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Jaeger's avatar
Jaeger
Contributor

Extremely bad packet loss and service outages

For the last two weeks, Cox has constantly been going out in my area in the evenings and remaining out for a few hours. For the record, my Zip code is 23702 in Portsmouth, Virginia. Tonight it was so bad I was actually disconnected from Apps like discord, my game, and could not even buffer any videos. The last time I encountered this issue it was advised I upgrade my modem which I have, to a DOCSIS 3.1 Motorola MB8600, and this has not helped the problem at all. This time I have not come empty handed though. I ran WinMTR for a while, while this issue was occuring so badly and have the following information to share with you. As I type this, even attempting to upload evidence is a real pain because the connection is so horrible. I even got disconnected from this forum while I was attempting to post this.

The problem seems to begin at Hop 2? I do not know what 10.5.0.1 refers to but everything passes through my network just fine it seems.



I also have my Modem Signals page for reference.



I cannot decipher any of this and though the service outages have been recent, the packet loss, high ping, and other issues have been happening for months now and it started happening out of the blue one day even before Covid. Tonight has been the worst night all year though, bar none. Looking at this can anyone tell me what's going on or what the most likely culprit is?

Edit: Here is an imgur album with pictures of the house's wiring outside -

https://imgur.com/1o9Ul58

 

48 Replies

  • Bruce's avatar
    Bruce
    Honored Contributor III

    The symptom began pre-COVID...about a year ago...and has progressively worsened to a barely operational connection.

    First thing is to clean up the tangle of cable(s) outside your house.  Is this a single-family house with no other renters?

    Except for a short segment of cable emerging from the ground and into the Network Interface Device (plastic box), you shouldn't see any coaxial cable outside the house.  Also, under an eave of a roof is no place for a splitter.

    I'd first talk to your landlord about absorbing the cost of a tech because you shouldn't incur it.

    The rat's nest may not even be the problem, but you should rule it out.

    • Jaeger's avatar
      Jaeger
      Contributor

      Single family, it's just us living in the house and we've been here for about ten years now. As far as the cables go, there is a long segment of coaxial cable running up to the underside of the roof from the outside cable box. This cable connects to a splitter screwed into the underside of the roof and from here another cable runs along the underside of the roof and around the side of the house.

      There is a second bundle of cables coming out of the box that are just sort of attached to the wall above the box and it's a real mess. All of it has been this way since before we moved in and I had just assumed it was supposed to be this way, never really paid much attention to it before today.

      I could just be explaining or describing things poorly so I'll take some pictures tomorrow to make sure I'm not over exaggerating the issue. Maybe with some visuals people will be able to say for certain if things aren't as they should be. For what it's worth, this house has been hammered by bad storms the last couple years to the point the siding on the house on one wall was nearly ripped off by the wind and falling branches. If anything the wires outside the house maybe be damaged somewhere.

      • Bruce's avatar
        Bruce
        Honored Contributor III

        I reads like your have unnecessary splits on your coaxial cable inside the NID.

        If you only require 1 feed...such as in the living room...you could probably preserve this 1 connection and disconnect the rest.  You probably wouldn't even need the giant splitter inside the NID.

        The best splitter is no splitter.  However, if you need a splitter, only split to what you need.  Too many unnecessary splits will exponentially weaken your signal and increase chances of connection failure.

        No pixs required.

  • Looks like I spoke too soon. The issue has returned again, the packet loss and high latency again returning at hop 2 (10.5.0.1)

    The modem signals page is not showing any uncorrectables this time though. Going to be calling another technician out to see if they'll just replace the entire line running to this particular cable jack.

  • BenS1's avatar
    BenS1
    Former Moderator
    Hi @Jaeger,

    Can you please run that WinMTR again but this time plug your computer directly into your modem bypassing your router? Also, are there any splitters or amplifiers that are connected to the coaxial that is screwed into the back of your modem? If so can you please bypass any splitters/amplifiers and plug it directly into the wall from the modem?

    Ben S.
    Cox Support Forums Moderator
  • Here are images of the outside cabling. Maybe "rat's nest" is not actually an accurate descriptor as I did not notice the bundle on the left was a drip loop below the ground. You can see the additional (and unnecessary?) splitter screwed in beneath the edge of the roof. I am unsure whether the landlord's contractor installed these cables or if they were run by cox.

    I have not attempted to open the cable box.

    My main question is now is if I have a technician replace any or all of this am I likely to expect a $75 service charge? I've heard their responsibility ends at the box on the side of the house. If so I'll just bite the bullet and subscribe to complete care for an extra $10/mo to lower the cost.

    (Sorry for the filthy siding, we haven't bothered cleaning any of it during the winter months.)

