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Wecomewego's avatar
Wecomewego
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Moderate to Severe Packet Loss

I have been having an ongoing issue for about a month now with my Cox Ultimate package. Basically, when I use services like VOIP or gaming, I notice that I have packet loss that steadily sits at 1-5% loss, but spikes up to 45% or so, especially towards the late afternoon/evening. Using both Teamspeak 3 and ping -t commands, I have determined that the packet loss is specifically for outgoing packets.

My set up has my PC hard wired into my Nighthawk 1750, which is connected to a brand new Arris SB8200. I had been using a SB6190, and originally thought the issue was due to the Puma6 defect in the modem's chip. I then upgraded to the SB8200, but noticed the same issue occurring on both modems. I replaced my cat5e cables, and even hard wired my PC into the modem to rule out a router issue. The issues persist.

I called cox, who has sent 3 different techs to help me. The first ran new line from the tap on the street to the side of the house. They noticed ingress on the line, so they sent a second contractor who ran new cable in the house including a wall fish. The issues persisted, so a 3rd contractor came out who was considered a senior tech. He tested some things and ran new line from the tap back to my modem again, basically re-doing the work of the previous techs. My packet loss seemed to drop from an average of 1-5% to an average of .5-3%, with spikes still ~45%. He did note that the box on the street was very damaged, as if it was kicked or backed into with a car, but offered no solutions rather than to see if it improves. I've called him back and he says he's going to ask around but I'm not confident it will be fixed.

Here are the Upstream details from my modem:

    Channel ID    Lock Status    US Channel Type    Frequency    Width    Power
1    2    Locked    SC-QAM    23300000 Hz    6400000 Hz    38.6 dBmV
2    1    Locked    SC-QAM    18400000 Hz    3200000 Hz    38.3 dBmV
3    3    Locked    SC-QAM    29800000 Hz    6400000 Hz    40.0 dBmV
4    4    Locked    SC-QAM    36300000 Hz    6400000 Hz    40.0 dBmV


I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right direction for a resolution as this impacts VOIP, Screensharing/Streaming, and gaming. Thanks!

  • @Wecomewego

    You can definitely give that a shot. It's starting to look like a packet loss somewhere between us and the modem from the data available so far. This would be something our field service team would need to investigate further. If a technician is able to confirm the problem still exists at the tap servicing your home he/she would then open a ticket with our field maintenance team to investigate further.

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  • ChrisL's avatar
    ChrisL
    Former Moderator
    @Wecomewego

    From this end everything look OK with the modem concerning speeds, packet loss, and levels. Can you try testing without the router to see if that helps? Also, do you have any trace routes showing the packet loss?

  • Wecomewego's avatar
    Wecomewego
    New Contributor

    Chris,

    Great questions. I have tried connecting directly into my modem and still experienced the same issue. I even tested another device on my network to rule out a NIC problem, and I find both devices lose packets during ping tests at the same time. Here's what I normally see when I run tracert:


    Tracing route to google.com [216.58.216.46]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

      1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.1
      2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
      3     9 ms     8 ms     8 ms  100.127.64.10
      4     *        8 ms     8 ms  wsip-70-166-189-130.ph.ph.cox.net [70.166.189.130]
      5    38 ms    19 ms    21 ms  langbprj02-ae1.0.rd.la.cox.net [68.1.1.14]
      6    19 ms    20 ms    21 ms  72.14.215.221
      7    21 ms    21 ms    20 ms  108.170.247.129
      8    21 ms    22 ms    23 ms  108.170.237.199
      9    21 ms    20 ms    20 ms  lax02s22-in-f14.1e100.net [216.58.216.46]

    Trace complete.

    Since posting this, packet loss has been on the very low end of what I typically see (Right now Teamspeak says loss is at 0.11% and ping test shows 0%), with severe spikes beginning after 4PM and 6PM. They were so bad that it kicked me off my work's VPN around 4:10ish PM. Thanks for your assistance!

  • ChrisL's avatar
    ChrisL
    Former Moderator
    @Wecomewego

    Can you try to get more results without the router? If it makes it any easier pingplotter can also be helpful, especially it's an intermittent problem you're trying to catch.

  • Wecomewego's avatar
    Wecomewego
    New Contributor

    I won't be able to test directly connected to the modem until later tonight. However, I installed ping plotter and have been trying to learn how to use it. From what I see, most of the packet loss seems to begin around hop 3 for the majority of my packet loss:

    Thoughts?

  • ChrisL's avatar
    ChrisL
    Former Moderator
    @Wecomewego

    I'm actually more concerned that pingplotter is showing packet loss at 192.168.1.1. Can you try that test again without the router?

  • Wecomewego's avatar
    Wecomewego
    New Contributor

    This is expected behavior for some routers with how the handle ICMP requests per Pingplotter and does not occur on every test I have run. I can only run a longer duration test without my router after 6PM as I need it for my work's VPN during the workday.  However, as I mentioned I have tried testing hard wired directly into the modem previously and still experienced the same behavior and do not believe the router to be the root cause.

  • ChrisL's avatar
    ChrisL
    Former Moderator
    @Wecomewego

    Yes that is correct, it's called ICMP deprioritization however I'm concerned that it's showing up on 192.168.1.1. Do you have ICMP deprioritization on your home router?

  • Wecomewego's avatar
    Wecomewego
    New Contributor

    Chris,

    I'm not sure, I haven't changed any advanced settings on my router and I don't use QoS. While typing this up, I had a huge packet loss spike that I noticed when using VOIP. Pingplotter shows the same results for all 3 tests I'm running, that packet loss begins at hop 3.

  • ChrisL's avatar
    ChrisL
    Former Moderator
    @Wecomewego

    This result looks different than before. The original result you posted showed 50% packet loss at the Netgear router before reaching the modem. I'd definitely try getting some more results without the router so we can compare.

  • Wecomewego's avatar
    Wecomewego
    New Contributor

    I think it was showing 50% loss because it was timing out every other 2.5 second interval. If I moved the interval to say 5 seconds or maybe 1 second, there was no loss. I wasn't able to get a larger sample size since I connected during my break, but here's showing the packet loss at the same hop when connected directly to the modem.