Dropbox Uploads using CellC

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Viva

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For as long as I can remember, uploading anything larger than a few hundred kilobytes (say 1.5mb) to Dropbox would take ages when using Cell C. It literally takes about an hour to upload.

This is not Dropbox's upload limit at work. The same issue occurs when trying to upload using the Dropbox website. Using the website, uploads fails after a few seconds.

I suspect the issue is a combination of the protocol Dropbox use and the specific ISP:

When using CellC, uploads to a Joomla website works perfectly.
When using a different ISP (like Telkom), uploads to Dropbox works perfectly.

Has anyone else experienced similar issues? I'd really like to get to the bottom of this - this has been going on for months.
 
And how do Box, Mega, Mediafire, Rapidshare etc. perform?
 
Bryn26 said:
And how do Box, Mega, Mediafire, Rapidshare etc. perform?
Click to expand...

I do not use these services, so I'll have to do some tests and get back. But I do recall having the exact issue with Google Drive.
 
Is it related to protocol, or generally uploads? Do your speedtest results to local and international sites show the same pattern?. How stable are pings?

Lastly what is a modem model and how it is connected: directly to PC/laptop, short/long cable?
 
sajunky said:
Is it related to protocol, or generally uploads? Do your speedtest results to local and international sites show the same pattern?. How stable are pings?

Lastly what is a modem model and how it is connected: directly to PC/laptop, short/long cable?
Click to expand...

Speed tests report acceptable speeds - usually about 2.5Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up. Only uploads to some services are problematic, notably Dropbox and Google Drive. Uploads to some other sites work just fine, even for much bigger files (15mb).

On average, a rough guess for pings would be around 100ms - 130ms. Pings are stable last I checked. I'll have to go make sure about this as I have not recently checked this.

Modem is Huawei E1752. Currently it is connected to a router. I'll use my Afrihost MiFi instead to see what happens when I get home later today.

Thanks for the ideas!
 
Viva said:
I'll use my Afrihost MiFi instead to see what happens when I get home later today.
Click to expand...

It's going to fly..... My Samsung S4 is set to push every photo I take to a folder on my dropbox. I am always connected to my Afrihost WIFI sim at home so when I take photo's, they push very quickly to my dropbox and then come back down to my laptop...

Cell C sounds like the weakest link here. I too have had to disable my dropbox app from using my Cell C network on the actual phone. If I take photo's while out and about, they only push upstream when I get home.
 
I tried it with my Cell C sim inside the Afrihost MiFi - same problem. It doesn't seem like the issue is with my other 3G Modem.

When uploading via Dropbox's website, I can see how the upload progress from start to finish (with the corresponding data being uploaded as reported by my Modem's stats), only to restart as soon as it finish. This cycle will keep on repeating for hours while, in the process, consuming hundreds of megabytes trying to upload a 1.5MB file.

Basically, actual data gets uploaded, but the upload never stops.

Local speedtest: http://speedtest.ookla.com/result/2307093116.png
International Speedtest: http://speedtest.ookla.com/result/2307094087.png
 
FlashSA said:
It's going to fly..... My Samsung S4 is set to push every photo I take to a folder on my dropbox. I am always connected to my Afrihost WIFI sim at home so when I take photo's, they push very quickly to my dropbox and then come back down to my laptop...

Cell C sounds like the weakest link here. I too have had to disable my dropbox app from using my Cell C network on the actual phone. If I take photo's while out and about, they only push upstream when I get home.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, MTN signal at my house is too weak. I get 3G outside but EDGE inside.
 
Viva said:
When uploading via Dropbox's website, I can see how the upload progress from start to finish (with the corresponding data being uploaded as reported by my Modem's stats), only to restart as soon as it finish. This cycle will keep on repeating for hours while, in the process, consuming hundreds of megabytes trying to upload a 1.5MB file.

Basically, actual data gets uploaded, but the upload never stops.
Click to expand...
It look convincing. It could be Cell C blocking some ports required to complete upload, some more complicated routing issue, or site is trying to open another connection with uploader and incoming connection is blocked.
PM Cell_C to make sure rep is watching this thread, it shouldn't be difficult to replicate problem and find solution.
 
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Viva said:
Unfortunately, MTN signal at my house is too weak. I get 3G outside but EDGE inside.
Click to expand...

