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uniqs
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HKPolice
join:2002-08-09
Scarborough, ON

HKPolice

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[Cable] Youtube lags at night still, upgrade cache servers?

Unable to stream 1080p videos smoothly during peak hours without buffering every minute, on Cable 28. Anyone else experiencing this?
ragingwolf
join:2003-04-22
Nepean, ON

ragingwolf

Member

Its most likely your last mile connection. Have you done multiple speedtests during this time?
34764170 (banned)
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON

34764170 (banned)

Member

said by ragingwolf:

Its most likely your last mile connection. Have you done multiple speedtests during this time?

That's not necessarily true. The Google cache servers located on TSI's network have been found to have performance issues at least 2 times, maybe more and I've never seen a response in the respective threads indicating actual resolution of the issues.

jmck
formerly 'shaded'
join:2010-10-02
Ottawa, ON

jmck

Member

Same here and I have no last-mile/Rogers segment congestion issue. 1080p can't be played without letting it buffer quite a bit or pausing it during peak.

TSI Gabe
Router of Packets
Premium Member
join:2007-01-03
Gatineau, QC

1 recommendation

TSI Gabe

Premium Member

Google just finished the last few config bits of an upgraded caching node, it should be up within the next week.
resa1983
Premium Member
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON

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Oooh.. Awesome..
Was just asking about this myself in the IRC channel last night.
34764170 (banned)
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON

34764170 (banned) to TSI Gabe

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to TSI Gabe
said by TSI Gabe:

Google just finished the last few config bits of an upgraded caching node, it should be up within the next week.

Good to hear that. Hopefully that will resolve most if not all of the YouTube related issues for quite some time.

d4m1r
join:2011-08-25

d4m1r

Member

said by 34764170:

said by TSI Gabe:

Google just finished the last few config bits of an upgraded caching node, it should be up within the next week.

Good to hear that. Hopefully that will resolve most if not all of the YouTube related issues for quite some time.

How long is quite some time? I've never had this issue before...Until this week, so I'm glad this thread came up. I'm in Ottawa West btw and I'll be checking next week I guess...
34764170 (banned)
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON

34764170 (banned)

Member

said by d4m1r:

How long is quite some time? I've never had this issue before...Until this week, so I'm glad this thread came up. I'm in Ottawa West btw and I'll be checking next week I guess...

Then you're lucky. Lots of people complain about the poor performance with YouTube and not being able to be fed the content fast enough to ensure smooth playback which meant users had to buffer quite a bit of the video before hitting play otherwise it would stop / be choppy during playback. There was a thread where someone had looked into the issue a bit closer and found when hitting a YouTube node on Google's network the performance was fine but when it hit the local cache there was a huge drop in the speed with which the content was being streamed. Possibly the cache was maxed out for capacity?

I would hope at least a year before having to do any upgrades if not longer.

Leathal
Premium Member
join:2002-02-09
Richmond Hill, ON

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No issues for me with YouTube videos at 1080p on my cable service at night. I am on the 28Mbps service as well and live in the Kennedy and 401 area.
Sanek
join:2006-08-10
Kanata, ON

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There have been problems with cache servers for a while now (look up my posts from like a month ago). It's not as bad now as its been before Christmas, but it could be because the demand dropped for the holiday season (don't know if that's the case).

It's been mostly OK during the holiday season and still OK at the moment for me.

Just for the record, I always verify the connection speed first and then speed I get to the cache server (visible in NetLimiter).
resa1983
Premium Member
join:2008-03-10
North York, ON

resa1983

Premium Member

It has been really odd because you can watch a video that buffers perfect, followed by a video that won't buffer at all, followed by another video that goes perfect..

I find if I try to replay a video later that didn't buffer earlier, it still doesn't work.
34764170 (banned)
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON

34764170 (banned)

Member

said by resa1983:

It has been really odd because you can watch a video that buffers perfect, followed by a video that won't buffer at all, followed by another video that goes perfect..

I find if I try to replay a video later that didn't buffer earlier, it still doesn't work.

I would check which cache node you're hitting with each time you're playing. It sounds like you're hitting a different node each time the behaviour changes.
Sanek
join:2006-08-10
Kanata, ON

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said by resa1983:

It has been really odd because you can watch a video that buffers perfect, followed by a video that won't buffer at all, followed by another video that goes perfect..

I find if I try to replay a video later that didn't buffer earlier, it still doesn't work.

Look here:
»Re: [Cable] Why is Youtube streaming on Cable always brutally sl

Also, you can try viewing a video (make sure it gets loaded completely), then closing the page and reopening it again. There is a good chance that it will play from the cache server the second time.

jmck
formerly 'shaded'
join:2010-10-02
Ottawa, ON

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said by resa1983:

It has been really odd because you can watch a video that buffers perfect, followed by a video that won't buffer at all, followed by another video that goes perfect..

I find if I try to replay a video later that didn't buffer earlier, it still doesn't work.

yes, i would also have videos that would just stop buffering entirely 20-50% in requiring me to refresh the page and it usually fixed it. these seem to all be signs of broken caching.

