packet loss issues

Hi guys. Is there anybody else who is on Virgin Media cable broadband in the UK? Have you been experiencing any packet loss issues over the last few days?

For the last two or three days I've had really bad packet loss which results in weird things going on continously in Second Life. Endless list of stuff that doesnt happen immediately. Objects take ages to rez. Scripts take ages to load and save, and often fail. Inventory updates take ages to complete. Invisible avatars for minutes before they appear. The list goes on. Time Dilation was fine.

It happens in all sims I tried. And a friend experienced zero packet loss while in the same sims at the same time (They're on ADSL elsewhere in the UK).

According to Help > About after a few minutes:
Packets Lost: 6665/48001 (13.9%)

I havent made any changes to my network setup or software setup since everything was working fine and this is the first time I've experienced this issue.

While googling around it appears the broadband service has nosedived since Virgin aquired Telewest. Telewest was a great service for years before Virgin got their hands on it. Now they start throttling when only 350mb is reached in an evening, generally less than advertised performance and charge 25p/min technical support now. So I tried their tech support form on their website giving ping and tracert results and no reply after 24 hours. The change in service is drastic.

I've included some ping results below.

I don't think this is a Second Life issue though. But this is certainly where it hits me most. It's as if the transatlantic link that Virgin Media are using has issues. Which is why I'm asking if any others here are experiencing this?

Oh, and I usually use wifi. But I disabled that and connected via ethernet cable and no change. Sending 200 pings to the router gives no packet loss. Same with the cable modem too. Interestingly a test with a UK website gave no packet loss too.

Any suggestions or help appreciated.

---

secondlife ----------

ping -n 200 sim2057.agni.lindenlab.com

Ping statistics for 64.129.40.61:
Packets: Sent = 200, Received = 187, Lost = 13 (6% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 144ms, Maximum = 235ms, Average = 153ms

grc.com -------------

C:\Documents and Settings\Ant>ping -n 200 grc.com

Pinging grc.com [4.79.142.200] with 32 bytes of data:

Ping statistics for 4.79.142.200:
Packets: Sent = 200, Received = 188, Lost = 12 (6% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 170ms, Maximum = 282ms, Average = 174ms

my router -------------

C:\Documents and Settings\Ant>ping -n 200 192.168.1.1

Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 200, Received = 200, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 82ms, Average = 1ms

my cable modem --------

C:\Documents and Settings\Ant>ping -n 200 192.168.100.1

Pinging 192.168.100.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Ping statistics for 192.168.100.1:
Packets: Sent = 200, Received = 200, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 3ms, Maximum = 60ms, Average = 3ms

www.bbc.co.uk ----------

C:\Documents and Settings\Ant>ping -n 200 www.bbc.co.uk

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.253.70] with 32 bytes of data:

Ping statistics for 212.58.253.70:
Packets: Sent = 200, Received = 200, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 18ms, Maximum = 37ms, Average = 20ms

www.theregister.co.uk ---------

C:\Documents and Settings\Ant>ping -n 200 www.theregister.co.uk

Pinging www.theregister.co.uk [212.100.234.54] with 32 bytes of data:

Ping statistics for 212.100.234.54:
Packets: Sent = 200, Received = 200, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 206ms, Average = 21ms

--------

Here's a couple of traceroutes

Tracing route to sim2057.agni.lindenlab.com [64.129.40.61]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms WGT634U [192.168.1.1]
2 9 ms 11 ms 7 ms 10.69.0.1
3 8 ms 24 ms 16 ms gsr01-hb.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.193.65]
4 17 ms 12 ms 12 ms pc-62-30-247-65-do.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.247.65]
5 9 ms 14 ms 10 ms perr-t3core-1a-ge-010-0.inet.ntl.com [80.0.176.69]
6 13 ms 13 ms 11 ms man-bb-a-so-120-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.175.181]

