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sjo102784's avatar
sjo102784
Contributor
7 years ago

Internet Issues - Consistent Lost Packets North Phoenix, Arizona

Hello:

I've been a Cox customer since we moved out to Arizona (about 5 years ago) and have experienced this issue intermittently since.  I've had techs out on site multiple times, each giving me a variety of reasons as to why our internet service is flaky.  The problem has become so consistent over the last few weeks that I've been completely unable to play any competitive online game due to packet loss. 

While gaming, I noticed a number of packet loss issues on multiple games, which led me to begin a ping test in the background while gaming.  As it turned out, I was seeing frequent (multiple pings lost per minute) packet loss.  My network is entirely hard wired (aside from phones, on wifi) and all ping testing and trace routes were performed on a wired connection. 

Here is one of the PingPlotter (graphed trace route) results from my test:

https://share.pingplotter.com/hJUrX7AeS5U

As you can see, there is no internal packet loss.  The packet loss begins at 100.127.73.4, and continues throughout the path to Google's DNS server.  In addition, the response times and packet losses increase when the network is being utilized to a higher degree (while gaming or streaming video for example), but the packet loss still occurs when the network is essentially idle.

I had a tech out on Sunday (July 29th) who said the signal was fine and the modem had to have been the culprit.  I've replaced both the router and modem with new hardware, and I've duplicated the packet loss and high latency responses on three different computers - one on OSX and two Windows systems with the use of four different network cards.  The results are also repeatable when wired into the modem only.  The exact same symptoms occurred before and after the router and modem replacement.

At this point, I've had at least six different tech visits, twice as many tech support phone calls, and numerous hours spent verifying cabling and swapping cables/etc for troubleshooting purposes. 

I need assistance.  I do not want to switch ISP's, but at this point I don't see much of a choice. 

  • pd91's avatar
    pd91
    New Contributor III
    7 years ago

    Hey man. Just so you know, you're not alone. While you may have general packet loss, there is a serious problem with COX's routing table involving amazon web services. Hundreds of us are having this exact problem and cox has yet to acknowledge the issue. See here: https://forums.cox.com/forum_home/internet_forum/f/internet-forum/21288/severe-packet-loss-upload-to-amazon-web-services-fortnite   and here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FortNiteBR/comments/931lrl/attempt_2_at_getting_visibility_most_cox_isp/

    I'm still working on figuring something out.

    • pd91's avatar
      pd91
      New Contributor III
      7 years ago

      Furthermore, I'd like to point out that this exact topic is becoming increasingly frequent on this forum. I only expect more of this exact post in the future

    • sjo102784's avatar
      sjo102784
      Contributor
      7 years ago

      Thanks for the information, both Rocket League and Fortnite are completely unplayable as-is. 

      • pd91's avatar
        pd91
        New Contributor III
        7 years ago

        It'll likely stay this way until more people speak up. I'm going to do my best to figure out a way of escalating this high up and work on asking them to update their routing tables.

  • Khabi's avatar
    Khabi
    New Contributor II
    7 years ago

    Yea, its not just you.  I've had problems playing games for many many months now.  Sometimes it'll be fine for awhile, other times (like today) anything even remotely latency sensitive is worthless.  I literally just had to rage quit Rocket League because the ball was teleporting all over the place.

    I wrote some custom software to keep track of my network and the first few hops outside of it to multiple endpoints, and there is constant drops / spikes going out as well. 

    A snapshot of the data from the past few days.. you can see how inconsistant the network is after it leaves my house.

    https://snapshot.raintank.io/dashboard/snapshot/w0vp8b8DWxtDqbTT1M6BUfAakLFHXlWP

    All of that is after:

    A new cable modem

    A new router

    New drops into the house

    New drop from the street to the house...

    • Internetman60's avatar
      Internetman60
      New Contributor II
      7 years ago

      I thought it was just me who had it this bad today, I was unable to play rocket league today because of how bad the lag was.  Games like it and fortnite will always show consistent upstream packet loss, and at some times it isn't bad but certainly noticeable but there are days and times when it just gets ridiculous.  I've heard it may be a routing problem to AWS servers, a tech came out the other day and saw nothing and almost didn't believe my issue and said that he would have gotten many more complaints if it was as bad as I said and that he didn't know what the problem could be.  If you have any ideas how to diagnose this please let me know.  I'm currently running a ping plotter for 24 hours to see if there is some sort of pattern.

      • Khabi's avatar
        Khabi
        New Contributor II
        7 years ago

        There could always be that as well, but if it was just that my link up above wouldn't show the consistent spikes on every hop outside of the network.  I'd expect that we would see those stay steady and stuff past that would spike up.

