[SOLVED] Large Packet loss - Intermittent over Powerline Adapter and WiFi

Sep 1, 2019
2
0
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Getting a large number of lost packets out of nowhere, makes watching live streams and gaming online impossible. Have made no changes to hardware recently.


Tracing route to www.google.com [216.58.210.228]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 4 ms 4 ms 4 ms vodafone.broadband [192.168.1.1]
2 19 ms 20 ms 25 ms host-212-158-250-32.dslgb.com [212.158.250.32]
3 24 ms 25 ms 24 ms 63.130.105.130
4 23 ms 24 ms 24 ms 72.14.216.237
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 26 ms 25 ms 26 ms 172.253.66.88
7 * 25 ms * 172.253.68.215
8 * 27 ms 24 ms mrs04s10-in-f228.1e100.net [216.58.210.228]

Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
Packets: Sent = 21, Received = 18, Lost = 3 (14% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 23ms, Maximum = 27ms, Average = 24ms

Not sure if the issue lies with the ISP but my stepdad is reluctant to let me speak to our ISP because he says he's "fine" when directly wired into the router

Here is what I'm seeing on the hops: https://ibb.co/C1xqGwg
 
Last edited:
Solution
Tracert does not really send enough data to detect intermittent issues. What the trace shows is the problem is in googles network. That may or may not be true but there little you can do it the problem really is outside your ISP.

You can try a program called pathping but many times it also has very confusing output that can mislead you.

Your best option is to open a bunch of cmd windows and let constant ping run to the hops in the trace. What you are looking for is loss that start at one hop and then continues to the end. In the trace you provided hop 7 is where it appears the issue is. Things like hop 5 mean nothing other than the device is configured to not respond.

What you really want is the loss to be in hop2. That...
Tracert does not really send enough data to detect intermittent issues. What the trace shows is the problem is in googles network. That may or may not be true but there little you can do it the problem really is outside your ISP.

You can try a program called pathping but many times it also has very confusing output that can mislead you.

Your best option is to open a bunch of cmd windows and let constant ping run to the hops in the trace. What you are looking for is loss that start at one hop and then continues to the end. In the trace you provided hop 7 is where it appears the issue is. Things like hop 5 mean nothing other than the device is configured to not respond.

What you really want is the loss to be in hop2. That tends to be the simplest to get fixed since it is almost always related to some cable issue between the ISP and your house.

What you will need to do is show the ISP that you get no loss in previous hops and it only starts happening in say hop x. The farther up the path you get the more likely it is in another ISP....like google...and they can do nothing about it. Also if you are in their core network the first level support guys will not have access to the routers so it could be very involved to get it fixed.


....................so i get this all typed and see you have another link. that one clearly show the problem is in hop2. You want to use actual ping commands though to show the ISP. They will blame these tools because they do not understand them. Simple ping commands most level 1 techs you hope know how work.
 
Solution
Sep 1, 2019
2
0
10
Tracert does not really send enough data to detect intermittent issues. What the trace shows is the problem is in googles network. That may or may not be true but there little you can do it the problem really is outside your ISP.

You can try a program called pathping but many times it also has very confusing output that can mislead you.

Your best option is to open a bunch of cmd windows and let constant ping run to the hops in the trace. What you are looking for is loss that start at one hop and then continues to the end. In the trace you provided hop 7 is where it appears the issue is. Things like hop 5 mean nothing other than the device is configured to not respond.

What you really want is the loss to be in hop2. That tends to be the simplest to get fixed since it is almost always related to some cable issue between the ISP and your house.

What you will need to do is show the ISP that you get no loss in previous hops and it only starts happening in say hop x. The farther up the path you get the more likely it is in another ISP....like google...and they can do nothing about it. Also if you are in their core network the first level support guys will not have access to the routers so it could be very involved to get it fixed.


....................so i get this all typed and see you have another link. that one clearly show the problem is in hop2. You want to use actual ping commands though to show the ISP. They will blame these tools because they do not understand them. Simple ping commands most level 1 techs you hope know how work.


Many thanks for your response, so I would be safe to assume this is caused by something on the ISP's end? I have tried pinging that IP on the second hop and can not find any issues, I actually get 0% packet loss. However when pinging the 3rd hop I get 100% PL.

Just wondering if this is usual? Rules maybe configured on the 3rd hop which would prevent ping? Thanks for the help it's appreciated.
 
It is strange you get inconsistent results but hopefully the ISP will agree to test the line.

If this is a cable modem sometimes you can see errors in the modem and you can see the line levels and see if they are ok. Not much you can do though since it seldom is in your house.

All you can really do is check any wiring that is in your house. If you can move the equipment just to test to where the line enters the house you can rule that out pretty easy.