Official Crystal Web ADSL performance feedback thread Part 2...

[Crystal Web]

Ag no come on man :/ After midnight and still YouTube isn't able to stream consistently on 1080p or 720p, keeps reverting to 480p (or it just buffers like crazy). Did extensive testing my side, no packet loss on the exchange, no congestion, etc. Is this a problem that you're aware of, CW?

Not even remotely. YouTube has such massive prioritisation on the network. Any YouTube issues, especially consistent issues are in all likelihood unrelated to us to be honest. It's one of those services that is so heavily prioritised that when a customer reports slow YouTube and other services we can safely assume there's a line, modem/router, or config related issue on the customer's side. To give you some context, the pool of bandwidth allocated for streaming services on the current accounts is running at a few % utilisation. So absolutely not something on the network on our side contending for bandwidth for streaming services, and especially not for YouTube which runs on top priority on the QoS side.

 

[aktor]

Not even remotely. YouTube has such massive prioritisation on the network. Any YouTube issues, especially consistent issues are in all likelihood unrelated to us to be honest. It's one of those services that is so heavily prioritised that when a customer reports slow YouTube and other services we can safely assume there's a line, modem/router, or config related issue on the customer's side. To give you some context, the pool of bandwidth allocated for streaming services on the current accounts is running at a few % utilisation. So absolutely not something on the network on our side contending for bandwidth for streaming services, and especially not for YouTube which runs on top priority on the QoS side.

Ok, not a capacity issue then Maybe a routing issue?
Alternatively, what can I test from my side to help narrow it down? I've done packet loss checks, traceroutes (to youtube itself though, I'm not sure what the address for the CDN is), and tested on both my PC and laptop.

 

[Crystal Web]

Just loaded a home premium account (the same that you are on) on to the test line here on a 1080p video:

 

[Crystal Web]

Ok, not a capacity issue then Maybe a routing issue?
Alternatively, what can I test from my side to help narrow it down? I've done packet loss checks, traceroutes (to youtube itself though, I'm not sure what the address for the CDN is), and tested on both my PC and laptop.

What DNS are you using? Change to ours if you're not using them. If you are, try the Google DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 temporarily to see if it's a routing issue.

You sure nothing else is hogging bandwidth on the line? PM me your username and I can check for you quick. Especially uploads - they annihilate the network packet buffering when running at line speed, which is just one of those limitations of ADSL.

 

[aktor]

How do you get those stats in the corner? I'll see what it looks like by me and send you a screenshot.

 

[Crystal Web]

How do you get those stats in the corner? I'll see what it looks like by me and send you a screenshot.

Watch this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHdJL4-y918

Right click in the video and select 'stats for nerds' and the info will pop up. That's the same video I loaded up my side. If it's not working properly we can safely say the issue is in all likelihood not on our end.

 

[aktor]

Watch this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHdJL4-y918

Right click in the video and select 'stats for nerds' and the info will pop up. That's the same video I loaded up my side. If it's not working properly we can safely say the issue is in all likelihood not on our end.

Got it. And as irony would have it, now it's loading 1080p just fine :wtf: Literally 20mins ago it would buffer, now it plays 1080p with an available buffer of about 60secs as well. Very weird :/
Btw (unrelated mostly, but just out of curiosity), I see on those stats YouTube is pulling 7.5mbps for 1080p. I thought 1080p is around 4.2mbps - or is that extra bandwidth for the read-ahead buffer?

 

[Crystal Web]

Got it. And as irony would have it, now it's loading 1080p just fine :wtf: Literally 20mins ago it would buffer, now it plays 1080p with an available buffer of about 60secs as well. Very weird :/
Btw (unrelated mostly, but just out of curiosity), I see on those stats YouTube is pulling 7.5mbps for 1080p. I thought 1080p is around 4.2mbps - or is that extra bandwidth for the read-ahead buffer?

Good stuff.

It's the buffer, which is why it gives you the buffer as it's getting more than it needs. I'm still a little concerned about something I picked up on your line. Have PMd you some info.

But now I do have to get some rest.

Goodnight.

 

[aktor]

Good stuff.

It's the buffer, which is why it gives you the buffer as it's getting more than it needs. I'm still a little concerned about something I picked up on your line. Have PMd you some info.

But now I do have to get some rest.

Goodnight.

Thanks a lot for the effort - have replied to your PM and copy/pasted what I sent TelkomZA as well.
Goodnight.

 

[balky]

Hulu recently changed things on their end. You should see the weird ports they're routing HD traffic through and how the ads are now served. We're looking into this - it is admittedly erratic, because one sec it uses the known and correct ports and the next it's over SSL on 9518 IIRC and a few others, and continually changes. And because it's SSL you can't just prioritise the protocol. And this makes it complicated when the quality switches from one to the other as theirs does.

So we know the issue there, and it's something that is being interrogated to properly identify and prioritise the traffic as it was before. I have found that forcing HD on the browser has been working. The other issue is that it seems to route differently over different devices. And then it also tries to do pre-buffering over them all too.

