Twitch problems. Any advice appreciated.

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image132

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So about a month ago I started having some pretty serious issues with twitch. I have a 20mb line and it used to work flawlessly on source while using about 1600 kB/s. This month though things changed and I'm struggling to even do low/medium.

When I first load the page everything goes well, page loads and uses about 1400+ kB/s. Then it halves (700 kB/s) then it drops slowly in about 100 kB/s increments to 300 where it stays. Of course that's no where near what is needed for source and so it buffers. After leaving it going at 300 for long enough the video simply ceases to work at all. It just pauses while chat keeps going.

Now before everyone blames ISP's (sigh I know most of the time it's them) my Web Africa account has been solid up till then and everything else works 100% still. Youtube, Netflix, Speedtest everything. I have a spare Telkom account which I tried and does the same thing as well as my free Afrihost account. So it seems unlikely an ISP issue. Telkom manage my line and I'd really really love to NOT phone them. Last time I did that a piece of me died inside. Besides I'm not even sure they know what twitch is.

Things I've tried so far:

- Router Reboot
- Different PC
- Different ISP
- Different web browser
- VPN

All with no luck.

Anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

EDIT:

Vg1rwPB.jpg

Here's a usage graph of me watching twitch. Each of the dips is a buffer, the huge spike is me opening this page and the end is the stream stopping working.
 
I have the same problem, i could watch on source with no problem whatsoever and recently i cant even watch on high without constant buffering.
image132 said:
So about a month ago I started having some pretty serious issues with twitch. I have a 20mb line and it used to work flawlessly on source while using about 1600 kB/s. This month though things changed and I'm struggling to even do low/medium.

When I first load the page everything goes well, page loads and uses about 1400+ kB/s. Then it halves (700 kB/s) then it drops slowly in about 100 kB/s increments to 300 where it stays. Of course that's no where near what is needed for source and so it buffers. After leaving it going at 300 for long enough the video simply ceases to work at all. It just pauses while chat keeps going.

Now before everyone blames ISP's (sigh I know most of the time it's them) my Web Africa account has been solid up till then and everything else works 100% still. Youtube, Netflix, Speedtest everything. I have a spare Telkom account which I tried and does the same thing as well as my free Afrihost account. So it seems unlikely an ISP issue. Telkom manage my line and I'd really really love to NOT phone them. Last time I did that a piece of me died inside. Besides I'm not even sure they know what twitch is.

Things I've tried so far:

- Router Reboot
- Different PC
- Different ISP
- Different web browser
- VPN

All with no luck.

Anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

EDIT:

View attachment 347039

Here's a usage graph of me watching twitch. Each of the dips is a buffer, the huge spike is me opening this page and the end is the stream stopping working.
Click to expand...
 
Twitch has a notoriously bad player, people in other countries with much faster internet also complain. I don't know if they still work this way but:

The way twitch works is when you load the page it connect you to a random twitch server so you can connect to the stream. This means you could be connected to their Chinese servers or Australian server yet trying to watch a streamer from america. This will cause buffering and even worse buffering on a mobile device. The best solution is to refresh the page and hope you get put on a better server
Click to expand...

This is the reason Livestreamer was created.

Tardsplaya also works really well, don't be fooled by the name or how the site looks, I just tested it to make sure it still works, watched a couple of minutes at source quality no problem.
 
Last edited:
Soul Assassin said:
Twitch has a notoriously bad player, people in other countries with much faster internet also complain. I don't know if they still work this way but:



This is the reason Livestreamer was created.

Tardsplaya also works really well, don't be fooled by the name or how the site looks, I just tested it to make sure it still works, watched a couple of minutes at source quality no problem.
Click to expand...

I hear you. Initially when I was with Afrihost I used to have to use tardsplaya back in the day but since moving to web africa it's been flawless for a year and bit. To the point where I deleted the app. It just strikes me as weird that it used to work flawlessly now all of a sudden it's just eating glue.

Thanks for reminding me about tardsplaya. I'll give it a shot now again.
 
image132 said:
I hear you. Initially when I was with Afrihost I used to have to use tardsplaya back in the day but since moving to web africa it's been flawless for a year and bit. To the point where I deleted the app. It just strikes me as weird that it used to work flawlessly now all of a sudden it's just eating glue.

Thanks for reminding me about tardsplaya. I'll give it a shot now again.
Click to expand...

Do let us know if it works.
 
I watch a lot of Twitch as well, at all times of the day.

And exactly like you this started happening to me about two weeks ago.
I currently have the guys at CrystalWeb finding out what’s going on as its not an ISP thing.

I basically gathered all data I could for them and threw it at them.

For very important streams I just use livestreamer and chat on the side, ends up having about a 20 to 25 second delay versus the 13 second delay when watching in a browser.

If they manage to figure it out, I’ll let you know.
 
Phinix said:
I watch a lot of Twitch as well, at all times of the day.

And exactly like you this started happening to me about two weeks ago.
I currently have the guys at CrystalWeb finding out what’s going on as its not an ISP thing.

I basically gathered all data I could for them and threw it at them.

For very important streams I just use livestreamer and chat on the side, ends up having about a 20 to 25 second delay versus the 13 second delay when watching in a browser.

If they manage to figure it out, I’ll let you know.
Click to expand...

Thanks man. Yeah from what I tried its not ISP/shaping/throttling/whatever related. Honestly that's the most annoying part. If it was just ISP shaping I'd just use another account or wait a while but at least I'd know it would eventually get sorted. This, I just feel like I'm in limbo.

As for tardsplaya it's a hell of a lot better. It does still buffer but it's a heck ton less. I'll give livestreamer a shot a bit later too.
 
I used Tardsplaya a lot today to watch the CSGO World Championship and it didn't buffer for me once.

Twitch through Chrome would top out at about 400KB/s and be very inconsistent with constant drops in speed causing buffering and Tardsplaya would top out around 1.6MB/s and never drop below 400KB/s.

I couldn't care less about the chat so this really works great for me.
 
MikeKee said:
what CS:GO World Championship?
Click to expand...

Katowice 2016.

Intel Extreme Masters Counter-Strike: Global Offensive World Championship proceedings begin. Twelve top CS:GO teams will meet in Katowice, Poland and fight for an incredible US$250,000 prize pool as well as the all-important Intel Extreme Masters World Championship title - but only one will prevail. Find out what’s what, who’s who and get ready for one of the biggest CS:GO events of the year.
Click to expand...
 
I watched a Quakelive tournament on my phone on Sunday and had no issues, was a seven hour broadcast.
 
I use Livestreamer when my Twitch is acting up. I used to use Tardsplaya but it started giving me grief. I find Livestreamer works better
 
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