7 105 ms 103 ms 104 ms 212.187.136.125
8 108 ms 105 ms 108 ms ae-11-11.car2.Manchesteruk1.Level3.net [4.69.133.98]
9 112 ms 107 ms 109 ms ae-4-4.ebr1.London2.Level3.net [4.69.133.106]
10 120 ms * * ae-2.ebr1.Paris1.Level3.net [4.69.133.93]
11 123 ms 111 ms 123 ms ae-1-100.ebr2.Paris1.Level3.net [4.69.133.82]
12 124 ms 126 ms 112 ms ae-5.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.132.113]

13 117 ms 112 ms 122 ms ae-72-72.csw2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.150]
14 122 ms 125 ms 127 ms ae-71-71.ebr1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.133]
15 140 ms 128 ms 126 ms ae-2.ebr3.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.132.85]
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * 196 ms 238 ms ae-22-52.car2.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.68.122.46]
18 147 ms 146 ms 148 ms DATABANK-HO.car2.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.71.170.2]

19 147 ms 147 ms 147 ms 63.164.96.databank.com [63.164.96.54]
20 148 ms 146 ms 146 ms sim2057.agni.lindenlab.com [64.129.40.61]

Trace complete.

------

Tracing route to grc.com [4.79.142.200]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms WGT634U [192.168.1.1]
2 11 ms 9 ms 8 ms 10.69.0.1
3 14 ms 9 ms 9 ms pc-62-30-247-193-do.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.247.193]
4 15 ms 24 ms 15 ms pc-62-30-247-65-do.blueyonder.co.uk [62.30.247.65]
5 10 ms 10 ms 11 ms perr-t3core-1a-ge-010-0.inet.ntl.com [80.0.176.69]
6 16 ms 11 ms 16 ms man-bb-a-so-120-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.175.181]

7 112 ms 240 ms 243 ms 212.187.136.125
8 104 ms 107 ms 106 ms ae-11-11.car2.Manchesteruk1.Level3.net [4.69.133.98]
9 104 ms 108 ms 109 ms ae-4-4.ebr1.London2.Level3.net [4.69.133.106]
10 118 ms 123 ms 112 ms ae-2.ebr1.Paris1.Level3.net [4.69.133.93]
11 111 ms 123 ms 112 ms ae-1-100.ebr2.Paris1.Level3.net [4.69.133.82]
12 111 ms 111 ms 123 ms ae-5.ebr2.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.132.113]

13 * 112 ms 124 ms ae-62-62.csw1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.146]
14 112 ms 124 ms 125 ms ae-61-61.ebr1.Washington1.Level3.net [4.69.134.129]
15 125 ms 128 ms * ae-2.ebr3.Atlanta2.Level3.net [4.69.132.85]
16 151 ms * * ae-7.ebr2.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.69.134.21]
17 146 ms 152 ms 145 ms ae-2-56.bbr2.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.68.122.161]
18 180 ms 179 ms 183 ms so-3-0-0.mp1.Tustin1.Level3.net [209.247.8.118]

19 179 ms 182 ms 178 ms so-8-0.hsa1.Tustin1.Level3.net [4.68.114.2]
20 181 ms 186 ms 180 ms grc.com [4.79.142.200]

Trace complete.

Quick follow up. After three days of pulling my hair out the issue seems to of fixed itself. At least for the time being. I'm getting zero packet loss in ping tests now and I'm not getting all the weird behaviour in Second Life anymore. I'll see if it happens again in the evening at peak times.

Well if you're the UK then I'm kind of happy about that because if I have it here in California it means that the problem is on the server side. It has been rather bad for the past few days and reading the forums I see people complaining about the symptoms of this underlying problem. It did seem last night that things were much better for me. Let's hope it stays that way and keep up whatever you're doing there Lindens!

These two here point to a problem on your end...

The 1ms & 3ms averages are good but the 60ms/82ms spikes say that there was something pretty unhappy at your end. Since the router is before the modem on the wire, I'd look there first if/when this happens again.

