Traceroute always showing two lines of * * *, tabs are slow to load

markx2 — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 13:08:11 GMT

A few weeks ago this problem did not exist.

M4 Macbook Air, Tahoe, fully updated. No VPN used. Wifi.

Firefox Developer Edition (some extensions) opens 4 tabs at start, Edge (zero extensions) opens 3.

The browsers would open and the tabs would be there without delay.

Now though, there is a several second delay.

The tabs will show the title of the site, but then the spinner appears while they connect.

Connecting subsequently to sites is also slow - by which I mean there is a delay of a few seconds and then the site loads instantly.

What I have done:

- changed the default DNS to Cloudflare
- reset the router
- ran maintenance (Onyx) and rebooted
Nothing has helped

The laptop has not really moved and the router is in the same room, line of sight.

Traceroutes: The asterisk pattern is the same for every site.

mark@M4-Air ~ % traceroute bbc.co.uk traceroute: Warning: bbc.co.uk has multiple addresses; using 151.101.64.81 traceroute to bbc.co.uk (151.101.64.81), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254) 19.875 ms 3.990 ms 4.010 ms 2 * * * 3 * * * 4 * * 62.172.102.136 (62.172.102.136) 19.581 ms

mark@M4-Air ~ % traceroute cloudflare.com traceroute: Warning: cloudflare.com has multiple addresses; using 104.16.132.229 traceroute to cloudflare.com (104.16.132.229), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254) 16.398 ms 4.525 ms 3.513 ms 2 * * * 3 * * * 4 * * 62.172.102.140 (62.172.102.140) 11.511 ms

The traceroutes might be. normal for this hub - Smart Hub 6+

This is not critical at all, but given it did not happen and now does is annoying.

Re: Traceroute always showing two lines of * * *, tabs are slow to load

bobpullen — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 16:13:18 GMT

Can't speak for the problem but the asterisks are completely normal. There are routers in the core network that don't respond to pings.

Re: Traceroute always showing two lines of * * *, tabs are slow to load

markx2 — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 11:12:58 GMT

Thanks, I'll keep trying.

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Traceroute always showing two lines of * * *, tabs are slow to load

Re: Traceroute always showing two lines of * * *, tabs are slow to load

Re: Traceroute always showing two lines of * * *, tabs are slow to load