COX issue they're well aware of. They are working to aggregate enough data to send to Corporate. It's so painfully obvious this requires escalated support deep into COX's routing and infrastructure. It appears COX has either invested into looking and determined its not worth the fix, or they've not looked deep enough, or they don't care enough to actually address the problem in a meaningful way.  

I'm resigned to the idea that If this problem doesn't get resolved I'll be leaving for another ISP. My next door neighbor has same issues, and he has already stated the same. He's waiting to see what happens with my issue. It's depressing that so many thousands of people are affected by something specific to COX as their ISP and yet it can't be solved. More disappointing is I've received commentary back from COX saying already that its not their issue, when clearly there's enough evidence to support it is on their end. Even if this was an EPIC/Fornite issue, don't you think their executive team would pick up the phone and be like we should probably figure this out. I'm in IT, and I know if this were something in my space we'd be all over it. 

I guess we'll see what happens...clocks ticking COX! BTW - My upload speeds have been piss lately. 30 up....I wish, how about 10...maybe

Equipment: 

i7-8700k - non OC, liquid cooled - G1 GTX 1080, 16g 3200Mhz RAM - 500gNVME M.2 SSD -  Netgear CM1000 - Ubiquiti Amplifi HD Mesh Wifi 

bad service
fortnite
internet
packet loss

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  • 402PrimeTime's avatar
    402PrimeTime
    New Contributor III
    6 years ago

    btw...here's all my tracerts...enjoy!

    Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.285]
    (c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    C:\Users\Kyle>tracert 52.42.109.244 -- WITH COX CONNECTION (MY CONNECTION)


    Tracing route to ec2-52-42-109-244.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com [52.42.109.244]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
    2 7 ms 6 ms 8 ms 10.53.128.1
    3 7 ms 8 ms 9 ms 100.127.74.46
    4 18 ms 7 ms 14 ms 100.120.100.16
    5 19 ms 18 ms 25 ms langbprj02-ae1.0.rd.la.cox.net [68.1.1.14]
    6 30 ms 20 ms 39 ms 52.95.218.216
    7 21 ms 33 ms 42 ms 54.239.102.18
    8 20 ms 21 ms 22 ms 54.239.102.27
    9 45 ms 55 ms 66 ms 54.239.42.120
    10 * * * Request timed out.
    11 61 ms 46 ms 46 ms 52.93.13.46
    12 44 ms 53 ms 44 ms 52.93.13.35
    13 49 ms * 72 ms 52.93.12.74
    14 42 ms 52 ms 42 ms 52.93.12.93
    15 43 ms 44 ms 48 ms 54.239.48.183
    16 * * * Request timed out.
    17 * * * Request timed out.
    18 * * * Request timed out.
    19 * * * Request timed out.
    20 * * * Request timed out.
    21 * * * Request timed out.
    22 * * * Request timed out.
    23 * * * Request timed out.
    24 * * * Request timed out.
    25 * * * Request timed out.
    26 * * * Request timed out.
    27 * * * Request timed out.
    28 * * * Request timed out.
    29 * * * Request timed out.
    30 * * * Request timed out.

    Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.285]
    (c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    C:\Users\Kyle>tracert 52.42.109.244 -- WITH LTE CONNECTION (VERIZON)

    Tracing route to ec2-52-42-109-244.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com [52.42.109.244]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 172.20.10.1
    2 67 ms 31 ms 17 ms 5.sub-66-174-32.myvzw.com [66.174.32.5]
    3 * * * Request timed out.
    4 * * * Request timed out.
    5 29 ms 31 ms 28 ms 178.sub-69-83-173.myvzw.com [69.83.173.178]
    6 32 ms 19 ms 18 ms 194.sub-69-83-173.myvzw.com [69.83.173.194]
    7 43 ms 22 ms 30 ms 84.sub-69-83-162.myvzw.com [69.83.162.84]
    8 252 ms 140 ms 28 ms 73.sub-66-174-29.myvzw.com [66.174.29.73]
    9 33 ms 18 ms 18 ms 205.158.30.5.ptr.us.xo.net [205.158.30.5]
    10 61 ms 40 ms 39 ms 207.88.14.132.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.14.132]
    11 55 ms 38 ms 39 ms 207.88.12.222.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.12.222]
    12 53 ms 39 ms 37 ms te0-12-1-0.rar3.chicago-il.us.xo.net [207.88.12.141]
    13 43 ms 41 ms 36 ms 207.88.12.142.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.12.142]
    14 57 ms 37 ms 38 ms 207.88.13.225.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.13.225]
    15 51 ms 37 ms 39 ms 72.21.221.152
    16 57 ms 42 ms 37 ms 54.240.243.48
    17 64 ms 41 ms 39 ms 54.240.243.57
    18 * * * Request timed out.
    19 68 ms 59 ms 86 ms 52.93.128.22
    20 100 ms 69 ms 70 ms 54.239.44.105
    21 * * * Request timed out.
    22 108 ms 79 ms 85 ms 52.93.15.50
    23 97 ms 96 ms 108 ms 52.93.14.254
    24 105 ms 87 ms 69 ms 52.93.15.17
    25 91 ms 69 ms 81 ms 52.93.240.47
    26 * * * Request timed out.
    27 * * * Request timed out.
    28 * * * Request timed out.
    29 * * * Request timed out.
    30 * * * Request timed out.

