Anyone else experiencing Packet Loss from Southwest Florida to Washington DC or Texas servers?

Anyone else experiencing Packet Loss from Southwest Florida to Washington DC or Texas servers?

Packet loss has been consistent since the launch of 3.25 with drops about once every 3 minutes on average.

I've had Comcast out and they adjusted the Upstream power level on my modem, but that didn't fix it.

I initially thought the problem was on the Comcast node (the first hop from my house), but now I have no idea. Since I have the same packet loss when connecting to any PoE server, I'm confident the problem isn't at the data center.

Packet loss looks like this in-game:



Normally the latency line is perfectly flat, but as you can see it now varies from 35-45 ms with two total drops in between.

I'll post my MTRs and Ping Plotters if anyone else wants to compare notes.

It's very likely that you're experiencing high ping spikes.
Packet loss and high ping can be captured with WinMTR.

When it's happening follow the instructions in this GGG post for WinMTR to help track it down easier:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1377789

I need to know if anyone else in Southwest Florida is experiencing the same as me. Whether you are or not, please comment in this thread, it will help me troubleshoot further.

You can tell that's packet loss because of the plateau at the top of each spike.

Here's an MTR to a GGG instance server in Washington DC.



Ignore the first hop, it's my router.

WinMTR misses a lot of actual drops because it only sends pings once per second by default.

Yeah, I fully understand the entire graph.

1s is sometimes too fast for residential routers and the ping packets often get deflected due to higher priority traffic or to packet flooding so that's expected.

For some reason your ISP has higher than normal ping spikes IMO to their hub. (8ms is fantasic btw) Most cable company pings from customer modems to their hub CMTS are less than 30ms and usually down around 20ms or so. Maybe that 52ms was a one off, but I personally would be looking at that more frequently if that was my connection.

It's actually difficult to tell exactly where your issue is starting. The fact that the CMTS (first hop after your modem) ping hit 52ms at one point and you see 1% loss at that hop which appears to go all the way to the bottom would indicate and ISP plant issue. But it's very minimal and hard to really tell without a lot more testing.

You should try running this WinMTR for a longer period of time to a reputable DNS server like 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1 to get more information. This will be more stable of a test than the game server so you get a baseline.

Another app I prefer is PingPlotter (free edition). I set my Interval at the top from 1s to 1.5s to try to prevent the router from being flooded.

I used the IP that you used in your WinMTR and ran the test in PingPlotter for 10 mins to show you what it looks like and did not show any issues.

I am on the east coast of South Carolina on a fiber connection and I normally do not experience issues on DC. I have noticed issues with the TX server with high ping spikes occasionally but that seemed to be instance based.

My PingPlotter to 209.192.189.52
The red lines and packet loss shown mid route are simply being deflected by network equipment and are a non-issue. For me there is no packet loss on my ISP network nor any that travels all the way down the run to the server IP. Also, the min/max ping to the final destination were relatively stable throughout the entire 10 minute test. Other hops along the way seemed to bounce around but that's not concerning. The hop right before the end IP seems to have a larger fluctuation and maybe that's what you're seeing, but I'd do a lil more testing.

Thanks for the help. I did try PingPlotter earlier, but didn't fully understand what it was telling me.

I've had many problems over the years resulting in Comcast having to do maintenace on the first "node" from my house. I think my current problem is related, but try telling that to a Comcast phone support person or even a tech who visits -- they have no idea what I'm talking about.

I will do what you suggested tomorrow morning. Thanks again.

EDIT: What does "CMTS" stand for?

Anytime. I worked in the industry for quite some time and I've seen the frustrations from the customer, tech, and the networking sides.

If you get more information and want to share feel free to post.

Edit, ... I just saw your edit.
Cable Modem Termination System

You can think of the CMTS as the "router" in the hub that talks to the modems in the city or area you live in and keeps their signal levels in spec and assigns the IP address to the modems and sends the information down the line to all devices trying to connect to the cable system about how to talk on that network.

Comcast and other cable companies have access to the report data the CMTS collects about all the modems it is communicating with. This data contains all sorts of information such as node health, packet loss, signal interference, errors and packet retransmission, and lots of other information. Good techs, network hub techs/engineers, and maintenance or mainline techs often access this to determine sources of problems in the network.

So in summary if there was a legitimate issue in your node such as a main cable that's damaged, a bad amplifier, or a customer home that has signal issues, the data the CMTS collects can be used by a good tech to find and resolve it rather quickly. Unfortunately, there aren't many of these types of techs floating around.

Thanks for that info.

Below I've posted my MTR and PingPlotter results to Google's and Cloudflare's DNS servers.

Without being an expert like you, but also not being a noob, I'm 99% confident the packet loss is happening just after the packet leaves my house. Whether it happens at the first hop, the "CMTS", depends on what a "node" is.

This problem has happened 15 times over the past 6 years, and Comcast has always told me the fix has been made at the "node" near my house.

So two questions:

1. Are the "CMTS" and the "node" the same thing?
2. How do I properly convey this information to Comcast?











And here is a link to all of the images on one page: https://imgur.com/a/FGrSlad

Hey.

The CMTS and the node are not the same.
The CMTS is like a large advanced router or server device.

The node is where the coax cables of your community are connected to the fiber connection from the ISP hub. Without getting into a lot of technical language about how it works, the node simply changes the type of signal from copper wires to light signals back to the hub.. and from the hub out to the customers.


As you're likely aware I am also 99% sure you've got an ISP issue. Those PingPlotter images are pretty clear that the packet loss is starting in your node somewhere. Also, I wouldn't dwell too much on the ping times right now hybrid fiber coax system ping times fluctuate more than a fiber connection and can sometimes be slightly normal. However, the packet loss portion is the concerning bit even if it shows 1% or less. No matter what the company's acceptable tolerances are.. ideally you should have zero packet loss in Comcast's network.

The problem is... the loss can be caused by any number of things in your node. Interference in the frequencies back to the node, damaged cables, loose connections, bad active modules (cable amps), and other things can all attribute to the issue.

Hopefully when you get a technician out they can see the issue with their meter by doing a speed test or packet loss check back to their CMTS which should show the loss assuming the issue is happening while they're there. As stated above, someone has access to the software that can see the overall node health and can see the problems easily.

The best option that could happen is if you could ask to email the PingPlotter images showing the packet loss to the tech's supervisor and asking that supervisor to contact a maintenance supervisor to look into the situation for you.

Unless your wiring in your home is causing the issue (likely and hopefully not since you've said they've been out a few times now), then the issue lies somewhere outside.

Give them a call and I hope it goes well for you.

Keep them honest with the service you're paying for. The PingPlotter app has caught many issues over the years I had to deal with as a customer with an ISP.

After a 50-bullet point post on reddit's /r/Comcast_Xfinity/, it seems there is now scheduled maintenance on my node for tomorrow.

Not holding my breath, but hey, I've got to get a win sooner or later, right?

Your information and help has been extremely valuable. Thank you

"

Ty_Cobb wrote:

Your information and help has been extremely valuable. Thank you

I just read the post. It's amazing what happens when you bring attention to an issue with details and post it on a social media platform of sorts.

GG :)

Edit:
No problem glad to help. Hopefully they resolve this issue this time for ya.