QUOTE: my router -------------

C:\Documents and Settings\Ant>ping -n 200 192.168.1.1

Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 200, Received = 200, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 82ms, Average = 1ms

my cable modem --------

C:\Documents and Settings\Ant>ping -n 200 192.168.100.1

Pinging 192.168.100.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Ping statistics for 192.168.100.1:
Packets: Sent = 200, Received = 200, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 3ms, Maximum = 60ms, Average = 3ms
:UNQUOTE

82ms to your router, and 60ms to your modem.... what are they 2 mtrs away? You using Ethernet cable, wireless or USB?... If USB or wireless, dump it and connect using Ethernet. Also look at your connections, cable connections are usually screw in coaxial type, make sure the earth screening isn't frayed of making contact with the central core and that the cable is in good order. Remove anything that emits radio or microwave frequencies within 5-10 mtrs. Check the router stats page and check the security logs for spam attacks.

From my research with Virgin, they have a growing contention ratio, eachtime they offer greater and greater connection bandwith ratings, simply means you are being interleaved more and more. Simple explaination:-

you start with a 2mb bandwidth, contention ratio 1:50, 8mb (interleaved 4 times) contention ratio 1:200, 16mb etc etc and so it grows.

I had a more stable connection with 2mb ASDL, went over to 8MB and it became less stable and more lag, so I harrased BT until they 'de-interleaved' me from the node. They won't do it for everyone, but I used a software programme to constantly (within the anti-spamming rules) sent them test results showing ping, latency and download/upload speeds, and telephone calls to their support department.

In some cases, with a telephone line (not cable) it can relevant to the distance you are from the exchange as to the maximum speed bandwidth you can acheive with ASDL (I get 7.74mb bandwidth ratings). Virgin were very happy to sign me up for a 20mb connection, and it wasn't until the very end of the sign up process, that they reported that I could only get a maximum of 8mb, but didn't reject my application and were willing to charge me for something I couldn't get.

If you really want stability, sign up with a ISP that offers a business connection with a contention ratio of 1:20 and a static IP. Many acheive <200ms ping as a maximum, but you pay for that. Given the nature of SL, it's hardly worth the additional cost.

I don't think it was a server issue because a friend that was in the same sim(s) with me experienced no packet loss.



Thanks for looking at the results. Appreciated. I think in my case though I'll put those very infrequent spikes down to wifi interference - so infrequent that it didnt affect the average ping time. I don't think it's related. I only switched to ethernet cable long enough to confirm I was still getting the exact same bad SL and ping packet loss, which I was, then I switched back to wifi - all the results shown in my first post were over a wifi connection.

Average packet loss in SL (via Help>About) says 1.2%. Not perfect but seems back to normal now. No more weirdness going on, and firing off 200 pings to this sim gives no packet loss.

*touch wood*

@AWM Mars

Huge thanks for that. Sounds like sound advice that backs up what I've been reading elsewhere.

The problem with switching to ADSL from cable is it means installing/activating a BT phone line which can be expensive and a hassle. And I'm not sure how far the local exchange is from here either. Then you have to pray that the connection to the local exchange is good quality.

For the past several years I've been very happy with Telewest. If anyone were to ask I would recommend them on a heart beat. Since Virgin took over I would be hard pressed to recommend them, and if the local telephone exchange isnt too far I'd recommend ADSL now, even though I consider it a much inferior technology.

If the issue reoccurs I'll try out your suggestions.

This is interesting...over the last few days I've been experiencing severe packet loss issues...and I'm with Virgin ADSL.

Objects aren't rezzing, textures are taking ages to load and my movements are hampered. And this is only affecting me, not others in the sim

I would fire off some ping tests (like I did in my first post) and a traceroute too then submit it on their website. Or phone them up if you're happy to pay 25p to talk to someone in India.

I'm with Virgin have been experiencing the same over the past week, some times as bad as 83% packet loss, think it is def an issue with virgin media as connection speed check remains fine...will wait patiently for something to happen if it doesnt its will have no choice but to pay 25p a min..!! Grrrr

Given the history of Richard Bransons Virgin companies, a few of their group of companies seem detracted from their global company goals.

If someone said 'Oh, Virgin are taking over that company', or 'Virgin have just brought out their over brand version', I would have said, that means we get a good standard product at cheaper prices, or a superior product at the same price.

This quite often happens as the leader with the core vision, gets too far away from the those they serve. Reinterpretation through the many board and management layers, is like playing chinese whispers.