    • Bruce's avatar
      Bruce
      Honored Contributor III

      I don't know.  As I previously said, this mesh may not even be your problem but it'd be worth ruling out as the source...or contributor...of your problem.  What'd your landlord say?

      • Jaeger's avatar
        Jaeger
        Contributor

        I'm presently waiting for a call back from him so nothing as of yet.

    • Bruce's avatar
      Bruce
      Honored Contributor III

      I'm curious about the smaller, skinnier wire routed upward in the left of the image.  It appears to route to the junction box.  A ground...an amp?

      I can't discern what that thing is on the eave.  It appears to have 1 input and 1 output.

      I wouldn't subscribe to Complete Care.

      • Jaeger's avatar
        Jaeger
        Contributor

        The little device screwed into the underside of the eave is the splitter I was talking about. I have a few like it myself in the event I ever need them. I do not understand why they installed one outside though. I assume the tiny wire on the left running into our circuit box is a ground but I have no idea.

  • Landlord informed me that the wiring for the cable was done by Cox before we moved in.

    I also have a technician coming out to investigate and repair the lines today. I'll update later this evening as to whether or not it solves the issue.

    • Bruce's avatar
      Bruce
      Honored Contributor III

      ask lots of questions for us.  What's this thing...why is this over here...etc.

      • Jaeger's avatar
        Jaeger
        Contributor

        Will do! I'm particularly curious why there is an extra splitter underneath the eave if it's not actually splitting anything.

  • Technician came early and I presented him with the information you guys pointed out to me. While testing the line he could not see any problem at that particular moment however he did acknowledge the antiquated NIU, the horrible wiring job, and the unnecessary splitters. He cut down a lot of the old wiring and replaced them, replaced the entire NIU and replaced the fittings on every cable. He mentioned that having the ground exposed is not really ideal but typically wouldn't be causing the issue I'm experiencing so he left that alone.

    Whoever installed all of this wiring originally seems to have not cared about it "being up to code" and just installed it however they liked.

    He also came inside and tested the line from the inside at my desk. He could not get a signal at all through my indoor coaxial cable so he replaced that as well. Before he did so though he also tested straight through the cable jack and that seemed to indicate things were fine. He did say that if the problem reoccurred to check the attic (where the cables pass through) to see if there were any more unnecessary splitters leading to my jack and he gave me a piece to replace said splitter with instead. If the problem reoccurs and there is no splitter or replacing the piece doesn't work, I was advised to call back and they would probably just run new lines.

    Overall, he couldn't explain to me why the outside wiring was done the way it was outside of the person who originally did it being lazy or not caring, especially when it came to running the cables directly along the power lines from the junction box into the house, which he also fixed so they are no longer in contact with each other.

    The SNR  for the OFDM PLC on the modem signals page is apparently a false reading. The current firmware I'm using is apparently notorious for showing the SNR on that channel as much lower than it actually is. I know there are newer firmware versions available but so far cox has not pushed an update to my modem which is presently on 8600-18.2.9.

    In any case I left WinMTR run again for a good long while and took another snapshot of my signals pages. The odd (false?) reading on the OFDM channel aside, everything seems to be working perfectly now. If things go awry again later this evening, I will update this post again just for reference and in hopes of helping other people figure out what might be happening with their connections as well.

    Tremendous thank yous to WiderMouthOpen and Bruce for helping me figure out what was happening here and how it should be addressed! Thank you to the Cox Technician Mel who went above and beyond to try to help remedy the problem in the field!

    Here are my readings as of now, let's hope it stays this way:

  • Bruce's avatar
    Bruce
    Honored Contributor III

    "While testing the line he could not see any problem..."  I'll assume this test was at your outdated NIU to measure the signal from Cox before he did anything.  If he didn't detect any problems, this would be an in-spec signal from Cox.  This is good.  I guess the power line wasn't affecting your signal after all.

    I imagine him clipping a hedge to replace your nest.  I also imagine your landlord install the nest.  (Just saying)

    If his in-the-house test passed AFTER removing your nest, this is also good.

    So your coaxial cable enters your house at the roof...into the attic...and down to the area of your desk?  Hopefully this rerun fixed your problem but if it does reoccur, a new, more direct connection to your desk-area would be nice.  Meaning, no routing through the attic.  If you do replace this portion, notify your landlord, again, because there'll be some drilling.

    Overall, your new log looks good:  power on all downstream channels increased an average of 7.3 dBmV and SNR increased overall 0.5 dB, especially on the first 8 channels.  I'm happy to read 14.9 dB is an erroneous measurement.  Upstream specs look about the same.