  • megamatt0's avatar
    megamatt0
    New Contributor
    7 years ago

    Hello, I have been having the same exact issue at my home for the past 2 months as well. Southeast Arizona area. It has been very frustrating and I do not want to switch to CenturyLink as they only offer 40Mbps. I had a tech come out earlier this week and he said my speeds and signal levels are fine. I hope this can get figured out very soon.

  • BooPacketLoss's avatar
    BooPacketLoss
    New Contributor III
    7 years ago

    https://imgur.com/a/MPiVvxf .  When are we going to get an explanation for this upload packet loss? I don't think that COX understands that the average gamer has known how to restart their modem and hardwire a connection since the beginning of time and there is no point in recycling that PR speak. The problem is with COX's routing to Amazon servers and they need to acknowledge it.

  • Fortnitefeelsba's avatar
    Fortnitefeelsba
    New Contributor
    7 years ago

    Hello guys, Henderson Las Vegas. About 6 weeks of constant Upload packet loss on fortnite and rocket league. Fortnite was 2% packet loss every 3 seconds with constant spikes to 5 . 10 and 20%. it was unplayable. I tried haste, killping , outfox, and expressvpn. Haste was the best option that brought the packet loss down and more manageable without increasing ping. It was still constant packet loss with rare disconnects but with no other options a free trial of haste is your best bet. CentLink just came and installed their box today/ Absolutely 0% packet loss clean as can be entire games. This was a cox issue guaranteed and its probably complex for cox to fix so ill be happy sticking with new place for a while/ 65 bucks for 100 down . good luck boys . hope this gives someone any help!

    • BooPacketLoss's avatar
      BooPacketLoss
      New Contributor III
      7 years ago

      As soon as CenturyLink brings 100 Mbps to my area I'm immediately dropping COX, no respect for their customers and won't even dignify these threads with a real response.

  • Becky's avatar
    Becky
    Moderator
    7 years ago
    Hi Sjo102784, I'm not seeing any packet loss to your modem. Are you able to provide traceroute results to specific sites or game servers? -Becky, Cox Support Forums Moderator
    • sjo102784's avatar
      sjo102784
      Contributor
      7 years ago

      The pingplotter link in the original post was to Google's DNS servers and shows exactly where the packet loss occurs

    • sjo102784's avatar
      sjo102784
      Contributor
      7 years ago

      Specifically I'm seeing packet loss at:

      100.127.73.4
      100.120.100.0
      68.1.4.252
      72.215.224.173
      216.239.40.168
      216.239.50.169

      on the way to 8.8.8.8

    • sjo102784's avatar
      sjo102784
      Contributor
      7 years ago

      To add a little more information, I'm seeing inhibiting packet loss in both Fortnite and Rocket League game servers, but at the same time I've been running a ping to Google's DNS server (8.8.8.8) and am seeing packet loss to both the game servers as well as Google's DNS server at the same time.  So this does not seem to be isolated to just a few game servers, it seems to be all external communication regardless of destination. 

      • MarkM1's avatar
        MarkM1
        Former Moderator
        7 years ago
        Sjo102784,

        I pinged your modem now & am seeing latency on it now. I still do not show any packet loss though. I show that your modem has been online for about 1 day now. Are you able to perform a reset of the modem and the route now? After that, please run the trace route again to see if you are still having the same issue as before.

        Mark M.
        Cox Support Forums Moderator
  • BooPacketLoss's avatar
    BooPacketLoss
    New Contributor III
    7 years ago

    Keeping all of these threads at the top for anyone thinking of dropping COX as an isp. You would be justified.

  • sjo102784's avatar
    sjo102784
    Contributor
    7 years ago

    Here's the latest data:

    https://share.pingplotter.com/EvyBAtNEbAW

    https://share.pingplotter.com/WwG9xyjNbRD

    This is STILL OCCURRING.  I've now had the entire RG6 line from my modem to the Cox tap replaced, I've replaced my router a third time, and the modem as well.  Again - Cox is "investigating" this issue.  In the screenshots - AGAIN - you can see my router is losing ZERO packets and has excellent ping time.  Once it hits 100.127.73.4, packet loss escalates.  This is obviously two hops beyond my network.  

    • Rob_H_'s avatar
      Rob_H_
      Contributor II
      7 years ago

      sjo102784 According to what you shared, the problem does appear to be further upstream on the Cox network.  That being the case, Cox Tier 2 support should be conferring with Cox Tier 3 support on that apparent upstream network issue.

    • Becky's avatar
      Becky
      Moderator
      7 years ago
      Hi Sjo102784, if the packet loss at hop 3 was of any significance, it would carry through to the final destination. -Becky, Cox Support Forums Moderator