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#3184 - 11/17/17 11:07 PM 50~100% Packet Loss, "symptoms" vary greatly
Zawyn Offline


Registered: 11/17/17
Posts: 1
I'm extremely new to using PingPlotter (though have looked through the introductory resources, and trouble-shooting tips on the site), however I'm having no luck figuring out where to start when troubleshooting my own connection.

I've had connectivity issues forever, however they've usually been very minor, though recently getting worse. While I prefer being connected to a VPN, the issues persist with & without one. I've disabled it for the purpose of this thread.

I'll hopefully have attached a few sample images below, of different patterns that I've been noticing in terms of packet-loss, they should speak for themselves. The first few attachments were done to a game-server for one of the main games that I play, though the last two are cnnecting to Google.

I understand that this is a local issue, though the varying patterns aren't helping me to understand what's going on. What should my course of action be, what's causing these (usually) consistent patterns of packet-loss? All I've really tried thus far is restarting the router/modem to no avail.

The 5th screenshot was taken not too long after the 4th, however just zoomed it out to 10 minutes. During the solid-bar of packet-loss on the 5th screenshot, I could still browse the internet as per usual, without noticing anything unusual. I believe that I use some form of a "two-in-one" router & modem. Most (if not all) of these screenshots were taken while my connection to games were showing "regular" ping. I do wish to resolve what causes my connection's haywire-like activity, but I figured I should look into the packet loss that's present even when my connection is seemingly fine, first.

I understand this is rather vague in terms of detail, and I'm happy to test more & answer questions. I just have no idea where to start. Thanks in advance!

Edit - Oh, yes, I forgot to mention the actual symptoms that cause my worry, and for me to install PingPlotter. While connecting to US game-servers, as an Australian, I should (and do) often get 250~280 ping. However, I've very frequently been seeing spikes to 800~3000 ping, which is evident not just relating to the game / server / location, but also impacting other activities (slow buffering on videos, I listen to an mp3 stream frequently which is almost always stable, but will evidently start loading slower than it plays, download speeds decreased, etc.)

Another edit - Just now encountered one of the smaller & shorter spikes, 800 ping this time. Having reached the image upload cap, here's the URL. The latency plot is not on 'current', but that exact pattern persisted.


Attachments
dem1.png (193 downloads)
dem2.png (391 downloads)
dem3.png (382 downloads)
dem4.png (219 downloads)
dem5.png (161 downloads)



Edited by Zawyn (11/18/17 05:05 AM)

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#3185 - 11/19/17 03:22 PM Re: 50~100% Packet Loss, "symptoms" vary greatly [Re: Zawyn]
Hayla Offline
Pingman Staff


Registered: 10/16/17
Posts: 90
Hey Zawyn,

Thanks for writing in! We're glad to help.

I'm really glad to see all the detailed traces you ran. That's a great step in the right direction!

The first thing that I usually recommend is to leave PingPlotter running a trace to your gaming server, continually (24x7 is ideal). Play your game as normal, and when you notice lag, make a note of it somewhere. Here, your goal is to correlate the issues you're having to PingPlotter data, so when you're done playing the game, head back to PingPlotter and track down the times that correlate with the ones you made a note of. Can you see any "problem patterns" in PingPlotter at that time? If so, this can help point you towards which device(s) may be giving you issues along the way. I'd like to point you towards a page we have detailing a great way to get started on deciphering results for gamers (for after you've correlated a time in PingPlotter to the time you wrote down):

https://www.pingplotter.com/manual/interpretgraphsgamer.html

When you're running your traces, please keep in mind, the most important hop is the final destination. If you're seeing packet loss in intermittent hops, but no packet loss at the final hop, you are *most likely* in the clear. If you want more information on this, check out our article on packet loss in intermediate hops:

https://www.pingman.com/kb/24

Based off your traces to the American gaming servers, I can't quite see your final hop (although I assume that in your imgur post, it's that hop 22 with complete packet loss), so I don't have enough information to be able to really point you towards a definite solution. However, leave those traces running as aforementioned, and see if you can't correlate some patterns in preceding hops to the final hop packet loss, as well as to the issues you're experiencing at any given time!

You did a great job identifying that the American gaming servers may be giving you a lot of packet loss. I was about to make a mention of that until I saw you addressed it! I'd just advise you to keep that in mind; you may not necessarily be dealing with a lot of packet loss, but you may also be seeing a lot of latency because of the distance your packets must traverse. 800ms - 3000ms is not *that* uncharacteristic of a packet that must travel as far as yours need to, especially with the type of payload it's carrying. PingPlotter has a built-in latency monitor (that colored graph to the right of all your hops, and in the big graph at the bottom), so when you're making notes of your issues in your games, make sure that when you go back and take a look at PingPlotter, you're also looking for those latency spikes.

Finally, to address the general web traffic issues you're having, I'd point you in the same direction as I did when diagnosing your gaming issues. Start a trace to the service you're trying to access (like YouTube), and leave it running for the entirety of the time that you're using the service. Try and make those correlations between network symptoms and PingPlotter data! Is there anything sticking out of place?

Let me know if that got you started in the right direction! Thanks again for writing in.
_________________________
Regards,
Hayla

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