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Hello, I have been a Cox Customer for 17 years and a few years ago I started having very bad packet loss issues. I have spent hundreds of hours trying to fix this issue but it still happens even years later. I am only receiving packet loss (upload), 0% download packet loss. I am receiving low ping (for the most part) (30-40ms) and high packet loss (10-120%) in games such as Fortnite, Overwatch, Rocket league and more. It is happening on my PC & PS4. Here is a list of stuff I tried to fix the issue -
- Replaced router twice
- Replaced modem
- Plugged directly in through Ethernet, getting perfect speeds (100/10)
- 2 Cox Techs came out and replaced my line but nothing changed. Tested, and said I had 0% packet loss but I am still receiving it?
- Called cox multiple times and no help was provided.
- Done a lot of online research, and tried changing in-game settings to help it but nothing changed. Only thing that slightly helps is if I set my FPS to 30, but I can't play with that considering I use a 144hz monitor.
This is 100% a Cox issue as I used a TMobile hotspot and received 0% packet loss so it can't be anything on my end.
Please help, I don't know what else to do! Thank you!
Can you show a tracert to one of the game servers? Also, what model gateway or modem/router do you have? Have you tried disabling the hotspot and putting your phones in airplane mode when the packet loss occurs?
PS. The reason I asked what modem or gateway you have is to see if it has the infamous Puma 6 CPU which causes latency issues in games and VOIP and other things. See here if your effected. Run the test and if you see any Red (not yellow) then you have a Puma 6 issue. If it's all green, your not effected.
Hi, I am using the NETGEAR R6700 Nighthawk AC1750 Dual Band Smart WiFi Router. My Modem is the ARRIS SURFboard SB6183 Modem 16x4 Docsis 3.0 Cable Modem.
Here is a traceroute to one of Fortnite's Game server. I believe they use Amazon AWS to host - https://imgur.com/SzBw0Hs
And, I usually use Cox Internet when I play which is where I am receiving my packet loss. I only used my phone hotspot to test if it was a Cox or a computer problem. I receive 0% packet loss when using a mobile hotspot.
Here were the results of the Puma 6 CPU test I don't really understand what you meant by that so if you could take a look at it that would be great. https://imgur.com/7G9ALw2
Thank you!
That's odd, SB6183 doesn't use the Puma yet the test for it failed. My guess is something else is causing similar symptoms.
As for the tracert, look some what normal. Getting off Cox network in about 38ms. Can you show the tracert when on cellular to compare? Also, I found this when looking at Amazon's outage reports;
Is it possible my router has a Puma 6 CPU? Also, in my traceroute it seems that I go from where I am (Arizona) then I go from Line 5 (Georgia) to Line 6 (Omaha, Nebraska) then I finally connect to an Amazon Server (Fortnite) in Oregon? Or is that normal, because I don't understand why it doesn't directly connect to Oregon.
As for the Amazon outage report, I don't believe that affected me as I am still receiving packet loss. Not sure what day that happened.
Here is the traceroute when I use my T-Mobile hotspot to play - https://imgur.com/V4Vj0JR
So basically, when I use Cox Internet I get 40-120ms depending on the day and always get very bad packet loss. When I use T-Mobile hotspot I get 0% packet loss but very high ping and connection timeouts quite often. I understand that hotspot will have lag because they aren't supposed to be used for gaming but I should be getting 0% packet loss with Cox.
SilverApple42 said:Is it possible my router has a Puma 6 CPU?
Nope. As per the wiki, it uses the Broadcom BCM4709A0. The SB6183 uses the Broadcom BCM33843D. However if you want to be sure, bypass the router, power cycyle the modem and test again. Even if it doesn't have the PUMA 6 CPU, it could still have TCP issues that the test tests for.
SilverApple42 said:Or is that normal, because I don't understand why it doesn't directly connect to Oregon.
It's normalish? Hard to say what is normal in your area without "good" tracert to compare it to. However I doubt you will see your issue on a tracert TO the server. What you need is a looking glass (a ping/tracert server on Amazon's side) to tracert BACK from them to your public IP. This will show their downstream route, which is your upstream. Maybe I have the exact semantic backwards, but point is does Epic Games have a looking glass? Looking at the trace when on cellular, your latency is at-least 100ms worst. However it does show you goes through Zayo instead of Cox's direct Amazon peering.
What would you recommend I should do so I can attempt to fix the issue?
I would suggest contacting Epic games and have them ping your public IP and see what route they take. I am hoping that will show the actual packet loss and latency. A pathping also wouldn't hurt. If you/.Epic do find it's a Cox routing issue, try posting on DSLReports.com and see if you can grab a engineer's ear.
For now I am going to take a break. I will be back in the morning. Have a good night!
Hi, for some reason it never showed you replied until now, your response was invisible so I am very sorry for replying so late I am not sure what happened. Anyways, I have tried since December getting in contact with Epic and they never respond. Emailed them 4 times total and only one time they responded with a useless automated bot message giving me info I already knew. So that is a major problem I am having with Epic.