Gonna need some help here with this juicy packet loss

Posted by: ButterCat

Gonna need some help here with this juicy packet loss - 09/22/22 12:56 PM

Moved to a new place, and ever since I got here my internet's been having this abnormal problem. Ran pingplotter, turns out a lot of jitter on hop 2 and 3, fluctuating between 0 and (at least) 70 ms, this can be seen in the added screenshot.

Packet loss usually starts at hop 2, and then down the list until the target, which usually lasts around 3 seconds. The other packet loss occurs from hop 1 down the list, and can last anywhere from a few seconds, to more than 15, and rarely I'll have to restart my router. This is a screenshot of the 'normal' sutuation: https://share.pingplotter.com/2f9XBFyu2yw

Here's the fun part. The packet loss from hop 1 almost exclusively happens almost exactly 10 seconds after a period of packet loss from hop 2. Packet loss from hop 2 can occur on its own.

My packet loss also seems to be influenced by how much I use my internet. I tested my internet by running a 4k 60fps stream on youtube, as well as playing an online game, which ended up being around 25 MB/s of download, and my internet was not having any of it, as you can see here: https://share.pingplotter.com/AHGkGiRwm5r

If I do not have any other program running aside from pingplotter, packet loss still occurs at random every now and then, though I have to say this is pretty rare, only a few times per hour.

so, what in the world could be causing this?
Posted by: TJM

Re: Gonna need some help here with this juicy packet loss - 09/23/22 07:11 PM

Hey ButterCat,

Thanks for reaching out!

After looking through your screenshots/data it looks like there is a considerable amount of packet loss that starts at the first hop as you have already identified. I would suggest starting here in your troubleshooting efforts here to see if you can make any changes to this before moving onto the packet loss that starts at hop 2 (especially if hop 2 is your ISP, as they will likely point at the packet loss at hop 1 before looking into hop 2 also).

Considering this I suggest checking out the following articles on troubleshooting local network problems:

https://www.pingplotter.com/fix-your-network/local-network-problems.html
https://www.pingplotter.com/wisdom/common-network-problems

If you are able to resolve the packet loss starting at hop 1 and are still experiencing packet loss starting at hop 2 I suggest reaching out to your ISP at that point.

With that said if this leaves you with any other questions or concerns please let us know!

Thanks,
-TJ
Posted by: ButterCat

Re: Gonna need some help here with this juicy packet loss - 10/13/22 03:28 PM

Hello again,

Testing with a device connected directly to the wall socket (no router in between) removes those longer periods of packet loss from hop 1, so there's no doubt my router's struggling with this

nonetheless, the packet loss from what used to be hop 2 still remains. ISP acknowledges that this is caused by a problem outside of my responsibility, and have tested the patch panel of the switch, from which they found this problem to also be present on other ports. Hooray, I'm not the only one with this problem now!

Since I am still a complete newb to internet connection stuff, I still have some question marks.

Is a patch panel recognized as a 'hop'? my ISP is going to replace the patch panel to try to fix this problem, but I am a bit doubtful about whether that will fix the jitter problem that I suspect is underlying my packet loss.

what could be the root cause of the high jitter pattern that we can see at hop 2 and 3 in my screenshot 958?

Thanks in advance