Hi, "Viva" Please PM me your contact details, will see if we can come up with a solution. *DM*
 
I also have this problem and I have played around with it a bit:
Dropbox cannot upload large files.
Gmail cannot upload large files for attaching.
SSH (using scp) fails to upload large files.
SMTP fails sending large emails.

I would guess that almost any TCP based upload is affected.
Using a UDP based vpn to tunnel TCP over does work correctly but is not practical is most cases.

File sizes that fail are around 400KB and larger.

This has been tested on at least 2 3G dongles and a 3G router with 2 different CellC sim cards. I also tested using 2 different computers. The issue was present in all cases.

I also asked a friend with a CellC sim card to test it with his dongle and he also has the problem.

SSH fails with "Received disconnect from xxx.xxx.220.17: 2: Packet corrupt"
Some googling suggests that this could be caused by a bad NAT router that occasionally corrupts packets.

Speedtest looks fine. Connection is great aside from this issue.
 
Tonberry said:
I also have this problem and I have played around with it a bit:
Dropbox cannot upload large files.
Gmail cannot upload large files for attaching.
SSH (using scp) fails to upload large files.
SMTP fails sending large emails.

I would guess that almost any TCP based upload is affected.
Using a UDP based vpn to tunnel TCP over does work correctly but is not practical is most cases.

File sizes that fail are around 400KB and larger.

This has been tested on at least 2 3G dongles and a 3G router with 2 different CellC sim cards. I also tested using 2 different computers. The issue was present in all cases.

I also asked a friend with a CellC sim card to test it with his dongle and he also has the problem.

SSH fails with "Received disconnect from xxx.xxx.220.17: 2: Packet corrupt"
Some googling suggests that this could be caused by a bad NAT router that occasionally corrupts packets.

Speedtest looks fine. Connection is great aside from this issue.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your post and confirming. Your absolutely right about Gmail attachments, which I forgot to mention.

I have not yet contacted Cell_C as I'm a little busy at the moment.
 
my dropbox uploads are working fine on my iphone 5 on a cellc contract.....

In fact I have it set to auto upload my photos and it does so when I open the dropbox app.
 
cavedog said:
my dropbox uploads are working fine on my iphone 5 on a cellc contract.....

In fact I have it set to auto upload my photos and it does so when I open the dropbox app.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting. I spoke to a Cell C technician today and what it basically came down to is that he can't reproduce the problem. That leaves me with some more testing to do. I'm starting to consider the option that there might be something wrong with my installation of Windows. Maybe the firewall is doing something it is not supposed to.

I'll report back when I find out more.
 
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Does it depend on assigned IP range or always? Make note of assigned IP address every time you connect. Check your firewall settings. Does it the same on modem dialup connection when connecting modem directly to PC and using RAS (not NDIS or HiLink)?
 
Doubtful that it's a Windows problem since my test were all done on Linux machines. I have not yet compared the different WAN IP ranges. I'm not home over the weekend so can't test right now. Maybe it is area specific? All my tests were done in Stellenbosch.

cavedog are you on the unrestricted APN?

After the long weekend I might be able to do some packet captures on a server and try to figure out what is happening to the packets.
 
Tonberry said:
Doubtful that it's a Windows problem since my test were all done on Linux machines. I have not yet compared the different WAN IP ranges. I'm not home over the weekend so can't test right now. Maybe it is area specific? All my tests were done in Stellenbosch.

cavedog are you on the unrestricted APN?

After the long weekend I might be able to do some packet captures on a server and try to figure out what is happening to the packets.
Click to expand...

And that's what we have in common. I'm also in Stellenbosch.

I asked the technician if this could be a tower related problem, but he was doubtful.

I think Cell C should get a tech team to Stellenbosch to conduct some tests.
 
Tonberry said:
cavedog are you on the unrestricted APN?
Click to expand...

Don't think so but since its on my iphone it uses the apn apple.cellc.za

Just uploaded 20mb to dropbox on my iphone over cellc 3g with no problem.
 
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Hi,

I had a PAINFUL connection uploading to dropbox on Vodacom on sat night (Had people waiting for files).
As soon as I switched to my iphone's personal hotspot which is on CELLC, the upload flew up in a few minutes...
 
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