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aaronjt's avatar
aaronjt
New Contributor
5 years ago

Packet loss over the past ~month

I've been getting around 5% packet loss over the past month. It's been infuriating. Tier 1 support at Cox has been... unhelpful - they keep blaming my equipment as my modem signal quality is right down the middle. Since the packet loss is not consistent, replication has also been an issue, when they try to ping back they can't configure the number of packets to send (?!?) and send exactly 100, and so will often show no packet loss, though one technician did catch some loss.

Though I don't think my equipment is at fault at all, I've replaced the modem twice with different brands / models, and the router twice with different models, all to no avail.

I have a secondary ISP that goes through the very same router, with never a packet lost.

A trace route to google.com consistently looks like this:

Tracing route to google.com [172.217.11.174]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  router [192.168.10.1]
  2     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  10.34.180.1
  3    10 ms     8 ms     8 ms  100.127.77.18
  4    10 ms     9 ms    11 ms  100.120.100.40
  5    25 ms    22 ms    22 ms  langbprj02-ae1.0.rd.la.cox.net [68.1.1.14]
  6    22 ms    19 ms    21 ms  72.215.224.175
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8    22 ms    23 ms    22 ms  lax28s15-in-f14.1e100.net [172.217.11.174]
Trace complete.

The hop 7, is of course, well beyond my network and in Cox's network. But if that's really the problem, it seems it should not just be causing me issues?

19 Replies

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  • BrianM's avatar
    BrianM
    Moderator
    5 years ago
    That 7th hop doesn't really indicate packet loss, it is likely just not responding to ping requests but the actual trace route is still completing as normal. I am not seeing any packet loss to your modem currently, does it seem to happen at a specific time of day?

    Brian
    Cox Support Forum Moderator
    • aaronjt's avatar
      aaronjt
      New Contributor
      5 years ago

      It is unfortunately sparatic. I'm losing packets now, and I was losing them this morning when I posted this, but during some of the intervening time I was not.

      • KevinM2's avatar
        KevinM2
        Former Moderator
        5 years ago
        Hi Aaronjt, I am not detecting any packet loss on your modem at this time. The traceroute you've provided to Google does not appear to show any latency. The time the packets take to reach different hops is extremely low. As Brian stated, hop 7 does not show packet loss, as this does not carry over to hop 8. This appears to be normal IMCP de-prioritization. For the most accurate traceroute results, we suggest performing one on a hard-wired connection, directly to the server you're experiencing issues with. -Kevin M. Cox Support Forum Moderator
  • aaronjt's avatar
    aaronjt
    New Contributor
    5 years ago

    I ran a test again right now, with the results I typically get.

    Ping statistics for 172.217.5.206:
        Packets: Sent = 374, Received = 351, Lost = 23 (6% loss),
    Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
        Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 32ms, Average = 21ms

    Again, this is fairly normal for a large enough dataset.

    • BrianM's avatar
      BrianM
      Moderator
      5 years ago
      It sounds like you are doing a continuous ping to google, which is definitely a good test. I am still not seeing the packet loss to your modem currently though. We would recommend connecting a computer directly to the modem (no router in the equation) and then try the same test. Normally if your modem was experiencing that much packet loss we would have seen it by now (unless it just isn't happening when we are testing the modem, which could be possible if it is intermittent enough).

      Brian
      Cox Support Forum Moderator
      • aaronjt's avatar
        aaronjt
        New Contributor
        5 years ago

        I hooked up a laptop directly to the modem (rebooting the modem of course), and ran the test just now:

        Ping statistics for 172.217.11.174:
            Packets: Sent = 34, Received = 32, Lost = 2 (5% loss),
        Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
            Minimum = 19ms, Maximum = 24ms, Average = 20ms

        This was a much shorter test, but yeah, still packet loss.

        It is rather intermittent. Actually, right now things are more stable than most of the time; running 1-2% loss instead of ~5%. Worst times *seem* to be early morning and evening, but I haven't yet run an objective statistical analysis over multiple days to confirm that suspicion.

  • aaronjt's avatar
    aaronjt
    New Contributor
    5 years ago

    I'm looking at the connection quality as reported by the cable modem, and there is one channel whose numbers look way off to me, but I'm not the expert:

     Channel Lock Status Modulation Channel ID Freq. (MHz) Pwr (dBmV) SNR (dB) Corrected Uncorrected

    33 Locked OFDM PLC 159 300.0 6.1 16.2 3913899 0
    • aaronjt's avatar
      aaronjt
      New Contributor
      5 years ago

      Logs for the modem also do not look good. I tried to post them here but the posting was "flagged for abuse".

      In short lots of SYNC Timing Synchronization failure and Dynamic Range Window violation errors.

      • Becky's avatar
        Becky
        Moderator
        5 years ago
        Hi Aaronjt, please update us after today's service call and let us know if the issues continue. -Becky, Cox Support Forums Moderator
  • bigd5783's avatar
    bigd5783
    New Contributor
    5 years ago

    I'm having the same issue.  Intermittent internet drops, online gaming is sporadic.  Sometimes I can keep connection and run without issue and other times I just log off and don't even try anymore.  The storms Oklahoma had about a month ago wrecked Cox's infrastructure but they don't care and aren't trying to fix it.  I have had 4 techs out and every time "everything is fine but I'm going to escalate the issue".  Whatever.  Of course I live in a monopoly neighborhood where there is no other option than Cox for internet.  As I type this I am watching on my pfSense router and have over 22% packet loss.  This has got to get fixed. 

    • KevinM2's avatar
      KevinM2
      Former Moderator
      5 years ago
      @bigd5783, I have pinged your modem several times, and I am also detecting packet loss. I'm truly sorry you're experiencing issues with our service, and we want to help resolve this for you as quickly as possible. Our best course of action would be to send out another service technician to address the packet loss concerns. Please make sure there are no loose or damaged connections in the home. This includes any splitters or amplifiers you may have as well. For further assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at cox.help@cox.com, Twitter, or Facebook. -Kevin M. Cox Support Forum Moderator
      • bigd5783's avatar
        bigd5783
        New Contributor
        5 years ago

        I have had service call after service call and yet the issues still remains. I'm completely without internet right now and was just told by customer service "everything looks fine".