Virgin Media - Evening packet loss this last month.

adambunion · 9 Mar 2016 at 14:20

Hi Guys,

Was pointed to this forum after getting no real solution from Virgin Media's forums so far.

I've been getting packet loss in the evenings for the last month or so making games like CSGO, Dota 2 or even using skype or watching YouTube / Twitch impossible around those times.

I've had an engineer come out to me and replace the router (I'm running through Ethernet btw) and say everything looks fine from 'their end' and at my house. I've tried calling their support 6 times where I just get 'everything looks fine from this end'. Desperate for any help or advice really. My graphs look like this:

The packet loss seems to start around 5pm and diminish around midnight every single night other than weekends when it seems more random. I am told by VM that my area usage is normal and my upstream and downstream are fine and power levels etc (all checked by engineer). I'm also the only one in my house that uses the connection.

My thread on VM's forum if anyone needs more info - https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Gaming/Desperate-for-ANY-support-help/td-p/3053326

Any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated.

nutcase · 9 Mar 2016 at 14:30

Over-subsrcribed area perhaps? Peak time everyone hammers it.

kaku · 9 Mar 2016 at 14:40

I know it's not exactly helpful, but your problems mirror my VM experience when the GF had it at her flat.

The connection would become unusable at peak times (usually between around 5pm-midnight, as you describe). My guess is that it's a traffic shaping/oversubscription issue, but that's based on nothing except cynicism and a hunch.

Various complaints were met with the standard "everything seems fine, how strange" - now that she's moved out VM got ditched and I'd never go back.

KIA · 9 Mar 2016 at 14:46

Oversubscribed area. Quite common.

Can you get FTTC?

https://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

adambunion · 9 Mar 2016 at 14:48

KIA said:
Oversubscribed area. Quite common.

Can you get FTTC?

https://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

Unfortunately not

I was told by the VM staff that my area looked 'reasonable' in terms of the numbers and told me it wasn't associated with that. However, I tend to think you're right.

KIA · 9 Mar 2016 at 14:49

adambunion said:
Unfortunately not

That's annoying. Can you create a f8lure graph?

https://f8lure.mouselike.org

adambunion · 9 Mar 2016 at 14:50

KIA said:
That's annoying. Can you create a f8lure graph?

https://f8lure.mouselike.org

Thanks for the suggestion.
Just set one up, will report back later.

KIA · 9 Mar 2016 at 15:16

adambunion said:
Thanks for the suggestion.
Just set one up, will report back later.

Great. Consider using WinMTR when the packet loss kicks in. Use your favourite CSGO server as the target. Leave it running for 10-15 minutes.

adambunion · 9 Mar 2016 at 16:09

KIA said:
Great. Consider using WinMTR when the packet loss kicks in. Use your favourite CSGO server as the target. Leave it running for 10-15 minutes.

Sure, will do. Does this show any of my home IP address or does it remove that? Wondering if i'll need to edit a screenshot and remove it before posting it here?

Gambisk · 9 Mar 2016 at 16:13

Have you tried putting the superhub into modem mode and using a different router? I had some success with that, but if the area is over subscribed like mine was then there is nothing you can do.

adambunion · 9 Mar 2016 at 16:16

Gambisk said:
Have you tried putting the superhub into modem mode and using a different router? I had some success with that, but if the area is over subscribed like mine was then there is nothing you can do.

I have tried that dude, same outcome unfortunately. Again VM tell me that the stats look fine in my area so I'm not sure what to think :/

Broken Hope · 9 Mar 2016 at 18:08

Why not just do the suggestion on the VM forums, test a VPN on a short trial and see if the problem persists? If it doesn't that might help Virgin to diagnose the problem. Yes you shouldn't have to do so, but you can trial one for less than £1 and it might prove it's not you once and for all?

adambunion · 9 Mar 2016 at 18:18

Broken Hope said:
Why not just do the suggestion on the VM forums, test a VPN on a short trial and see if the problem persists? If it doesn't that might help Virgin to diagnose the problem. Yes you shouldn't have to do so, but you can trial one for less than £1 and it might prove it's not you once and for all?

I guess i'll have to. I was just frustrated with the lack of replies from the forum team to be honest in that thread. Just lost my patience.

Rroff · 9 Mar 2016 at 18:24

Are you using wired or wireless connection to the router? are you sharing the connection locally with anyone else?

EDIT: NM I see you put that info in the link.

adambunion · 10 Mar 2016 at 02:49

KIA said:
That's annoying. Can you create a f8lure graph?

https://f8lure.mouselike.org

This was my result from this evening

http://imgur.com/pVYY5PC

the-evaluator · 10 Mar 2016 at 08:07

It's worth tweeting them. When I had problems I was getting fobbed off my the telephone teams and my forum posts were being ignored. A short while after tweeting them I had a call from them and after sending through some information by email the issue was dealt with by a single person in that team who would phone me regularly until it was all sorted.

KIA · 10 Mar 2016 at 12:38

adambunion said:
Sure, will do. Does this show any of my home IP address or does it remove that? Wondering if i'll need to edit a screenshot and remove it before posting it here?

It shouldn't do.

Broken Hope said:
Why not just do the suggestion on the VM forums, test a VPN on a short trial and see if the problem persists? If it doesn't that might help Virgin to diagnose the problem. Yes you shouldn't have to do so, but you can trial one for less than £1 and it might prove it's not you once and for all?

VPN won't fix his issue.

adambunion · 10 Mar 2016 at 13:46

the-evaluator said:
It's worth tweeting them. When I had problems I was getting fobbed off my the telephone teams and my forum posts were being ignored. A short while after tweeting them I had a call from them and after sending through some information by email the issue was dealt with by a single person in that team who would phone me regularly until it was all sorted.

I've tried that but thanks for the suggestion. I've tweeted them multiple times and messaged them on FB but they say their forum team are best equipped to deal with this problem as its quite a technical problem.

I'm quite annoyed by their 'forum team' as in the 7 page thread about the problem, the staff have replied just 3 times (one of which asking me for information that I already provided on the page before). It's frustrating because in the 'gaming' thread, the forum team post frequently..

I've tried calling their support where they fob me off every single time telling me it's a game server issue even though I didn't even mention gaming on the phone as well as the BQM graphs showing loss etc. Engineer comes out and checks my equipment and says it all looks good. I'm just left not really knowing what else I can do as VM are unwilling to awknowledge the problem even though I'm providing proof of it via the tools they told me to use to give them information about the connection.

It's like VM will run test after test until one seemingly looks ok such as speedtest.net and say 'There! It all looks fine'.

ChrisD. · 10 Mar 2016 at 15:20

Complain to the CEO email address, it's the only way I got movement when I had similar a few years ago.

adambunion · 10 Mar 2016 at 15:34

the-evaluator said:
It's worth tweeting them. When I had problems I was getting fobbed off my the telephone teams and my forum posts were being ignored. A short while after tweeting them I had a call from them and after sending through some information by email the issue was dealt with by a single person in that team who would phone me regularly until it was all sorted.

Was worth a shot I guess

http://postimg.org/image/atgyrrfg7/