Praeses
Executive Member
Could not open any websites at 1AM. Connected with my WA account which worked fine for all websites except Afrihost's own website...my third day on Afrihost's network!
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Are all downloads slow, or just the console update itself?
Any results from the speedtest app? Probably isn't called speedtest, but I seem to remember a bandwidth tester being available somewhere in the settings?
So, YouTube was totally dead just now - no images loaded or video (and sometimes not even the stylesheet). Drive also behaved weirdly.
I ended up having to flush my router's DNS resolver cache as well as my PC cache. Instant fix when the new IPs were pulled.
Seems the TTL on these entries are set to 30 minutes (if I look at all the googlevideo.com entries in my cache), and somehow a bad batch must have been dished out by Afrihost's DNS. (I'm sure if I left things for 30 minutes, it would have fixed itself.)
Wonder why this happened?
Still does not explain the patchy performance on older lesser watched videos though - tried watching one now again and it doesn't even start playing. https://youtu.be/TCJcrhFbKLY is one example. (Yeah, another obscure vid for your collection!)
Hhhmm, not seeing the actual page load might indicate something different though.
Video seems to be served from our cache if I check this morning.
Hey AfriGuy
At 8:30pm today my connection went haywire for about 30 minutes and hasn't recovered
I started disconnecting non stop, I tried resetting multiple times but it took about half an hour for the disconnects to stop.
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Ping statistics for 155.239.255.250:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 1, Lost = 3 (75% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 90ms, Maximum = 90ms, Average = 90ms
Please help
Pretty bleak results here
Ping to your exchange looks like it's causing the trouble, shoot me a PM with your line number and I'll run over a few options to see if I can get this fixed up for you.
Is this something you've tested recently? I'm not aware of any recent DNS specific related issues from our end. Regarding shaping, I'm not really sure what else to say. If it was shaped, we'd say so and sell it as such.
If you're experiencing issues on the account I'd be happy to help, but would need to look at some data. If we really did shape Capped, this thread would be full of the same queries, and it isn't.
Thanks for posting these detailed results, helps a lot
If content isn't on our cache it should pull from another. What was the previous destination IP? The results you posted here show the content is being served from us.
Saw a few trends across Social Media indicating strange issues.
Did you manage to grab any tests which indicate where the issue was though?
Saw similar queries from last night.
Did you manage to grab any tests? I'll query updates from our Network team in the mean time to see what happened last night. Looking at Twitter, there was a spike in conversation at around 1am this morning.
Icemanbrfc
Honorary Master
Are you referring to when it went down for like 5 mins?
I have changed my router config to the so called new Afrihost DNS servers this morning by setting the device to obtain DNS config automatically. I have also restarted everything. I am trying to update a Windows 10 system. The updates trickle in at a blistering 24 Kbps with a seldom random burst of 1 Mbps. I have a 20 Mbps line on a Afrihost capped account. I am astounded at how this company operates. The network status on the Afrihost website shows a bright green with a message - "Our DSL network is running like a bomb!" There is clearly not enough capacity to service elementary commitments to paying customers and yet they offer free internet to everybody! Initially we as customers told Afrihost that their partnership with MTN was a disaster and we were fobbed off. Fast forward to a couple of days ago and Afrihost is severing the MTN partnership. Customers tell Afrihost the network is broken and all we get is excuse after excuse. Things only change at Afrihost when critical mass is reached.
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Vorastra
Honorary Master
And then never reconnected until I had to restart my router in the morning. So much for that overnight download. First time I've ever had to manually reset my router to get a connection, normally it just reconnects.
As soon as the R1 promotion started, there's been problems. Hmmm...
Icemanbrfc
Honorary Master
Again its a tough one, because i didnt even experience the downtime. Ive also not had any streaming issues, even though my speeds have gone down the crapper due to metallic noise.And then never reconnected until I had to restart my router in the morning. So much for that overnight download. First time I've ever had to manually reset my router to get a connection, normally it just reconnects.
As soon as the R1 promotion started, there's been problems. Hmmm...
Overall the promos have had no effect on me, and its been working well. Happy with Afrihost.
Praeses
Executive Member
No sorry, was half asleep as I fell asleep on the couch and went to bed
EDIT: I did however test that it was not a DNS issue by using Google's servers
And then never reconnected until I had to restart my router in the morning. So much for that overnight download. First time I've ever had to manually reset my router to get a connection, normally it just reconnects.
As soon as the R1 promotion started, there's been problems. Hmmm...
I really don't think there's much of a line between the two. I've seen similar posts saying that x is caused by the double data too, that's simply not the case.
If there was a direct, negative impact, to a promotion we're running we'd stop it until we saw any problems resolved. We haven't had to as it isn't causing a problem.
Yes, we have had issues with using Afrihost's DNS servers recently. As explained, simple user browsing was affected this is why we use Google DNS servers. Using Afrihost's DNS servers makes no difference to Windows Update download speeds. I have tried that this morning as I have explained in my previous post. Which data would you like to look at. A speed test or a tracert? Those tests will come back with a positive result. The reason for this is that Afrihost has no shaping rules on this traffic. Browsing, browser downloads and other real time services works at acceptable levels. Windows Update and Apple App Store traffic is shaped. The proof is there. Change to another ISP account and updates complete in a flash. It is like unblocking a sewer line. Afrihost shapes update traffic. I pay for an unshaped service. You cannot do this!
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Please post some test results for me to look at.
What tests do you require?
These are usually a good starting point:
Region/ area you're in
Speedtest to local & international via speedtest or the MyBB speedtest app
A traceroute/ MTR to afrihost.com and bbc.co.uk
An nslookup/ dig to an affected domain using our DNS servers
A real world download on these two files http://ubuntu.mirror.neology.co.za/ubuntu-release/14.04.5/ubuntu-14.04.4-server-amd64.iso and http://ubuntu.mirror.neology.co.za/ubuntu-release/14.04.5/ubuntu-14.04.4-server-amd64.iso.torrent
I am in north Gauteng. A speed test works perfectly because Afrihost has no shaping on this service. A tracert to afrihost.com and bbc.co.uk will also work perfectly because Afrihost does not shape this traffic. Name resolution works perfectly because I can connect to the target services. Http downloads works perfectly because as I have explained I can download Microsoft Updates manually via browser within acceptable time windows. Your requests to do these tests makes no sense because all these services works. Windows Update and Apple Store data transfer is problematic. What tests do you require to troubleshoot these services?
While I fully understand you're frustrating, I don't think pointing to shaping is going to resolve this. We need to check tests to see what's happening.
Let's assume we shape Capped (which I need to point out again, we do not shape Capped accounts) - that would mean everyone else would have the same experience, and feedback in this thread alone doesn't point to any trends on shaping.
But anyway, so hypothetically speaking we shape Capped. That means P2P and ALL downloads will be shaped in the same way we shape Premium Uncapped. So a driver download, a Windows update via HTTP or any other download will be slow. Torrents will be slow along with NNTP.
With that info above, shaping does not happen.
What kind of throughput do you see to Windows and Apple updates?
Also, nslookups/ digs should show an issue if you're having DNS issues.
Let me know if you'd prefer to chat to someone via mail on the phone, I'll gladly escalate your concerns to our Critical Care team.
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