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llama42's avatar
llama42
New Contributor III
4 years ago
Solved

NV - Intermittent latency spikes and packet loss, mostly in the evening

Maybe somebody here wants to see if they can explain what is going on.  For months now I have had short periods of poor service almost always in the evening.  I have had multiple techs out who could find no issue.  I have replaced every piece of equipment on my side of the connection, including the cable modem, at the suggestion of cox support.  I have been put on "home monitoring" and been told nothing indicates any of the lines leading to my modem need to be replaced.  I sometimes get error messages in the event log of the modem and have corrected/uncorrected packet counts but those do not correspond to the time of these interruptions.

Nobody seems to want to admit there is an issue or seems to get back to me with any information.  I started documenting the issue at the end of December here https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32616178-NV-Intermittent-latency-spikes-and-packet-loss

From 2020-02-25

From 2020-02-26

  • Ive been in the exact same boat since november, had about 15+ techs come out. with "field supervisors" and they all say the exact same thing, they will monitor the internet because nothing is found the time they come, they end up seeing the packet loss in multiple modems in my neighborhood. and then they go on to say they will get in contact with their supervisor, after a few texts they always stop replying. even after saying "just keep calling me at this point i want to get this fixed for you". it started small at first and it go super annoying, upgraded to gigablast, it got slightly better. and these past few weeks its literally unusable while gaming. non stop packet loss and latency veriation. atleast now when i run the speed tests on fast.com speedtest.com and cox website the download is for the most part steady, but ive been using the cox website because there it shows a high jitter, which i googled and it said anyting above 15-20 can cause latency and packet loss. my jitter was 40 just right now on the last test. I also live in las vegas Lakemead and Lamb. today we downgraded to the package we had before because its pointless to be paying 110+ to not be bale to use it on anything else than youtube. sadly the only provider in my community is cox so im stuck till they get it fixed! but i better get credit when its all fixed. LITERALLY SINCE NOVEMBER!

48 Replies

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  • En_g_neer's avatar
    En_g_neer
    New Contributor II

    500 pings to Google and 4% packet loss. Had a tech come replace the modem, check neighborhood taps, supposedly still no issues even though I was still experiencing significant jumps in latency. Modem values all healthy, blablabla. These issues started about a month ago. Games are almost unplayable too. Constant packet loss.

    All Cox reps are claiming the network is fine it seems... Are we just getting messed with or what? I don't understand why they can't just admit there are slowdowns. Getting close to filing an FCC complaint since all I get is my time wasted from "reset your modem before we do anything else" after spending a half hour + per call waiting.

    https://imgur.com/ZrCtOr6

    • women-tiger's avatar
      women-tiger
      New Contributor III

      Yeah , I have same issue for 3 weeks now and all they do is tell me that everything is running fine. I'm thinking about switching to Century Link for fiber optic for $85 / month with life time guaranteed price. I'm paying $116 for crappy high speed internet + phone.

      • En_g_neer's avatar
        En_g_neer
        New Contributor II

        I wish I had that option! No CenturyLink fiber in my area unfortunately...

  • llama42's avatar
    llama42
    New Contributor III

    Reset modem around noon after the first graph but it doesn't seem to matter.

    • Allan's avatar
      Allan
      Moderator
      @Llama42, I can certainly understand your frustration with this ongoing issue and I appreciate that you have provided the detailed information. It does look like there is an issue on hop 2 and that is typically between the modem and the outside tap. I recommend sending us an email with your full address and link to this thread to cox.help@cox.com so we can look further into this issue for you. Thanks. -Allan, Cox Support Forums Moderator.
  • llama42's avatar
    llama42
    New Contributor III

    2020-03-02

    No uncorrectables or event log entries during these periods.

  • llama42's avatar
    llama42
    New Contributor III

     24 Hours

    48 Hours

    Seems like it has to be usage related.  Ingress or congestion that increases as people use it more during the evening?  Tech is coming out in the morning. 