    Trace complete.

    Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.285]
    (c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    C:\Users\Owner>tracert 52.42.109.244 -- WITH CENTURYLINK CONNECTION

    Tracing route to ec2-52-42-109-244.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com [52.42.109.244]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
    2 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms modem.domain [192.168.0.1]
    3 23 ms 20 ms 6 ms 97-124-100-254.phnx.qwest.net [97.124.100.254]
    4 5 ms 6 ms 5 ms phnx-agw1.inet.qwest.net [75.160.238.249]
    5 37 ms 53 ms 37 ms tuk-edge-13.inet.qwest.net [67.14.4.206]
    6 39 ms 47 ms 43 ms 65-122-235-174.dia.static.centurylink.net [65.122.235.174]
    7 52 ms 52 ms 51 ms 52.95.54.180
    8 38 ms 38 ms 41 ms 52.95.54.195
    9 * * * Request timed out.
    10 48 ms 45 ms 46 ms 54.239.43.5
    11 * * * Request timed out.
    12 46 ms 47 ms 47 ms 52.93.15.42
    13 56 ms 44 ms 44 ms 52.93.15.35
    14 57 ms 49 ms 49 ms 52.93.14.110
    15 44 ms 44 ms 44 ms 52.93.14.135
    16 45 ms 43 ms 44 ms 52.93.240.41
    17 * * * Request timed out.
    18 * * * Request timed out.
    19 * * * Request timed out.
    20 * * * Request timed out.
    21 * * * Request timed out.
    22 * * * Request timed out.
    23 * * * Request timed out.
    24 * * * Request timed out.
    25 * * * Request timed out.
    26 * * * Request timed out.
    27 * * * Request timed out.
    28 * * * Request timed out.
    29 * * * Request timed out.
    30 * * * Request timed out.

    Trace complete.

    Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.286]
    (c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    C:\Users\Michael>tracert 52.42.109.244 -- WITH COX CONNECTION (USER IN CHANDLER)

    Tracing route to ec2-52-42-109-244.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com [52.42.109.244]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 3 ms 3 ms 2 ms router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
    2 10 ms 9 ms 8 ms 10.35.148.1
    3 18 ms 14 ms 10 ms 100.127.73.168
    4 8 ms 10 ms 11 ms 100.120.100.6
    5 32 ms 22 ms 23 ms 68.1.4.252
    6 22 ms 22 ms 22 ms 52.95.218.214
    7 35 ms 29 ms 37 ms 54.239.102.16
    8 21 ms 23 ms 22 ms 54.239.102.23
    9 46 ms 49 ms 44 ms 54.239.42.116
    10 * * * Request timed out.
    11 49 ms 49 ms 48 ms 52.93.12.162
    12 47 ms 45 ms 49 ms 52.93.12.141
    13 61 ms 85 ms 50 ms 52.93.12.32
    14 46 ms 46 ms 46 ms 52.93.12.57
    15 46 ms 49 ms 45 ms 52.93.13.65
    16 * * * Request timed out.
    17 * * * Request timed out.
    18 * * * Request timed out.
    19 * * * Request timed out.
    20 * * * Request timed out.
    21 * * * Request timed out.
    22 * * * Request timed out.
    23 * * * Request timed out.
    24 * * * Request timed out.
    25 * * * Request timed out.
    26 * * * Request timed out.
    27 * * * Request timed out.
    28 * * * Request timed out.
    29 * * * Request timed out.
    30 * * * Request timed out.

    Trace complete.

    • ChristopherC's avatar
      ChristopherC
      Former Moderator
      6 years ago
      In looking at your trace routes you are not getting responses back from the following IP addresses.
      52.93.13.46
      54.239.42.120
      54.240.243.57
      52.93.128.22
      52.95.54.195
      52.93.15.42
      54.239.42.116
      52.93.12.162
      These routers appear to be owned by Amazon and not Cox. From what I can tell, Fortnite uses Amazon Web Services. Your Cox connection (with the exception of one of your trace routes? Is carrying you out of our network and out to the Internet. You may want to reach out to Fortnite about this issue.
      Chris C
      • 402PrimeTime's avatar
        402PrimeTime
        New Contributor III
        6 years ago

        If this is a"Amazon" or "Fortnite" issue, can you explain how it all goes away the minute I hot spot to my phone????

  • BooPacketLoss's avatar
    BooPacketLoss
    New Contributor III
    6 years ago

    This issue has not been resolved for 8 months. I will be leaving for CenturyLink before the next billing cycle, and COX will not be missed. Everyone should file FCC claims against them. They are a terrible, inept and greedy company that deserves to be dismantled.

    • SpectreRT's avatar
      SpectreRT
      New Contributor
      6 years ago

      I am having the same issue now, just made a new post on this.  I have a 20ms ping to the servers, but I'm getting up to 12% upstream packet loss.  

      Had a tech in my home, said all my stuff is perfect.  So something is broken with/around Cox.  

      • 402PrimeTime's avatar
        402PrimeTime
        New Contributor III
        6 years ago

        Create an FCC complaint. This is not a local hardware problem. This is something in routing or hosting on the AWS side...either way Cox needs to assist customers in correcting the issue. They have the clout to work this out.