T3 and T4 Timeouts from an ex-field technician
Starting in September of 2013, I noticed my connection becoming intermittent at best. Voice conferencing and gaming would literally go from 23 ms to over 10k ms and then obviously I would disconnect from the server. About a week after this first started happening, it started to randomly disconnect while I was simply browsing the internet. I found the modem was cycling itself. At the time I had an extremely old but trusty Motorola Surfboard SB5100. Despite having this modem throughout the DOCSIS 3.0 updates, and despite it having worked fine through it all hither to the point in time, I figured it may be the modem (after a 12 year run, I wasn't complaining...) I accessed the modem diagnostic page at 192.168.100.1 and saw that in the logs there were massive amounts of T3 timeouts. Being an ex-field technician for Cox, I knew this could have gone one of two ways. It was either the modem or it was something in the node (most likely an amplifier in the trunk line) that was to blame. I called Cox for the heck of it just to see if they could see anything on their end, and as usual, no. Everything on their end was fine, but again, having been a field tech for 5 years, I know that phone based customer service is very limited, they're not at the house, they don't have a meter and they're sure as heck not taking level readings. Ok, fair enough. I purchased a Motorola Surfboard SB6141 to replace the 5100 and finally upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0. I called them, had the modem provisioned, went to the diagnostics page, was "wowed" by 8 downstream and 4 upstream channels, wondering why I had not upgraded the modem sooner, but alas, not 2 hours after provisioning, there was a T3 timeout. Now I know it's not the modem, time to get on the phone and make things happen. I called, they said they would send a tech out. The tech (CONTRACTOR) came out and I explained the whole situation to him. I showed him the modem diagnostics, I explained what I knew about everything, and he agreed with me. He did NOT check levels, he did NOT check the tap at the pole (I have a 340 foot drop from the pole to the house, it's RG-11. A new install was done less than a year ago, including the drop and inside lines, and I told him this, so he probably "assumed" things were good up there...). He scheduled a 5C, which is the "internal" code name for "get a maintenance (plant) technician out to the pole to see what's up". I got a call from my old lead technician about a week later. He told me that the maintenance tech found water in the drop and cut it back to where the "stinger" (copper in the connector) wasn't black from water damage, and that another tech would be out in the next day or two in order to run a new drop. Two days later ANOTHER CONTRACTOR comes to the house to run the new drop. I saw his spool of RG-11 and I knew he didn't have enough left to get from the pole to the house. He removed the drop at the sub pole, and due to not wanting to bother him, I came back inside. 20 minutes later I went back out and he was gone. He never replaced the drop. He probably figured he didn't have enough cable to do it after removing the drop at the sub pole, rehung it, and left. This pissed me off. In the meantime I contacted my old lead and asked him what the deal was, explaining that not only were these T3's still happening, but they were getting worse, and they were leading into T4's. He scheduled for the drop to be re-run AGAIN the next week and made sure it would be an in house guy arriving, NOT a contractor. Sure enough, another lead technician and a field tech came to the house and ran a new drop. They didn't have enough RG-11 so they ran half RG-11, then installed a ground block at the sub pole and ran RG-6 the rest of the way. He said he would be back (this was a month ago and it still hasn't happened) to replace the RG-6 half of the drop with RG-11. He gave me his cell number to contact directly if this kept going on. It kept going on. The T3's were getting worse. I asked him on the phone to set up a 5C, he said he would but this was a week and a half after he replaced the drop and hadn't been out to finish the RG-11, so my faith in relying on him was null. I therefore called customer service. I explained that, despite having JUST bought a new modem, FIOS was a phone call away if this wasn't resolved. Per usual, they went RIGHT back to square one and wanted to send out a tech. I told them to stop reading the script from their screen and focus on their keyboard in order to LISTEN AND UNDERSTAND exactly what I had JUST explained to them. For over a month I was implying that this was a plant issue, no one wanted to listen. The phone techs didn't want to listen, the lead techs did not want to listen, the lead techs kept coming back with 50 other excuses as to what could be causing it. I questioned them as to why they would do this when they knew I used to be a tech and I wasn't an idiot. The final call was made to customer service. Again, they said they had to send a tech