Massive ping times causing broadband outage

[leenowell]

Hi All,

I am having intermittent broadband "outages" which after a lot of troubleshooting, I have discovered coincides with massive ping times.  If I constantly ping 8.8.8.8, I usually get around 8 to 10 ms.  When the issue occurs, this goes up to 2,000 to 4,000 ms.  It stays like this for several minutes (sometimes as much as 90 mins) and then suddenly drops back to normal.

OpenReach have been out and checked the line and I have had 2 Qube engineers out.  First one replaced the master socket which seems to have made the issue worse (more frequent and lasts longer) and second one checked the config etc. on the router and checked the wiring of the master socket and all good.

As per my other post, they have sent a new router but can't see how that will change things as already tried 2 other routers I had laying around but will try once I can get that working.

A couple of other data points...

1. I get a lot of "Near end" errors (in the DLS status page) for "fast path CRC error" and "fast path HEC error".  They are in the thousands whereas the "far end" is in single digits

2. When I do a traceroute to 8.8.8.8 the large times start at 213.121.98.129 / 213.121.98.128 

Anyone any suggestions of what else I can do to try and get to the bottom of the issue?

thanks

Lee.

[XRaySpeX]

Welcome to EE's Home Broadband Forum.

0. Servers have better things to do than respond to pings like servicing the service they exist for. Google's is a DNS & will at times be busy doing lookups.

1. "Near end" is downstream & errors are expected to be higher than "Far end".
2. Those 2 x 213 IPs are nodes on BT's backhaul & often don't respond to pings or take ages to do so.

If you would like help with your BB speed or connection issues, please would you carry out the following steps for starters, which will enable us to diagnose the problem and advise you further. Do not restart your router to do these tests:

1. Post your full router stats:

• For a BrightBox: login and go to Advanced Settings/ System/ DSL Status. Also post 'System Uptime' from top of System Log page.
• For a SmartHub: login and go to Advanced Settings/ Technical Log/ Information. Obscure your names & any numbers in the BB Username & also the SSIDs.

Full router stats are key to any speed & connection issues.

2. Try a wired speedtest, using an Ethernet cable supplied with the router, here http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html . Click on the "Results Page" button at the bottom of the graph you first see and then copy to here just the "Link to this result:" link that you see below the next main graph.

3. What does BT Wholesale Broadband Availability Checker estimate for your phone number? Post just the whole table and the line above it, blanking out your phone number. If it doesn't recognise your phone number or you don't have one, use the Address Checker, not the Postcode Checker.

[mikeliuk]

Hi @leenowell ,

The reported symptoms do point to an issue with the service provider's network.

I would recommend to concentrate on the transmission errors reported by your router and to record the times when the errors are not increasing and the date and time when errors are rapidly increasing.

You may use any kind of heavy traffic to check for errors (e.g. fast.com). If you have the ability to reset the error counters after taking records, this can be convenient. Otherwise you'll just need to track the cumulative value. (Take screenshots and maintain good records as you may require this evidence in any dispute or request for compensation.)

I would recommend to work with the service provider on getting those transmission errors down to zero.

Routing is a secondary issue that is more difficult to debug due to the underlying transmission errors. By concentrating on the error counters, the service provider will be able to identify which hop is responsible for the errors and will be able to isolate the issue to a switch, switch-port, cable, or other network element.

Good luck! 🤓

[leenowell]

Hi @XRaySpeX Thanks for your reply.

I have run the tests suggested with the following results

1, DSL Stats

Time Connected

13:57:53

DSL Status This page shows information about your DSL connection. If you are using Fibre/Ethernet Broadband then this page is not applicable.

Status  Configured CurrentLine StatusLink TypeOperation Mode

--	UP
--	Fast Path
Automatic	G.992.5 (ADSL2+)

Data Rate InformationUpstreamDownstream

1219 (Kbps)

14063 (Kbps)

Defect/Failure IndicationOperation Data Upstream DownstreamNoise MarginLine Attenuation

7.0 (dB)	3.3 (dB)
15.3 (dB)	30.0 (dB)

Indicator Name Near End Indicator Far End IndicatorOutput PowerFast Path FEC CorrectionInterleaved Path FEC CorrectionFast Path CRC ErrorInterleaved Path CRC ErrorLoss of Signal DefectFast Path HEC Error STRInterleaved Path HEC ErrorError Seconds