  • magis123's avatar
    magis123
    New Contributor II

    Hey I just wanted to come here and post that you are not alone.  This has been happening quite literally for the past probably 9 weeks in my area of Vegas (Paradise) as well and of course they never find anything wrong.  It's beyond freaking frustrating at this point and the only thing they can tell me anymore is 'be patient' because 'they are upgrading the area'.  That doesn't help that I maybe have service 30-40% of the time.

    • KevinM2's avatar
      KevinM2
      Former Moderator
      @magis123, I am not detecting any packet loss on your modem, however, I am seeing an excessive number of timeouts. Please make sure all connections are tightly secured and free of damage. This includes any splitters you have in the home, as well as the copper needle at both ends of the coaxial cable. The timeouts occurring might be a signal related issue. -Kevin
      • magis123's avatar
        magis123
        New Contributor II

        Trust me I've done that.  Your tech has done that including removing all splitters from my home and that the line comes directly from the onsite hub.  It consistently drops out when using any peer to peer networking (specifically destiny) during periods of peak traffic. Note I am NOT file sharing, I am playing a game.  I had a tech before say that if I stop file sharing I won't have these problems as you throttle connections that use P2P file shares.  I am NOT file sharing, that is the network architecture the game is built on (peer-to-peer hybrid mesh).

        I literally have tried EVERYTHING as did your tech that came out.  You suggested i buy a new modem so I bought two different brands and have the same results.  Do you realize how frustrating this is?  The tech said the on site hub needs replaced but won't be replaced because of the 'neighborhood i live in'.

        He was just back out here for one of my neighbors having the SAME problem and he told her the same thing.

  • llama42's avatar
    llama42
    New Contributor III

    From 6pm to 7pm I'm getting over 5% packet loss now

    • Jack_H's avatar
      Jack_H
      Contributor

      Really hope they fix this stuff soon... only able to browse the web and that's about it

  • llama42's avatar
    llama42
    New Contributor III

    Just an update, working with a tech who at least seems committed to figure out what is wrong.  Found small amount of ingress on my line and some on one of my neighbors.  Replaced the coax run from my dmarc through the attic to the cable modem but no luck.  You can see some downtime at 2pm from replacing the cable and then around 4pm we see the issue is still present.

    The next day (Friday) the issue was later but quite pronounced for over an hour at around 11pm.

    Noise seen from the neighbors line was even less than mine which makes me skeptical removing it will solve the issue but we will see.

    • DustinP's avatar
      DustinP
      Moderator
      Llama42,

      From what you're seeing and reporting, there still appears be an intermittent issue. I understand you've just recently had an appointment completed by a field technician. If the issue is intermittent and not happening at the time of the appointment, then this can make it difficult for the technician to diagnose at the time of the appointment. We're reaching out to our local field team to help pinpoint the next possible step for this issue you're seeing.

      Respectfully,

      Dustin
      Cox Forums Support Moderator
  • llama42's avatar
    llama42
    New Contributor III

    The tech I've been working with is great. The tap should be getting replaced within the next few days and will reevaluate after that. Just documenting the plot from 2020-03-18 here:

    Yesterday ~11:40am they finished replacing the drop line and issues came back after 1pm.

    At ~2:20pm I removed a UPS and any other equipment that was near the modem just to see.

    At ~8:10pm I bypassed all networking equipment and ran directly off the modem with a different ethernet cable.

    At ~9:20pm I restored networking.

    Issues persisted until about 1am when things settled down. The problems are definitely more prevalent during daytime hours and more frequent since people started staying home due to the coronavirus. Working from home during this involves attending teleconference calls which makes this type of performance issue quite apparent.

    • llama42's avatar
      llama42
      New Contributor III

      Just comparing yesterday 2020-03-19

      to the same day 2 weeks ago 2020-03-05

      you can see how much worse it is since the state shutdown and start of social distancing.

      • llama42's avatar
        llama42
        New Contributor III

        Actually I don't have a good day since the drop cable has been replaced.  I assumed the new one would be better but it's possible it made things worse.  Every day looks like this now