out, despite two months of this **, in order to get a 5C scheduled. Ok, last time I am playing this game. The tech came out and I caught him on my way home from work. He was an in house guy and I caught him as he was at the pole taking levels. He told me that every port from the tap was bonkers, he replaced the tap and the levels were STILL bonkers, and that he did not understand how two lead techs and four field techs didn't realize this was a plant issue from day one. I concurred. He took down every piece of information I gave him about the new drop, the new modem, signal levels at the modem, etc, etc, and made a detailed log for the maintenance techs who came out. He also told me that there are only SIX HOUSES ON MY NODE, LITERALLY. This means that the trunk line feeding my house only feeds a total of 6 houses. Do you know how easy that is for plant (maintenance) to troubleshoot? There is one amplifier that is literally humping my tap, if here's an inch of trunk line from the amplifier into the tap then it's a lot. I suspected that amplifier from the get go, but even if it wasn't, there would only be at most ONE MORE amplifier in that node, so yeah, one amp checked out good, guess which one's bad? Real easy stuff here people, real easy. So, the tech scheduled the 5C (the second one that had to happen in this whole fiasco), and the maintenance tech came out. I don't know if it was the same or a different one, but this time around (after TWO MONTHS OF THIS **) the problem was resolved. It has been two weeks and I have not seen a single T3 or T4 in my log. I see where it lost connection due to the maintenance guy doing what he had to do and of course the service gets interrupted during this, but honestly, after the modem cycle, there is not ONE added entry to the log, nothing; whereas every other "visit" would result in a T3 less than 10 minutes later. These T3 (and later T4's due to the issue getting progressively worse) were happening every ten to twenty minutes on some days, other days every hour or so. I use VOIP for telephone. Imagine not having 911 access for the whole day because your ISP can't get it's act together. I held out having FIOS reinstalled (it was installed here when it first came out) because I honestly can't stand those hacks. Having said that, had that last tech not been so thorough, had the second maintenance tech not done his job and resolved the issue, Verizon was seriously the next phone call. I didn't go into a whole lot of detail about levels and diagnostics here because I did enough of that with customer service and all the techs that visited. I wanted to make a point here to Cox. Not all customers are complete idiots. Not all customers have zero clue about how information travels from their house to the MTC. Maybe instead of treating everyone equally as morons, you should start treating them all equally as intelligent folk. Imagine how many folks out there were never field techs, imagine how many would have switched back to Verizon within the first week, let alone sticking it out for two months. I was a field tech, I have working knowledge of the system, I was treated like a complete idiot, how do you think that makes me feel? It actually makes me feel pretty damned good right about now knowing I was right the whole damned time about the issue being a plant related occurrence, but I can tell you right now when these people tell you over the phone and face to face that you're "wrong", and that they need to go through steps that, again as an ex-tech, you KNOW they don't need to go through, all the while the internet that we pay for monthly and (in some cases) our phone service (through another provider in my instance) has fallen to complete useless garbage, labeling it as "infuriating" somehow undermines the true nature of it. I know that not every single problem faced is one of a plant issue, this is obvious. Red flags should be raised, however, after every single other step has been taken and fails, instead of attempting to loop the same damned process all over again; that is simply ridiculous. What is also ridiculous is the fact that contractors are being sent in place of in house technicians and basically this leads to repeat trouble calls. This is something that is completely unacceptable, especially when one has to take time out of their day (or out of work) every time a call has to be rescheduled. I know not every contractor is a bad contractor, but out of the entire bunch, I can name 3 that I would have work at my house, that's about it. To make it relative to the in house technicians, I can list about 20 off the top of my head that I would let work at my house from start to finish with a cable job any day of the year. I hope this type of issue, or at least the steps to the resolution of this type of problem does not happen again. I will definitely be more prone to calling Verizon early on if an issue is not resolved in a suitable amount of time, not TWO MONTHS AFTER.46KViews4likes2Comments
Internet Issues - Consistent Lost Packets North Phoenix, Arizona
