Cox → [LA] Baton Rouge Packet Loss

I'll just make a list of the factors requested, and you tell me if it's normal.

Cisco DPQ3212
Cisco E900
Cox Essential

Modem signal levels as of right now (clearly not the issue):

Power Level: Signal to Noise Ratio:
Channel 1: 0.3 dBmV 40.8 dB
Channel 2: -0.8 dBmV 40.9 dB
Channel 3: 0.0 dBmV 40.7 dB
Channel 4: 0.8 dBmV 41.0 dB
Channel 5: 0.5 dBmV 40.7 dB
Channel 6: 0.3 dBmV 40.7 dB
Channel 7: 0.6 dBmV 40.6 dB
Channel 8: 0.7 dBmV 40.7 dB

Not including speed tests because speed isn't the issue, it's packet loss.

Here is a screenshot of pingplotter to reddit over the course of 3 hours. 100% packet loss for 2-5 seconds pretty regularly once every 2-3 minutes.

»i.imgur.com/ujJbn.png

I thought I was going to have the smokeping image available but I misplaced it. Sorry if this causes any difficulty, the point I was trying to show from that image was that over the course of 24 hours I averaged 8-10% overall packet loss from two sources.

Original problem is that I play games online and it's difficult to be competitive with 2-5 seconds of input blackout. I realize I'm on Essential Tier from Cox, but I don't need $90 internet to play games I played in the 90s on dial-up, or any other game for that matter.

When I call Cox they tell me the signal level is "excellent" (which it is) and that they ping my modem "continuously with no packet loss".

I experience all these same issues if I bypass all coax splitters, routers, etc. Straight from the wall into the modem and into a computer. All computers on my home network have this issue.

Please tell me what other information I need to attach to help you help me.

Thank you so much.

You mentioned support had no issues pinging the modem and all PCs experience issues, have you tested without the router to eliminate that variable?

Yes, all of the symptoms persist when bypassing all routers and getting as close to possible to the coax entrypoint into my home (bypassing all splitters or lengths of unnecessary cable).

Another pingplotter from today:

»i.imgur.com/jEzhi.png

show the results with out the router on pinng plotter as the last screen shot is with the router and then ping to www.cox.net so as to stay with in the cox network

What part of town are you in? I'm in shenandoah and have the same if not worse. I'm dropping 8-20% depending on where I test.

Just north of you, old hammond and millerville, approx. It has been like this for some time now, like 6 weeks. Today is PARTICULARLY awful, 100% in bursts for like 5-10-15, sometimes 20 seconds.

Here is some data straight to the modem, and straight to cox.net.

»i.imgur.com/GnqN7.png

Same issues.

I think that it is hilarious that when I call cox on the telephone, they tell me there doesn't seem to be any issues with my phone or internet, and then they can't hear me on the phone for 10-15 seconds and almost hang up, because my phone doesn't work consistently, probably due to the same problem.

I've had some pretty wicked packet loss since August 27, the day before the storm. They performed some tests on my modem and detected 30% packet loss, so they're sending a tech out in a few hours.

Here's pingplotter results with my laptop connected directly to the modem, personal firewall turned off etc.

»i.imgur.com/dOocx.png

Oh yeah, I'm in 70808

Is it just me or does it seem like 68.99.123.4 has more packet loss than any other hop?

And they will never send out a tech same day for me. Last time I was in the bathroom and they left within like 20 seconds of the first knock, time after that, the technician was scheduled for TV maintenance and said he had to reschedule for an internet/phone visit.

I only have a home phone so I can never troubleshoot over the phone, since resetting the modem obviously ends our call.

Lucky for you, your problems only started as recently as the 27th, mine have been like this for over 6 weeks with no help from Cox to fix the issue, only threats of charging for tech visits and delay after delay after delay.

Latest pingplotter:

»i.imgur.com/Eqj1f.png

Absolutely loving this.

That's a definite pattern my friend. My assumption as to the cause of the packet loss was they were redirecting traffic to other data centers in anticipation of the storm. What was weird is that I had no issues Friday, August 31 so I thought everything was back to normal.

I called yesterday and the tech on the phone confirmed the traffic re-route to be true. I was really surprised when he offered me a 3-5 time slot for today. Unfortunately, I am confident that the tech won't be able to do anything to fix my problem immediately. He will simply be reporting the issue to his supervisor for escalation.

like I said, I don't think that my problem has anything to do with traffic re-routing as it began before Isaac was even a named storm, but it seems like a valid theory for your issue.

lets all hope we can start getting what we pay for soon.

My favorite line out of this whole debate with cox was when a representative told me that I didn't have a tier of internet designed for online gaming, and I told them the game I was trying to play was a game I played in the 90s on dial-up.

Some more love from Cox in this thread would be greatly appreciated, maybe with some commentary about the 68.99.123.4 node?

