Packet loss mystery that my ISP seems to reject

[phomatic]

So here's my story:

I stream to Twitch.tv. I recently moved and before this move everything was 100% perfect with no issues whatsoever. That being said, this is not a hardware issue as far as I'm aware. My new ISP, Cox, has great speeds. I get 300+ down and 30+ up (Speedtest isn't 100% reliable but nonetheless I should be able to stream flawlessly at 3500 bitrate).

When I stream during popular internet hours at my apartment complex, I'm wired in via ethernet on my desktop, and I my upload speed goes to crap on OBS at completely random times This is not a permanent thing but it will do it for a while and then stop and then it will do it an hour later for about 30 more minutes. Due to this, OBS has to compensate for the loss in speed so it drops massive frames and my stream looks like a slideshow. The odd thing is that my stream audio continues 100% unaffected. This happens on weekends and some weekday nights (Wednesdays it happens, but not Mondays, it's strange).

It sounds like a congestion problem, right? Here is what I have tried:

- Disabling firewall
- Changing DNS
- Changing to an entirely brand new Router & Modem
- Bypassing the Router and just using the Modem
- I called my ISP to have them come check it out and he added a little enhancer thing on the coaxial cable to plug into the router-modem to help
- Resetting the router-modem

The thing he suggested were to move the router-modem to the living room to bypass the cabling in its current location, which I have not tried yet. The issue with this is that this entire situation is 100% unacceptable. They claim that there aren't enough people in my area to split a node as well claiming that "we're not even close" to the number needed.

That being said, does anyone have any advice on solutions or things to say to them to get them to figure this out?

An IT buddy of mine suggests that I essentially "force them" to fix the cables inside and outside because he thinks that may be the issue. However, I'm doubtful they would consider doing something like this and am looking for alternative solutions to this mess.

Thanks.

 

[bill001g]

OBS is known for all the strange issue it has all by itself so I can see why a ISP will deny it is there problem...especially if they have tools that can see the utilization rates. Just because it worked before means little...especially if you have win10. The last set of patches caused video issues again for many people resulting in the hunt for more video drivers.

You could try to run a speed test on another machine during the times OBS is having issues. Even from your phone if you do not have access to another cables machine. This of course will cause even more issues for the video uplink because now you are attempting to use 100% of your connection. The key here is if speedtest can get say even 10m during this time it means OBS should have no issues getting 3.5m.

The other thing you can try is uploading data to some file storage site. There are a bunch of free ones. You want to always upload the same file over and over. You want to choose a service you can liimit your upload rates. You would for example limit it to say 5m. If you can get 5m consistently from a upload tool especially when obs is complaining it again will prove it is not the link.

What you would need to do if you see a real issue is to show that multiple tools are showing the slowdowns and packet loss not just OBS.

....a added comment wiring issues tend to not be random so I would not spend a lot of effort on replacing wiring.

 

[phomatic]

OBS is known for all the strange issue it has all by itself so I can see why a ISP will deny it is there problem...especially if they have tools that can see the utilization rates. Just because it worked before means little...especially if you have win10. The last set of patches caused video issues again for many people resulting in the hunt for more video drivers.

You could try to run a speed test on another machine during the times OBS is having issues. Even from your phone if you do not have access to another cables machine. This of course will cause even more issues for the video uplink because now you are attempting to use 100% of your connection. The key here is if speedtest can get say even 10m during this time it means OBS should have no issues getting 3.5m.

The other thing you can try is uploading data to some file storage site. There are a bunch of free ones. You want to always upload the same file over and over. You want to choose a service you can liimit your upload rates. You would for example limit it to say 5m. If you can get 5m consistently from a upload tool especially when obs is complaining it again will prove it is not the link.

What you would need to do if you see a real issue is to show that multiple tools are showing the slowdowns and packet loss not just OBS.

....a added comment wiring issues tend to not be random so I would not spend a lot of effort on replacing wiring.

This isn't an OBS issue as the same happened with XSplit. I do not have windows 10 either, I have windows 7. So ultimately I don't think this will solve whatever issue I'm having.

 

[bill001g]

Then just ignore the first paragraph if you are going to be so defensive.

The testing method is the same no matter what software you are using.

Your ISP has actually done a little more than many do. They looked at the utilization for the connection to your neighborhood and determined that they see no issue. Most ISP are clueless and tell you to reboot the computer but it appears you got a tech who had some skills.

That does not mean there is no issue but they can now say it is your turn to prove it is not your stuff. You need to find a tool the ISP will understand like speedtest that shows the problem or some other really simplistic tool. A video encoder is a extremely complex software that if you misconfigure can cause all kinds of issues and how is the ISP to know if you are expert in those tools or not. They deal with tons of idiots that complain about things like the latency to a server in austrialia is higher than a server in the USA when they live in the USA.