So we know the issues there, and it is part of the planned changes on the roadmap for this month as well. It's just not as easy as flicking a switch and making it work.

CW, please keep us informed on the Hulu issue.

 

[Gboss]

I just wanna check if anyone else on 4MB finding that they only getting half their line speed on NNTP.
I checked this morning at 6am and I was jumping between 180-230kB/s.

I'm not too worried about it as I believe the news server has had issues of late, but I just wanna be sure it's not just me.

EDIT: My torrents came down at line speed so I know it's not my line

 

[graytg]

So just an update from my side about my NNTP speed issues... troubleshooted with the support till after 12am to figure out whats causing the slow speeds.. Ran all the reports etc.... But after testing my NNTP with a prepaid ISP acc with another ISP, speeds were perfect (running at full line speed), so definitely not an issue on my side..

Gave feedback to support that it runs perfectly on another ISP account but not the crystal web one... Has been escalated to their engineers to fix... Hope it gets sorted out soon

 

[howardb]

I just wanna check if anyone else on 4MB finding that they only getting half their line speed on NNTP.
I checked this morning at 6am and I was jumping between 180-230kB/s.

I'm not too worried about it as I believe the news server has had issues of late, but I just wanna be sure it's not just me.

EDIT: My torrents came down at line speed so I know it's not my line

Yep, the same my side this morning, could not get more than 80kbps on international NNTP, torrents fine. Also found some 50-60mb PDFs couldn't get more than 20kbps. Will check the logs later when home...

 

[zll]

I don't use NNTP but I had torrents running at a max of 300k on a 10 meg line last night. Will do some more testing before I log an official complaint.

 

[zll]

*Edit. Nvm. Saw the reply a couple of posts down.

Just loaded a home premium account (the same that you are on) on to the test line here on a 1080p video:

How do you bring up those Youtube stats?

 

[slvR]

@zolly

right click on video, "Stats for nerds"

 

[MrR]

*Edit. Nvm. Saw the reply a couple of posts down.
How do you bring up those Youtube stats?

Like so:

Watch this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHdJL4-y918

Right click in the video and select 'stats for nerds' and the info will pop up. That's the same video I loaded up my side. If it's not working properly we can safely say the issue is in all likelihood not on our end.

 

[Adeptus Mechanicus]

Yep, the same my side this morning, could not get more than 80kbps on international NNTP, torrents fine. Also found some 50-60mb PDFs couldn't get more than 20kbps. Will check the logs later when home...

Same issue here with NNTP on my 4mb line (using a paid newserver). I find that post 8am until mid-afternoon my NNTP speeds increase to line speed (which is strange considering these are business hours) and by the time I get home from work I'm seeing around 25% line speed until late in the evening.

I took this up with support last week, ran the "check if my ISP is throttling" links that were suggested along with the mandatory tracert and Speedtest. I was told there is no issue on CW side, but the issue still persists so I'm not sure what the issue is. Tonight I'll test a pre-paid account I have with another ISP and see if speeds improve.

 

[Rohan]

Same issue here with NNTP on my 4mb line (using a paid newserver). I find that post 8am until mid-afternoon my NNTP speeds increase to line speed (which is strange considering these are business hours) and by the time I get home from work I'm seeing around 25% line speed until late in the evening.

I took this up with support last week, ran the "check if my ISP is throttling" links that were suggested along with the mandatory tracert and Speedtest. I was told there is no issue on CW side, but the issue still persists so I'm not sure what the issue is. Tonight I'll test a pre-paid account I have with another ISP and see if speeds improve.

I noticed on that NNTP test that support asks you to run that the ports used in that test are not the regular ports like 119, 443 or 563.

 

[Crystal Web]

We've picked up an issue here. We have a fix for it as well. None of this 6 month waiting nonsense.

Just awaiting a specific ETA from the guys on this one and it will be tested and implemented. Won't be this week as it's quite a task, but will be soon that it goes in. That's the best I can give you at this time. Once I have a clearer picture of the actual ETA I will update you guys.

Right now there are a few minor issues and mostly localised which we need to fix. In other words we are aware of it, know how to fix it, and even have some temp solutions to see you over. They are as follows:

Twitch for some customers: Fix coming in to resolve these issues - happening this month. Until then, pumping the stream into VLC using http://livestreamer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ with HLS and HDS will resolve it for now.
Slower than expected downloads over http(s): fix coming in this month - until then use a download manager to force the required multi-threading and it should be mostly resolved. Also very localised.
Slower than expected NNTP: our nntp server issues were resolved and it's back up and running properly. Other services experiencing slowish speeds - we know the problem and a fix is being introduced in the next two weeks to resolve - also pretty localised and not having any massive impacts but we do acknowledge the problem; know how to fix it; and are working on doing so now as well.

Hey guys - please see this post from yesterday - we've identified the issue and have a fix for it as well. Couple niggles we're sorting out. The migration to our new realms makes this process much easier to identify and fix.