    Now let's rollback to bens1's attempt.  If you have a standalone modem, directly connect an Ethernet cable from the modem to a device and run a speed test.  If you have...for example...a 150 Mbps plan, your results should be close to 150 Mbps.  This will measure your bandwidth.  Now you're good at uploading images, post the results of your speed test.

    Thanks, Mel!

    • Jaeger's avatar
      Jaeger
      Contributor
      I'll assume this test was at your outdated NIU to measure the signal from Cox before he did anything.  If he didn't detect any problems, this would be an in-spec signal from Cox.  This is good.  I guess the power line wasn't affecting your signal after all.

      Correct!

      So your coaxial cable enters your house at the roof...into the attic...and down to the area of your desk?  Hopefully this rerun fixed your problem but if it does reoccur, a new, more direct connection to your desk-area would be nice.  Meaning, no routing through the attic.  If you do replace this portion, notify your landlord, again, because there'll be some drilling.

      Mostly correct, it does enter into the attic from the roof it seems, but from there it exits the attic via the openings at either end of the house, routes down the AC duct, under the siding, and to the jack on the wall.

      Now let's rollback to 's attempt.  If you have a standalone modem, directly connect an Ethernet cable from the modem to a device and run a speed test.  If you have...for example...a 150 Mbps plan, your results should be close to 150 Mbps.  This will measure your bandwidth.  Now you're good at uploading images, post the results of your speed test.

      The speed tests are actually consistent with what I had before which is still good considering I am on the 150Mbps plan. I do wish Cox would provide more competitive Upload speeds though. 1MB is barely enough to upload a video anywhere in a convenient amount of time.

      • Bruce's avatar
        Bruce
        Honored Contributor III

        166 Mbps...goodness!  You may want to verify your account because you might be on the 200 Mbps plan.  I forget the incentive but I was on the 100 Mbps but Cox replaced it with the 150 Mbps plan.

        The weird part was instead of Cox just putting me on the 150 Mbps plan, Cox "grandfathered" me to a 200 Mbps.  Normally, I wouldn't have cared...50 more megabits...but I have an older router with only a 100 Mbps port.  I can't even use the +50 Mbps let alone +100, so I just had Cox roll me back to the 150 Mbps plan and saved $10 per month.

        On the other hand, if you actually are on the 150 Mbps plan, Cox is treating you well on both streams.  You typed "1 MB" but meant 10, right?

  • Bruce's avatar
    Bruce
    Honored Contributor III
    I even got disconnected from this forum while I was attempting to post this.

    Is the problem as bad as it was a week ago?

    Was there a splitter in your attic?

    The Cox router may be a choke point.

    • Jaeger's avatar
      Jaeger
      Contributor

      Problem isn't nearly as bad as it was, just still a very noticeable issue. There as no splitter or anything like that in the attic that I could find but I may have just missed it. The router and modem are also both privately bought and the traffic passes flawlessly through the router itself. Unless you're referring to something on their end?

      • Bruce's avatar
        Bruce
        Honored Contributor III

        Yes...the "choke point" could be hop-2 (10.5.0.1), which would be a Cox router.

  • Another technician should be here in an hour or two.

    Modem is currently showing a lot of T3 and T4 timeouts as of yesterday. I am also getting a few uncorrectables on Downstream channel 2 as well. I don't suppose 10.5.0.1 could refer to my own modem could it?

    • Bruce's avatar
      Bruce
      Honored Contributor III

      You don't know the IP of your router?  Open a Command Prompt (Run > cmd)...type ipconfig (Enter)...and you should see the IP of your Gateway Router.

      • Jaeger's avatar
        Jaeger
        Contributor

        My Router appears as RT-AX3000-5910 in the WinMTR logs. All traffic passes through it just fine without issue. The hang up begins at 10.5.0.1 which is not what my Router's gateway present is. I'm curious if 10.5.0.1 would refer to my Motorola MB8600 Modem, though I bought that less than a month ago in an attempt to resolve the same issue I'm having now.

  • Technician came and went after an hour or so, could not see any issues on the line at all, their reader showed perfect speeds and no packet loss what so ever. He did go up to the pole and replace something just for good measure and called his supervisor to ask about having maintenance sit on this area and watch for anything happening very late at night (which is generally when I have these issues.)

    He asked that I forward screenshots of any more T3 / T4 errors and packet loss issues to his Supervisor when they next occur but the only thing he can think of beyond what they've already done is replacing the line from the box to my coax jack.

    • Bruce's avatar
      Bruce
      Honored Contributor III
      watch for anything happening very late at night

      Did the tech allude to what might be happening at night...malcontents?

      • Jaeger's avatar
        Jaeger
        Contributor

        He was at a loss as to why this could be happening and didn't give any sort of indication one way or the other.