Continuing my previous post that was closed: https://forums.cox.com/forum_home/internet_forum/f/internet-forum/21292/internet-issues---consistent-lost-packets-north-phoenix-arizona The same issue is still occurring. I now have months of data collected to support packet loss beyond my home, as well as an in-home Cox technician that confirmed the infrastructure beyond my home was the issue and that he was seeing packet loss at my tap while excluding my entire internal network. The call date was September 8, 2018 and packet loss beyond my home should be notated on my account in accordance with that call. Here are screenshots from a packet testing utility I've been using while hard wired to my modem and through a router - the same packet loss issues persisted with or without the router in between. Packet loss also persisted through different hardware and operating systems. This packet loss issue persisted through three separate/new routers, two separate, brand new DOCSIS 3.0 modems, a Cox supplied Panoramic modem/router combo as well as the current Motorola MB8600 DOCSIS 3.1 modem. The modem provisioning can be found in my account history. In the photo below, you can see lost packets using UDP (in the Ping Plotter application window, not a normal ICMP request that would normally be dropped due to low priority) and a normal ping in the command prompt window both displaying dropped packets at the same time using two separate types of communication: Here is a screenshot from my modem indicating the uptime (less than three weeks, modem is brand new) and the several hundred thousand of corrections needed on bands 2-21: I called Motorola to confirm my understanding of the "correction" column, and was immediately informed that the number of corrections based on the modem's status page is indicative of an issue with Cox's infrastructure beyond my home. My RG6 line runs direct from the tap at the outside of my home to my modem - no splitters or other devices in use, and was replaced about two months ago by a Cox technician. The RG11 line that runs from the closest Cox ingress point to the outside of my home was replaced as well, about two months ago. There is a problem with the Cox infrastructure in my area of Phoenix. I've been dealing with this problem for months, and have provided Cox with dozens of data sets like the ones linked in this post - yet no tangible corrective measures beyond replacing the lines running to my home have been taken. I currently have a complaint in with the FCC and FTC, and will continue documenting and communicating this information out until the issue of packet loss is identified and corrected.33KViews2likes66Comments
Configuring modem/router to modem only
I am hoping someone can help point me in the right direction. I have a Netgear C3700 DOCSIS 3.0 Wi-Fi modem/router which I currently have configured to provide my home access to the Internet. However I've recently purchased a new router (D-Link DIR-837) to use to hopefully improve/extend my Wi-Fi and Internet capabilities. I tried setting up the new router per the instructions but am getting no internet connection. Reading the modem/router manual I noticed it suggested disabling the router (NAT) mode to enable bridging however once that setting was enabled I lost all Internet connectivity through my Netgear C3700. Is there a setting/step I'm missing here that would allow me to use a separate router and my Netgear C3700 as the modem only? Any help/suggestions are greatly appreciated.15KViews0likes3Comments
Bursts of Packet Loss at night.
So lately, since school has ended, I have been staying up late and starting yesterday night, I seem to be incuring bursts of packet loss at night. It starts around 8ish 9ish at night and I really don't know when it stops. I woke up at 11:00 today and the issue was resolved. But alas tonight it was back at it. pingtest.net doesn't show any packet loss, but there is a test that is located here:http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/ and here are the results: http://n1.netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/summary/id=369839a0-1631-fa163b10-fab2-48d9-9aed#latency Whats this affecting? My game, I play a MOBA named League of Legends, and randomly in fights I my champion would continue to do what I have told it to do before the lag spike, and I can see everyone moving live, the only thing I can't do is input commands. Its like a burst of upload packet loss. It's really annoying and the only response I got from calling cox was "Hey man, if it isn't fixed by the morning, I guess it's time to find a new game". Here is the network logs parsed into a graph from the game.http://logsoflag.com/#YEYavpgkVEq My friends have also noted that my voice cuts out in skype when the packet loss occurs, but there voices are still clear. What have I tried? Disabled the wifi on the modem in case it was someone watching netflix or something. Restarted modem/router/wifi box all-in-one MULTIPLE times. Checked the wire all the way to the wall. Tried multiple computers. Others with cox in the area not experiencing (within 10 miles of me). This issue appears to only occur at night, I surely hope this problem can be resolved and I won't be ignored :( Signal Test: Pinging 8.8.8.8 for 4 minutes Now Pingtest is showing packet loss: And now its not.. I don't understand whats going on : Even when I am getting an A from Pingtest, I am still getting dropped packets in-game. And here it is at 2:00AM with minimum packet loss. Its so random... Ugh :(http://logsoflag.com/#fV2fqFwFGeA 4:00AM here are game logs:http://logsoflag.com/#Jm0ow9OQB7j I can't reliably play my game anymore, idk if I am going to have packet loss or not.14KViews0likes24CommentsPacket loss correlating with massive jump of Uncorrectable codewords
