MWEB Uncapped ADSL - Official Q & A

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So I just topped up with a standard Capped shaped account with AH and what took 48 minutes of repeated stalled downloads was just done in 9 minutes.

Just tried again with MW uncapped account and it failed again, this time at 57%.

Still rocking I guess?

Well, I now understand what they meant by saying, never drive without a spare tyre :erm:

Looks like it is going to be needed.
 
PeterCH said:
I'm curious, what's stopping MWEB from oversubscribing and as a result throttling (SHAPING) everything under the sun heavily except for basic text HTML?
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This is exactly what is happening. I've seen the change since the start of the month. MWEB is effectively capping accounts via heavy 'shaping' methods.
 
SSung said:
This is exactly what is happening. I've seen the change since the start of the month. MWEB is effectively capping accounts via heavy 'shaping' methods.
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anecdotal evidence would suggest otherwise
 
milomak said:
anecdotal evidence would suggest otherwise
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showfull.php

uTorrent 400KB/s + :D
Dunno about that ETA though.. but I had just resumed the torrent after stopping it..

During POST it spiked it 529 Kbps!! :wtf:
showfull.php

Actual is 494 if you look at status bar..
 
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Astound said:
OK, so it is a Saturday night, or rather very early on a Sunday morning, ie. 02h16 check post time and http download is being throttled to zero, from 130KB/s to 0KB/s for the sixth time and cannot be resumed after failure.

Time to top up again with Capped account, since uncapped falling apart at the seams.
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Thanks for posting this -- this is exactly the problem I've been experiencing since Wednesday 14 April 2010. I haven't yet found a solution. Restarting all equipment, checking DNS settings, getting Tech Support to reset the port -- none of this helped. I visited a friend across town who has a 2GB capped MWeb 384 account and I was able to download a 20MB file to completion there. I'm not saying it's related at all to capped vs. uncapped, but I am on an uncapped line and I can't download, yet I can download on a capped line. Yes -- I know -- a sample size of 1 is not a statistic :)
 
SabreWolfy said:
Thanks for posting this -- this is exactly the problem I've been experiencing since Wednesday 14 April 2010. I haven't yet found a solution. Restarting all equipment, checking DNS settings, getting Tech Support to reset the port -- none of this helped. I visited a friend across town who has a 2GB capped MWeb 384 account and I was able to download a 20MB file to completion there. I'm not saying it's related at all to capped vs. uncapped, but I am on an uncapped line and I can't download, yet I can download on a capped line. Yes -- I know -- a sample size of 1 is not a statistic :)
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Have you guys tried "Free Download Manager". My download speeds go up and down too, but I have never lost a download with this program. It supports logging into all the file share sites too.
 
Your problem is very interestin SabreWolfy - quite peculiar. It's good and bad that it does it with wget as well since that's about as simple as it gets for http downloads. Have you PM'd MWEB with the information? I'm guessing a helpdesk person won't be able to assist terribly much.

I remember having a similar problem on Digichilli when they first launched (aah those heady days when they didn't suck) with even images getting to 97% and then dying and wget reporting connection resets.

If you've got some time and patience, try setting up a small squid proxy to send your traffic through and set up heavy monitoring - might shed some light.
 
KromozIII said:
Have you guys tried "Free Download Manager". My download speeds go up and down too, but I have never lost a download with this program. It supports logging into all the file share sites too.
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Thanks for the suggestion -- I'm familiar with FDM, but's Win32. I don't think a download manager will help though. I've tested with wget, Firefox and Chrome. The download simply drops to 0kbps and stalls. If I try to resume the download with wget (which is the kind of thing FDM would do), it does not even connect to the site. Starting it from scratch again does work, but then in stalls again later on.
 
AntiThesis said:
Your problem is very interestin SabreWolfy - quite peculiar. It's good and bad that it does it with wget as well since that's about as simple as it gets for http downloads. Have you PM'd MWEB with the information? I'm guessing a helpdesk person won't be able to assist terribly much.

I remember having a similar problem on Digichilli when they first launched (aah those heady days when they didn't suck) with even images getting to 97% and then dying and wget reporting connection resets.

If you've got some time and patience, try setting up a small squid proxy to send your traffic through and set up heavy monitoring - might shed some light.
Click to expand...

I tried Tech Support first and they did as much as they could (resetting the port, checking DNS) and then logged a callback from a senior tech. In the meantime I messaged the MWeb rep. here who was very helpful. S/he managed to download all three of the sample 'problem' files I told them about, from various locations on the MWeb network without any problems. If the problem is still present when I get home later today, I'll start testing with a different MWeb router and then with someone else's capped account login details.

