Forum Discussion

wildbailey's avatar
wildbailey
New Contributor III
3 years ago
Solved

Packet loss: Cox split the node, but it didn't help!?

I'm extremely saddened, disappointed, and heartbroken right now. We've been having extreme packet loss and latency spikes for the last 7 months. I posted about the experience four months ago here: ...
internet
latency
node split
packet loss
  • wildbailey's avatar
    wildbailey
    3 years ago

    This is resolved.

    Cox has informed me that it's normal for them to continue monitoring and making adjustments to the area for up to 14 days after the node split.

    The latency, packet loss, and jitter issues we experienced were remedied by increasing the number of upstream channels in the area. I'm not sure if a node split is a prerequisite to that, but from what I understand, they were planning out and working on this entire upgrade for several months at least.

    Now I have some advice for others with similar issues:

    • Don't focus on packet loss. It seems that Cox's tools for testing their network are far less eager to declare a packet "lost" than most software. If you notice that your packet loss occurs alongside spikes in latency, then emphasize the latency spikes instead.

    • Don't give up if the first technician can't find anything. Have a couple more come out until someone spots it. If possible, try to schedule techs around times that you know the problem occurs most frequently.

    • It seems that Cox does not entirely respect PingPlotter or treat its results with much weight. In fact, 2 of the 3 technicians who visited our residence gave their own unique excuse for why it's not reliable. That said, it's a great tool to identify times of day where the issue occurs most frequently for the purpose of scheduling a technician.

    • Once a technician does finally manage to see the issue, they will open an internal maintenance ticket. At this point, the issue is beyond technicians and you will need to wait (potentially several months or longer) for a resolution. 

    The most frustrating part of this entire situation has been the lack of information. Throughout all of the emails, calls, chats, and technicians, I was unable to get Cox to definitively confirm:

    • If they were aware of our issue.
    • If they were aware of a wider issue with our area.
    • That work was planned or ongoing in the area to address our issue.

    It seems that an informal FCC complaint is the "way to go" for answers like those. I didn't file one while the issue was ongoing due to a neighbor providing us with information.

    Thanks all for the help along the way!

wildbailey's avatar
wildbailey
New Contributor III
3 years ago

Update: A technician came and tested upstream from the tap for 8 minutes. By chance, he came at a time where network performance was relatively calm, except for some jitter. He saw the jitter and will report it, but refused to acknowledge any packet loss even when presented PingPlotter graphs.

We now have some neighbors reporting that their internet service is still unstable. Some are still reporting that their service has improved drastically after the node split.

  • BenS1's avatar
    BenS1
    Former Moderator
    3 years ago
    @Wildbailey

    Because the technician did not find any packet loss, are you able to do a Continous Ping and a traceroute and then post your results?


    Ben S.
    Cox Support Forums Moderator
    • wildbailey's avatar
      wildbailey
      New Contributor III
      3 years ago

      Hi bens1 and thanks for all the suggestions.

      That's exactly what PingPlotter does. I have it running constant traceroutes against Google DNS, Cloudflare DNS, our modem gateway, as well as what I believe is our CMTS (the second hop for all outgoing traceroutes). Packet loss always starts with that second hop.

      Here are PingPlotter traceroute results on 6/30 between 6:34 PM and 6:35 PM. The values shown at the top are averages among all 120 traceroutes performed within that minute. (Note: 100% PL for 192.168.0.1 is normal, the Cox Panoramic Gateway always does that even when the network is performing flawlessly - proof here).

      To demonstrate that the issue is still ongoing, here is another average of 120 traceroutes from 7/2 between 6:00 PM and 6:01 PM.

      To reiterate some important previous points:

      • These results have been corroborated across multiple devices (both LAN and WiFi) repeatedly.
      • Whenever there are large spikes in packet loss, I have no issue downloading anything, it's only upload that is affected.
      • I've run tests with packetlosstest.com during some episodes and it also confirms that all packet loss is only upstream. There's a screenshot of this in my previous thread.

      Next time there's a nasty packet loss episode, I will take screenshots of ping/tracert commands for you, as well as the modem's own ping test tool.

      Thank you!

    • wildbailey's avatar
      wildbailey
      New Contributor III
      3 years ago

      bens1 Here's packet loss from PingPlotter and a continuous ping against 1.1.1.1 on the side with requests timing out and latency fluctuating. The timestamps match up:

      I performed two traceroutes during that spike. Interestingly, the 7th route is different between the two, but I'm not really sure if that's notable. I performed this within WSL as I prefer linux traceroute for its -N flag considering how spontaneous our issues can be, so you'll see my PC as the first hop, and the modem/gateway is #2 which seems to rarely return expired ICMP packets.

      For comparison, here are two traceroutes when the network is performing optimally:

      Maybe I'll try again next time I'm online and see a major, persistent episode like in the OP. Thanks again for your attention to this.

      • GregP1's avatar
        GregP1
        Moderator
        3 years ago
        Hi Wildbailey

        It looks like the ping times are increasing somewhere between your modem and the Node on the 2nd or 3rd hop when the problem is occurring. We would like to help. Please email us at cox.help@cox.com Please include your name full street address and link to this forum post.

        GregP1
        Cox Forum Moderator