This issue started about a week ago. I noticed weird dropouts/lag bursts and then saw a crazy high number of uncorrectable codewords in the SB6183 (modem) status page. So I beganactivelymonitoring to document the issue (screenshots below). Should I schedule a technician now or ride out the storm? I am currently on the Ultimate internet plan with theCox Service Protection Plan. Before After Packet Loss13KViews0likes28Comments
High downstream and upstream power levels
I have seen post about high downstream and high upstream power levels but not at the same time. It seems to always be that only one of the levels is high and the other is low. I am having both high at the same time. Here are my normal readings. Downstream is normally around 8 to 9 dBmV Upstream is normally around 53 to 54 dBmV What could case both to be high at the same time? I am asking because I am having problems with online gaming. Server kicks, lag, ect. Thanks12KViews0likes8Comments
New Construction Install Request
How can I get someone out to my address to verify that the equipment in my yard is in fact a Cox pedestal so we can get service at our new home? I've been trying for weeks to get someone out here but everyone that I have spoken with acts dumbfounded. I was in the industry for 12 years in Kansas City and when someone had the same situation that I currently have, I would have a technician out at that address to look at it and 9 times out of 10 we had them built in the billing system and services installed in less than 24 hours. Since I've started this process, I have been forced to go with Dish (shame on you Cox) and we are using our phones as hotspots for connectivity.Solved11KViews0likes1Comment
Loss of connectivity, IPv6 only (no IPv4) and DOCSIS T3/T4 errors
Our two Win10 computers go from disconnected, IPv6 access only, IPv4 and IPv6 full access, everything ok and back again. This has been happening for several weeks. I have swapped out cable modem (NETGEAR C6300BD), NIC cards and switch in the house without impact. The ethernet interface often says: IPv4 Connectivity: No network access IPv6 Connectivity: Internet You can also see this in online forums as "only google works" as all IPv6 sites work - but there aren't many. When running diagnostics the error is "Ethernet" does not have a valid IP configuration" Not fixed. Also noticed teredo tunneling was being used to do IPv6 over IPv4 and that this is one of the least prefered methods. After reviewing cable modem event logs there are several T4 errors and some T3 errors. Therefore I believe this problem is between cable modem and Cox. NETGEAR C6300BD Event Log T4 Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=10:da:43:28:33:90;CMTS-MAC=00:13:5f:05:c1:b1;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;11KViews0likes21Comments
High saturation node, slow internet speeds, intermittent drops and nothing they can do?
I'm hoping to get some additional assistance for our internet woes. We contacted Cox on April 15th because we experienced an outage with our internet service. This outage was longer than we had been experience for the last month or so so it was time to call. We were greeted with a recording indicating Cox was working on some upgrades in our area and that users might experience intermittent outages between midnight and 6am.We chalked it up to their maintenance window and let it go for the evening. The next day wenoticed we were experiencing slower than normal internet speeds, in our case, less than half of our potential 150Mbps download speed. We did some internal troubleshooting, resettingour router, re-provisioning our cable modem through the automated system, factory resettingour cable modem and eliminated the router altogether, going straight from computer to cable modem for testing. All tests are done using hardwire, either through a router or directly from the cable modem. WIFI was not used during any of this testing. A majority of the responses were the same, download speeds generally ranged between 70-90Mbps fromearly afternoon into late evenings. There were sporadic results that showed closer to "normal download levels around 110-130Mbps but those were not consistent; we saw many more of the abnormal download speed results than "normal" ones. An appointment was eventually made for a technician to come out and take a look at everything on the outside of the