The idea of a squid proxy is also a good one. It's getting to the stage where I need to actually inspect the individual packets coming in around the time of the stall.

All of this wastes time though -- I've actually got other things I need to get on with, rather than spending days troubleshooting my uncapped line :(
 
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SabreWolfy, I have done + - > 10GB this week, on http(University stuff autodesk inventor 2011, yes, not only linux can use up alot of GB + power cut caused issues I <3 ESKOM)
PE area, no issues at all on 384k. Is your DNS on auto? Both on your PC AND on your router?
 
Mike43110 said:
SabreWolfy, I have done + - > 10GB this week, on http(University stuff autodesk inventor 2011, yes, not only linux can use up alot of GB + power cut caused issues I <3 ESKOM)
PE area, no issues at all on 384k. Is your DNS on auto? Both on your PC AND on your router?
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I checked DNS settings with the rep. The router was set to obtain DNS automatically, but apparantly had the "wrong" settings (who knows why or how -- it's always been set to automatic), despite me not having any DNS problems and being able to browse, download previously, etc. fine. We sorted that and the router now displays a different set of addresses. The computer is set to obtain DNS entries from the router.

How would bad DNS settings cause a download to stall after many MB have already arrived? When the download starts, the DNS is required, and then the file starts screaming downat 38KB for 10 minutes. Then it stalls. That has nothing to do with DNS I would have thought? Unless somehow the "wrong" transparent proxy is being used? I've never experienced this problem on capped lines and I only started experiencing it on my uncapped line last Wednesday.

I've just tried to download a 20MB file at home again now. It got to 17Mb and this time 'wget' reported "Connection reset by peer". It tries to resume the download, and gets no further than "HTTP request sent, awaiting response". If I cancel that and start it from scratch, it will start again, run for a while, and stall. I've tried the '--no-cache' option -- makes no difference. I've tried throttle the download to a slower speed -- makes no difference.

So, the connection is being reset at some point in the download and it is being done is such a way that a resume (range request) does not work.

Effectively I'm worse than capped -- I can't download ANYTHING. Browsing is fine. Email is fine. Streaming audio is fine. Downloads run at maximum speed (38Kbps) until they stall.
 
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Is there a specific point at which it gets interrupted? Percentage or time wise?

FWIW, settings for my router:

Default Gateway: 41.132.58.1
Primary DNS Server: 196.28.80.140
Secondary DNS Server: 196.28.80.139
 
AntiThesis said:
Is there a specific point at which it gets interrupted? Percentage or time wise?

FWIW, settings for my router:

Default Gateway: 41.132.58.1
Primary DNS Server: 196.28.80.140
Secondary DNS Server: 196.28.80.139
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Not at home right now, but those settings look correct.

It does not always stall at exactly the same point, but most times around the same point, say 16.6MB or 17MB or 17.7MB for a particular file. Another file will stall at a different point. Getting one of the files from a friend's place (MWeb) works fine, so if there IS a cached version within MWeb somewhere, it's not a broken file.

I'm going to have to test when I get home:
1. Hard resetting my router to factory defaults.
2. Testing on my line with my account and a different router.
3. Testing on my line with a different account and my router.
4. Testing on my line with a different account and a different router.

Then I'll hopefully be able to see where the damned problem lies.
 
SabreWolfy said:
Browsing is fine. Email is fine. Streaming audio is fine. Downloads run at maximum speed (38Kbps) until they stall.
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Hi SabreWolfy,

We are continuing to investgate the symptom. As per my PM have you verified that your PPPoE connection (on your router) is running the standard ADSL mtu of 1492 ? It should be default, however if changed to some other value it may cause sub-optimal results.

MWB.
 
MWEB said:
Hi SabreWolfy,

We are continuing to investgate the symptom. As per my PM have you verified that your PPPoE connection (on your router) is running the standard ADSL mtu of 1492 ? It should be default, however if changed to some other value it may cause sub-optimal results.

MWB.
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Thanks for your assistance on this issue. I will check router settings when I am home later today (see PM to you earlier today). They should be fine however -- I've not changed any such settings since I received the router several years ago. I'm keen to test with a different router as my next strategy -- possibly my router has become faulty. I'll borrow an MWeb router from someone.
 
No Progress Since 1969

In about 1969 I used to put a paper tape in a 10 characters/s reader on a PDP11 Mini Computer and go home for supper.
After supper, with a lot of luck, if it did not stall, my program was loaded.

Today, in 2010, I start a download and go for supper…

So what's new :)
 
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