[WXC/VFX] Oddball network traffic issues

Topic # 26913 7-Oct-2008 10:11

For last few weeks (as per another post somewhere) Ive had odd issues with Youtube and Apple movie trailers.... I can watch a couple of clips, then all traffic just seems to stop.
When trying to trace to apple.com after the traffic stops, the trace stops after a few hops with timeouts. But I can browse other sites etc fine, just not apple.com.
With youtube, the videos stop working but all other parts of youtube respond fine (comments, etc). Leave it 10 minutes and it works again for a couple of clips.

And now, as of last night, I had heck of a time trying to get Google web page creator to work, and my wife is unable to log into ANZ or her work sites. I can access the sites fine from work.

For ANZ and my wifes work, the main pages load, enters username/password, goes to the next section fine, but soon as it comes to any page that allows text entries or anything, everything dies.

This happens on both our PCs so its not a software issue (unless FF3.03 has some weird bug I havent found info on yet). And Ive never heard of a router doing this sort of stuff before. Especially killing traffic to a particular site :-p

Anyone got any ideas because its starting to drive us up the wall and the wife dosent like having to remote into someone elses PC to work from :)

XPD / Gavin / DemiseNZ

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Reply # 169571 7-Oct-2008 13:47

Yeah, I'm getting something very similar (since last night). It's driving me insane too, there seems to be no pattern to it.

Sequence of events was:

- About 9?pm (can't remote into my home network to check!) we lost all internet connectivity, modem appeared have dropped the PPP connection.

- I power cycled the modem after which we had partial internet connectivity (but some sites didn't work + MSN wouldn't connect) Tried a few things then shrugged my shoulders and went to bed figuring it'd be right in the morning (nothing on x-net site about it tho)

- This morning things were no better. Some sites start to load and then come up with a strange 'connection interrupted' message which I haven't seen (much) before. MSN still not connecting.

- Powercycled everything - no change.

- Rang X-Net support & they aren't aware of any issues either last night or today. Suggested trying to bypass my router & go direct to my modem (which I will try tonight) & also to check the MTU size (which I'm pretty sure is the standard 1492 & I haven't changed it recently).

My brother (who lives in Hamilton & is also with X-Net, I'm in Manukau, Auckland) is experiencing exactly the same issue also. What's interesting that we have a very similar setup, so this could be a clue:

- Linksys AM300 ADSL Modem in half bridging mode
- Linksys WRT54GL with DD-WRT v23 on it (my brother has v24)

The only 'weird' thing configuration wise I've noticed is that my sync speed has gone from ~3700kb/sec up to ~4700kb/sec, which is great, as recently I had trouble getting it above 3200 (normally syncs near 4000) so that's a bit coincidental...

Hmmm... just had a thought about interleaving, but it's still on as normal.

Basically my brother and I are both professional IT engineers and we're at a loss except to say that something appears to be interfering with our traffic.

I'm sure that there must have been some change at X-Net overnight that's affected a small selection of people for some reason (local router configuration or otherwise).

What does your setup consist of xpd?

xpd

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Reply # 169573 7-Oct-2008 13:58

Same here.... MSN was dead all night.... and Im in the IT business as well so Im pretty confident it isnt my end :)
Didnt think to check the sync speeds though... if I can remote home, Ill do that now and see if any major difference.

Wonder if Telecom made some software change across all exchanges overnight....

XPD / Gavin / DemiseNZ

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xpd

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Reply # 169577 7-Oct-2008 14:03

Running via a 3Com Office Connect (3CRWDR100A-72)
Sync rate seems about the same but overall transfer rate seems to be down a tad.

Time to give Xnet a yell...at least then theyre getting more than one user complaining :-p

XPD / Gavin / DemiseNZ

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xpd

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Reply # 169581 7-Oct-2008 14:12

Well that was a waste of time..... the guy just wasnt interested and tried to blame it on my router. I said theres someone else with same issue and just didnt seem to give a hoot.

(Hey..just noticed theres no angry looking emoticon here... are we all happy happy people ?

)

Ill swap routers tonight anyway, but if same issue occurs theyll be hearing from me again......