Looking at you guy's pingplotter results, it seems the issue is local to yall as first hop(either Modem, or Router) is showing 100% packet loss as if its not responding to ping, which is odd. It also continues threw out the rest of the hops. So most the time the first hop packet loss starts occurring on, means the source of the problem is happening there. Its something imo you need to have cox out to troubleshoot locally.

It would be nice if they would become aware of a problem that I've been complaining about for WELL over a month without having a gathering of people with notarized evidence.

That being said, thanks for the insight into the pingplotter results, I wasn't really sure what to make of the 100% loss on the first hop, maybe that is a real indication of a serious local problem.

I wish I could just skip this whole process of a tech coming out by getting ahold of someone on the telephone that can actually DO something.

The 100% packet loss on the first hop simply means that device doesn't respond to ICMP echo requests. This is a common occurrence in traceroute results and does not necessarily indicate a problem with the device in question.

The tech just finished up here. We swapped modems and the issue still persisted. The tech checked all of my connectors and everything is fine. My signal levels are great.

Another tech was communicating with him during his troubleshooting process and another customer is having the exact same type of issue and he only lives a few miles away. The tech seems confident that this is a problem at the office and he is reporting both issues to the maintenance supervisor.

I'm going out of town for work and will be able to check this problem again on saturday. I will reply back here once I have new information.

Also, to explain how they test packet loss to your modem - They ping the private IP address of your modem from the office, which is a 10.x.x.x number. The test sends 50 ICMP echo requests in a few seconds. In my case the tech did 3 tests from his truck. The first result showed 2% loss, second results showed 88%, third results showed 58%.

Kind of what I figured, and I have run plenty of traceroute's with many modems, with, and without a router. Never seen modem itself not respond to ICMP requests. I understand a router has an option to not respond to ICMP requests, and some routers with dos attack protection are known to drop ICMP requests when so many are requested in a very short time.

Anyways I figured both you guy's problem are locally, meaning either it was a home side issue. Or a problem between your home, and the local CMTS. Because that's what your pingplotter results point to, with packet loss occurring right after leaving your home network.

Just got a call back from the tech - He spoke with the maintenance supervisor and apparently the issue is due to noise in the 37Mhz range on my node.

I wonder what the time frame for their adjustments will be, and I wonder if whatever they do will fix both of our problems.

Well hopefully they can find the source of the noise, as this is one of the hardest problems to fix.

Well they said it definitely won't be priority due to them still having to correct outages from the hurricane.

That really seems like a cop-out answer from them, in my opinion.

I'm going to tell them it isn't a priority to pay my bill due to still having to correct outages from their service.

Nope it isn't, there are rules in place for stuff like this. I had a noise issue last year, and we got hit by a bad storm that knocked out a lot of customers. So there job is to get as many people back online, and then start dealing with these kind of problems. I was told at least a couple weeks wait before they would look into my issue further. You may not like it, but its there job to get customers back online, and not worry about one person's problem.

I guess that makes sense. Still frustrated though. Thanks for the replies to all that contributed, my tech will be here Wednesday and I'll let you all know what he says.

So...something interesting happened, starting this morning, here's an image of the past 6 hours...

»i.imgur.com/lnlSk.png

heres a closeup of a 5 minute snippet: »i.imgur.com/NBoZ7.png

Just an odd pattern.

The bottom pic I am sure I can explain. The modem is load balancing on the upstream, and with most likely a noise issue. The modem is jumping threw the different upstream channels. As a little while back I seen the same pattern with pingplotter, and it was because a of noise issue I was dealing with, and the modem was bouncing around to find a better channel. Sadly all the channels were being affected. There a small chance it could be something else, but I think it same problem I had. Luckily for me once my cox area started upstream channel bonding that problem stopped.

I have dealt with an on, and off noise issue on the upstream for over a year and a half. So I just hope for you guy's sake, if indeed its a noise issue, the local cox crews don't have to much trouble finding the source of the noise. As you could be like me still dealing with on, and off noise issue's. That are just a pain in the ass, and will cause plenty of problems related to packet loss, and unsteady connection with modem resetting randomly.

You're not alone in this. I have been having the same exact issue over the last month or so. It's been getting worse and worse over time.

Here is a RRD graph from my router measuring the WAN adapter quality/packet loss from yesterday. Pretty abysmal! Forget any online games haha, they are unplayable. :

Any updates from your tech visit yesterday? Maybe they fixed something over here, because this is the longest period of time where I've had 0% packet loss since the problem started on August 27.


Fingers crossed!

Also, what's up pfsense buddy

My tech came out and replaced some wire coming from the pole outside to somewhere above my apartment. Everything was fantastic from that morning, until now. Glad to hear everything is working well for you, problems started last night for me, I believe.

Anyone else's problems still persist?