CloudFlare Throttling Issue (FTTH)

[andyxl987]

I have EE's Full Fibre package and hadn't had any problems in about 10 months of service. However, for the last 24 hours (maybe longer) I am experiencing extremely slow speeds to certain sites. For example, loading a discord channel may take 4 minutes to load. The emoji panel makes dozens of requests in a short frequency and also fails to load correctly.

I do not experience this issue while connected to a VPN.

I experienced something similar on Friday using 5G (also with discord) but put that down to signal issues.

Discord is not the only site that is affected. I host some public services on a remote server (Germany) and use CloudFlare proxy in front of these. Speed issues are also apparent for these, which again, do not reproduce when using a VPN. In fact, if I edit /etc/hosts to bypass CloudFlare's proxy, everything loads instantly. Note, that Discord also uses CloudFlare.

While it's possible the issue is my end, e.g. my router, Friday's issue while on mobile has me wondering if there's some issue between EE and CloudFlare? There appears to be severe throttling where the first several requests are fine and any subsequent requests are exponentially slower to send/receive.

I've also encountered similar while pulling images from docker hub and github container registry (although I do not believe either use CloudFlare).

[Heaving0551]

Spoken to them on the phone and didn't even know what I was talking about like talking to a 5 year old. I've been having this issue for maybe two weeks now. I've tried changing IP, different DNS providers, connected from PC to ONT, its extremely annoying issue. 

Discord basically becomes unusable and most websites I use are provided via CloudFlare including my own!

[jackdowsonuk]

I'm in Canary Wharf, East London, still have the problem here.

Jack

[Akiyama8641]

After about a month of no issues, it seems as though the issue has, yet again, come back. Here's a comparison between Cloudflare's speed test, and speedtest.net, both tests done back-to-back:

Interestingly, at this time, Cloudflare does not seem to be showing any packet loss, just decimated download speeds. Upload seems completely unaffected (just like the previous times).

Update: Cloudflare is now showing packet loss again. How wonderful.

[bobpullen]

@Akiyama8641 - I meant to pop by and ask if this was still an issue. I'm now connected to the EE network but I'm not seeing what you are (at the time of writing I'm getting 400mbps+ using the Cloudflare speedtest).

Are you able to trace to one of the affected sites again so I can compare the route with what I see?

[Akiyama8641]

As mentioned in other replies, the issue isn't constant and comes and goes sporadically.

Here's 2 traces, one to Cloudflare's speed test and another to Discord's CDN, which goes through Cloudflare. The traces look normal; hop 3 fails more than it doesn't, even when this issue isn't present, so I don't believe it is related.

Both of these traces were coincidentally taken during a period of packet loss. The traces appear the same regardless of if they're during or outside of the issue.

Tracing route to speed.cloudflare.com [104.16.68.38]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.254
  2     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  [redacted]
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4    10 ms    14 ms    10 ms  213.121.98.128
  5    10 ms     9 ms    10 ms  87.237.20.130
  6    11 ms    15 ms    19 ms  87.237.21.10
  7    12 ms    10 ms     *     141.101.71.47
  8    10 ms     9 ms     9 ms  104.16.68.38

Tracing route to cdn.discordapp.com [162.159.133.233]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.254
  2     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  [redacted]
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4    13 ms    11 ms    11 ms  213.121.98.128
  5    10 ms     9 ms     9 ms  87.237.20.130
  6    11 ms    10 ms    10 ms  87.237.21.10
  7    12 ms    11 ms    11 ms  172.70.94.4
  8    11 ms    10 ms    11 ms  162.159.133.233

[bobpullen]

Thanks, looks like my traffic is routed differently: -

Tracing route to speed.cloudflare.com [104.16.68.38]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     4 ms     4 ms     2 ms  home.gateway [192.168.1.254]
  2     9 ms     6 ms     6 ms  172.16.17.177
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4    15 ms    16 ms    14 ms  31.55.187.184
  5    16 ms    15 ms    15 ms  core1-hu0-12-0-5.southbank.ukcore.bt.net [195.99.127.46]
  6    14 ms    13 ms    14 ms  peer8-et-0-0-2.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [62.172.103.172]
  7    15 ms     *       16 ms  195.99.126.233
  8    16 ms    13 ms    15 ms  172.71.240.4
  9    15 ms    13 ms    13 ms  104.16.68.38

Trace complete.

Tracing route to cdn.discordapp.com [162.159.129.233]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     5 ms     4 ms     4 ms  home.gateway [192.168.1.254]
  2     6 ms     7 ms     8 ms  172.16.17.177
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4    15 ms    12 ms    11 ms  31.55.187.188
  5    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  host213-121-192-116.ukcore.bt.net [213.121.192.116]
  6    20 ms    20 ms    24 ms  peer8-et-0-0-5.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.252.186]
  7    15 ms     *       19 ms  195.99.126.233
  8    15 ms    13 ms    14 ms  172.71.240.4
  9    14 ms    13 ms    16 ms  162.159.129.233

Trace complete.

Shooting in the dark now, but what is the PPP username set to in your router? bthomehub@btbroadband.com or something else?

[Akiyama8641]

Something different, we've been a customer since the Wanadoo days, so the username reflects that.

[bobpullen]

@Akiyama8641  - what router are you using? You may be able to authenticate using the BT credentials and I'm wondering if that will change your network routing (Not sure it's premitted on some older EE kit though).

User: bthomehub@btbroadband.com
Passwd: BT 

An interesting experiment perhaps, if you know what your current credentials are? Can always change them back if it doesn't work/doesn't improve things.

[XRaySpeX]

@bobpullen : You may use the BT creds on any old EE router (actually any router from anywhere), but I can't see it changing the routing. It's only for authenticating the line.

[bobpullen]

@XRaySpeX - I was basing the router statement on what was written here.

I recognise it's for authenticating the line, however when the the legacy realms are in use there may be differences in how the connection ends up terminated.

There's one way to find out 😉