home on 4/20. We received a call from a technician the morning of 4/18 about our service call. The technician indicated he was looking at the node we're attached to and said it was over 80% saturated and that slows speeds and drop outs were somewhat expected given the high level of saturation. The technician indicated he looked at everything and everything looked good, levels were good and there was really nothing he would be able to do about the situation and cancelled our service call for 4/20. A number of days later, our connection appears to be getting worse, with speeds generally ranging in the 60-80Mbps range in the early afternoon through late evening. Again, we still have some results in the 100-120Mbps range but those are far fewer than the 60-80Mbps range. We're also experiencing more drop outs (loss of connection lasting 5-15 seconds) and increased frustration. We understand download speeds are an "up to" but we're generally not getting anything close during the waking hours. Is there anything else we can do to address these issues in the short term? We have been forced, like many others, to work remote andour ability to provide support has been impacted with these connectivity related issues. Here are some recent examples of speed tests using Cox's speed test portal: PING:11ms JITTER:5ms DOWNLOAD:65.8 Mbps UPLOAD:10.0 Mbps PING:20ms JITTER:96ms DOWNLOAD:66.8 Mbps UPLOAD:9.9 Mbps PING:11ms JITTER:2ms DOWNLOAD:62.3 Mbps UPLOAD:10.1 Mbps PING:10ms JITTER:4ms DOWNLOAD:73.2 Mbps UPLOAD:10.2 Mbps10KViews0likes39Comments
Slow real time upload speed - conflicting speed test results
I'm experiencing slow real time upload speeds. The speed test on Cox website have conflicting results. I've had 8 techs out to my house over the last 4 months and the issue has not been resolved. I am experiencing the same exact issues as usernoah82. We are both in Arizona. Here is his thread.http://forums.cox.com/forum_home/internet_forum/f/5/t/13025.aspx9.3KViews0likes34Comments
High saturation node, slow internet speeds, intermittent drops and nothing they can do?
I'm hoping to get some additional assistance for our internet woes. We contacted Cox on April 15th because we experienced an outage with our internet service. This outage was longer than we had been experience for the last month or so so it was time to call. We were greeted with a recording indicating Cox was working on some upgrades in our area and that users might experience intermittent outages between midnight and 6am.We chalked it up to their maintenance window and let it go for the evening. The next day wenoticed we were experiencing slower than normal internet speeds, in our case, less than half of our potential 150Mbps download speed. We did some internal troubleshooting, resettingour router, re-provisioning our cable modem through the automated system, factory resettingour cable modem and eliminated the router altogether, going straight from computer to cable modem for testing. All tests are done using hardwire, either through a router or directly from the cable modem. WIFI was not used during any of this testing. A majority of the responses were the same, download speeds generally ranged between 70-90Mbps fromearly afternoon into late evenings. There were sporadic results that showed closer to "normal download levels around 110-130Mbps but those were not consistent; we saw many more of the abnormal download speed results than "normal" ones. An appointment was eventually made for a technician to come out and take a look at everything on the outside of the home on 4/20. We received a call from a technician the morning of 4/18 about our service call. The technician indicated he was looking at the node we're attached to and said it was over 80% saturated and that slows speeds and drop outs were somewhat expected given the high level of saturation. The technician indicated he looked at everything and everything looked good, levels were good and there was really nothing he would be able to do about the situation and cancelled our service call for 4/20. A number of days later, our connection appears to be getting worse, with speeds generally ranging in the 60-80Mbps range in the early afternoon through late evening. Again, we still have some results in the 100-120Mbps range but those are far fewer than the 60-80Mbps range. We're also experiencing more drop outs (loss of connection lasting 5-15 seconds) and increased frustration. We understand download speeds are an "up to" but we're generally not getting anything close during the waking hours. Is there anything else we can do to address these issues in the short term? We have been forced, like many others, to work remote andour ability to provide support has been impacted with these connectivity related issues. Here are some recent examples of speed tests using Cox's speed test portal: PING:11ms JITTER:5ms DOWNLOAD:65.8 Mbps UPLOAD:10.0 Mbps PING:20ms JITTER:96ms DOWNLOAD:66.8 Mbps UPLOAD:9.9 Mbps PING:11ms JITTER:2ms DOWNLOAD:62.3 Mbps UPLOAD:10.1 Mbps PING:10ms JITTER:4ms DOWNLOAD:73.2 Mbps UPLOAD:10.2 Mbps