ChuckcZar
@teksavvy.com

ChuckcZar to HKPolice

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Same problem is also seen with Shaw cable and Telus out west. This problem is only akin to Canada for some reason and doesn't occur from anywhere else in the world even the third world isp's.
HKPolice
join:2002-08-09
Scarborough, ON

HKPolice

Member

Any updates on this situation? I'm speedtesting @ over 28Mbit but youtube is still slow as hell @ ~350-450KB/s.

CyberCam
join:2008-04-21
Whitby, ON

CyberCam

Member

I'm having this issue as well? Everything is great when speed testing but even playing 480p videos are buffering a lot!

jmck
formerly 'shaded'
join:2010-10-02
Ottawa, ON

jmck

Member

yeah youtube still sucks on TSI.
morisato
join:2008-03-16
Oshawa, ON

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youtube is weird i get issues with it but then stream netflix Superhd fine p:) its clearly not a simple issue the bandwidth is there on my end just its getting lost in translation
HKPolice
join:2002-08-09
Scarborough, ON

HKPolice

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Still buffering every minute or so tonight.... Any working scripts to block the caching servers?
Sanek
join:2006-08-10
Kanata, ON

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Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think its TSI servers that are to blame this time - at least I dont see it in the video url, but there is something weird going on.

I noticed that all the videos that were slow were loading from the following addresses:
»r*---sn-ux3n588t-mjhe.c. ··· ube.com/...

Where * is a number 1-9.

All others seemed fine. I don't know if this address represents a Teksavvy cache server (I don't think so), but it does look like a youtube cache server of some sort and it seems to be having speed issues only managing about 300 KB/s - 400 KB/s.

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

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As Gabe has mentioned, YouTube does have caching hardware in TekSavvy's cage at 151 Front.
Sanek
join:2006-08-10
Kanata, ON

Sanek

Member

said by Guspaz:

As Gabe has mentioned, YouTube does have caching hardware in TekSavvy's cage at 151 Front.

I know they do, but when the video loads from Teksavvy's cache, you can see it in the URL. Unless they don't display that in the URL anymore, it wasnt a TSI cache server...

xsbell
join:2008-12-22
Canada

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said by Sanek:

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think its TSI servers that are to blame this time - at least I dont see it in the video url, but there is something weird going on.

I noticed that all the videos that were slow were loading from the following addresses:
»r*---sn-ux3n588t-mjhe.c. ··· ube.com/...

Where * is a number 1-9.

All others seemed fine. I don't know if this address represents a Teksavvy cache server (I don't think so), but it does look like a youtube cache server of some sort and it seems to be having speed issues only managing about 300 KB/s - 400 KB/s.

Those are all cache servers in Tek's network. (206.248.151.140 - 206.248.151.147) And there is no r9-sn-ux3n588t-mjhe.c.youtube.com, it's 1-8 only.

nupogodi
Premium Member
join:2012-07-10
Toronto, ON

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Have you changed your DNS servers at all?

Using a foreign DNS server will change which CDN node you connect to. You might not be connecting to the edge closest to you.

For the record, I'm having absolutely no issues here in Toronto.
HKPolice
join:2002-08-09
Scarborough, ON

HKPolice

Member

said by nupogodi:

Have you changed your DNS servers at all?

Using a foreign DNS server will change which CDN node you connect to. You might not be connecting to the edge closest to you.

For the record, I'm having absolutely no issues here in Toronto.

Nope, using default TSI dns. Issues every night. It was fine a few months ago then slowly got worse over time.
HKPolice

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HKPolice

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After firing up TCP View, I realized that actually none of the youtube videos are loading from a caching server. The Tomato script I found a while ago was actually working still. All of them are being streamed directly from youtube's servers in Mountain View California.

IP ranges from 208.117.240.xxx to 208.117.251.xxx

Some of the videos load fine @ around 2MB/s without causing any buffering issues but the majority of them chug along at ~300-400KB/s which causes buffering.

I tried turning off the Anti caching script so that videos would load from TSI's cache again and guess what: the speeds are the same or slower. 206.248.151.140 - 206.248.151.147 IP range.

So I tried switching to a 16Mbit DSL I have access to and guess what: Full 2MB/s streaming no issues whatsoever.

So what does this prove?

1) Teksavvy's Youtube cache servers are overloaded and
2) Some of Teksavvy's peering is either overloaded or not functioning efficiently.

This is the Tomato script I used, in the WAN UP page:

echo > /etc/hosts
youtube=$(nslookup www.youtube.com|grep -v 127.0.0.1|grep " 1:"|awk {'print $3'})
for ls in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8;do for v in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25;do echo $youtube o-o.preferred.teksavvy-xcm1.v$v.lscache$ls.c.youtube.com >> /etc/hosts;done;done

I'm honestly surprised that there aren't any more complaints about this issue. Is everyone still watching videos in 480p or 720p?? I use youtube center script that automatically loads all vids in 1080p and every night, 90% of the videos have buffering issues which were non existent a few months ago.

jmck
formerly 'shaded'
join:2010-10-02
Ottawa, ON

jmck

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It was supposed to be fixed last week according to gabe, but he hasn't updated this thread or responded.

TSI Gabe
Router of Packets
Premium Member
join:2007-01-03
Gatineau, QC

TSI Gabe

Premium Member

It should be completely fixed as of this morning.