XPD / Gavin / DemiseNZ

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SamF

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Reply # 169590 7-Oct-2008 14:30

Hmm, yeah sounds like the same lines I got... I guess when there's so few people affected it's easy to assume that the issue is at the client end... oh well, we'll just have to prove it to them then won't we! : )

I'll do some work on it tonight and let you know how it goes. It sure is an obscure issue tho!!

sloth

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Reply # 169599 7-Oct-2008 15:16

I'm getting similar problems in Christchurch too. Every couple of hours the connection appears to be partially dropped (MSN always disconnects, certain sites are unavailable, others stay fine). After a few minutes, things will get back to normal. Then it might go down again for a few mins.
Can't really see any other pattern to it though!

Router is a Draytek Vigor 2800G

MW

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Reply # 169607 7-Oct-2008 15:39

Just got off the phone with Xnet. Since last night, I have been unable to perform certain actions on certain websites through Xnet and email sending and saving (SSL SMTP and IMAPS) fails on some machines (but oddly not on others). I am also unable to do an upstream speedtest. Connecting via my mobile broadband connection on Vodafone works with no problem on the same machine. He advised that they are aware of an issue with people on a Torrent plan and they they are working through the issue and hope to have it resolved by tonight. The speedtest is apparently due to ICMP issues (whatever that means) and is "normal". Here's hoping that they get it resolved quickly.

xpd

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Reply # 169610 7-Oct-2008 15:48

(sigh)
Oh well... but the issue is not "normal". Its the first time its ever happened that Ive noticed.

Long as they accepted there is an issue, thats the main thing. Fingers crossed its sorted soon.

XPD / Gavin / DemiseNZ

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SamF

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Reply # 169656 7-Oct-2008 19:42

We have official recognition of the issue!

http://www.xnet.co.nz/cgi-bin/status.cgi?id=406

Weirdly (& perhaps related), I have a heap of traffic from an unknown source going OUT of my router!!??

I have some pretty good monitoring going on my router and can see traffic on a per IP basis and all is quiet on the western front... however, if I monitor the overall bandwidth on my router with an SNMP monitor I can see frequent spurts of outgoing traffic bursting to 65kbytes/sec (and it seems to be capped at this speed ie; dead flat at 65kbytes for a few seconds (can't upload a pic!!)

I can't trace it either because I can't see where it's coming from...

Might turn off /unplug all my devices and see what happens...

Almost seems like an attack of some kind!?

I guess it could just be a symptom of the issue... something retrying all the time...?

Never mind! I forgot I had a continuous ping running in the background with a 64000 byte ping size.

HAHAHA...DOH! Sorry about that! Weird that it didn't show up on my traffic monitoring software... maybe ICMP traffic is excluded!?

Interestingly the ping was to an x-net dns server and I was getting a 26% loss!! That's pretty bad!!

coffeebaron

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Reply # 169710 7-Oct-2008 21:57

SamF: We have official recognition of the issue!

http://www.xnet.co.nz/cgi-bin/status.cgi?id=406

Interesting this seems to be only applicable to Torrent users. The "torrent plan" is only suppose to be a billing option, not a different plan as such. Wonder if this has changed? Perhaps they are playing with their network toys - watch this space is guess?

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Reply # 169725 7-Oct-2008 23:09

I thought my modem was acting up.It suddenly connected after I did a factory reset.lol

muppet

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Reply # 169744 8-Oct-2008 00:34

Shame for me the problem's been found, I was going to start going on about out-of-order packets and seeing if my friend(s?) at XNet would take the bait :)

choccers

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Reply # 169762 8-Oct-2008 07:44

Nice to know there is a problem. They did not fix it last night though. I've been getting the same symptons as the rest you, I'm currently lucky if I reach dial up speed.

The word 'Idle' appears a lot :(

tuaman

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Reply # 169778 8-Oct-2008 08:33

im on fusion and had problems off peak 6am-7:59am(very very slow -espacially -overseas website), but just after 8am, everythings normal now. I think they block off peak data now (at least last 2 off peak days). I am thinking of chanaging to slingshot if this situation continues. i heard they offer free off paek with good speed.

xpd

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Reply # 169786 8-Oct-2008 08:46

Lets not turn this into yet another Xnet bashing/Imouttahere thread.... yes it sucks theres been a few hiccups lately, but what ISP can claim they run perfectly 100% of the time ? Zilch.

So if youre not happy then leave. Thats all there is. End of story. Good luck. Finito. Halt. Arrêt. Batente. стоп. Parada.

XPD / Gavin / DemiseNZ

For Free Games, Geekiness and Reviews, visit :

Battlenet : XPD#11535 Origin/Steam/Epic/Uplay : xpdnz