12.5 (dBm)	0.0 (dBm)
0	0
--	--
1689	1
--	--
0	0
1788	0
--	--
586	1

StatisticsReceived DataTransmitted Data

34359738 (Kbits)

6922459 (Kbits)

2. Speed test results

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1622790598256505355

3. BT Wholesale

Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream HandbackThreshold(Mbps) WBC FTTC Availability Date WBC SOGEA Availability Date Left in JumperHigh Low High Low        VDSL Range A (Clean)

VDSL Range B (Impacted)

40	26.3	7.6	5.7	22.4	Available	Available	--
39.2	22.4	7.5	5	18	Available	Available	--

Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range (Mbps) Availability Date FTTP Install ProcessFTTP on Demand

330

30

--

Available

--

ADSL Products Downstream Line Rate (Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range(Mbps) ADSL Availability Date WBC SOADSL Availability Date Left in JumperWBC ADSL 2+WBC ADSL2+ Annex MADSL MaxWBC Fixed RateFixed Rate

Up to 5.5	--	4.5 to 6.5	Available	Available	--
Up to 5.5	Up to 1	4.5 to 6.5	Available	Available	--
Up to 5	--	3.5 to 7.5	Available	Available	--
2	--	--	Available	Available	--
2	--	--	Available	--	--

Observed Speeds ADSLMax Observed Downstream SpeedMax Observed Upstream SpeedObserved Date

14.61

1.26

2021-04-13

Other Offerings Availability DateVDSL MulticastADSL Multicast

Available

Available

Premise Environment StatusBridge TapVRINTE FacePlateLast Test Date

U

N

N

28-05-2021

Exchange Product Restrictions StatusFTTP Priority ExchangeWLR WithdrawalSOADSL Restriction

N

N

Y

The premise/line is associated with exchange which is NOT part of current fibre priority programme.

The premise/line is associated with exchange where WLR is not withdrawn.

The premise/line is associated with exchange where SOADSL service is restricted.

FTTP is not available.

Thanks again for your help

Lee.

[leenowell]

Hi @mikeliuk Thanks very much for your reply.  Focusing on the errors does seem to make sense.  I have posted the full DSL on the previous reply.  Interestingly, the router was restarted yesterday so the stats are from fairly limited uptime.  Also, my ping test did discover a few instances over night which I assume has given rise to the error numbers.  I took a snapshot of the stats before and after running the fast.com test a couple of times and the numbers didn't change.  Similarly my ping test during this time didn't show an issue either.

Thanks again

Lee.

[XRaySpeX]

The presence of error counts in themselves is not indicative of any issues but what is telling is over what time period they built up. At the mo' your error counts are insignificant, but, as you say, it has only been running for a short period. So it's too early to say.

Let it run for a coupla days w/out restarting it. Then repost the full router stats & Uptime. Get the 'System Uptime' from top of System Log page, not the "Time Connected" from the Status page.

[mikeliuk]

Hi @leenowell ,

To give an indication of the error rates which you expect as a consumer, please see below where I have used OpenWRT open source firmware on a consumer-level device. Enterprise devices would expect to perform much better.

My device has current uptime of 347 days and the counters record receiving RX 544 GiB (roughly a month or two of data) and TX 62 GiB with zero errors, although a relatively high number of deliberately dropped packets.

A typical speed test may use something like 50 MB to an upper bound of 200 MB so you would definitely expect to see zero errors added during the course of a speed test.

# uptime
13:33:15 up 347 days, 16:35, load average: 1.00, 1.00, 1.00

br-wan Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr x
inet addr:x Bcast:x Mask:x
inet6 addr: x Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:625992524 errors:0 dropped:729503 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:279610332 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:584684748442 (544.5 GiB) TX bytes:66976676722 (62.3 GiB)

[leenowell]

Hi @XRaySpeX @mikeliuk 

Looking again at the status I provided based on @XRaySpeX  feedback, it looks like I have ADSL+ which the BT wholesale stats give an up to 5.5Mbs download (even though I am getting circa 12/ 14Mbps).  I live less than a mile from the exchange so somewhat surprised at the low rate.  Could this indicate a line issue or maybe throttling happening at the exchange down? I am on a very old tariff so no guaranteed speed etc.

Thanks

Lee.

[XRaySpeX]

No, you are getting the correct speeds for your attenuation which places you about 2.2 km line length from your exchange. The BTw result is wildly flawed. Never use the BTw Checker for ADSL when you have the attenuation available.