View Full Version : New STM? VM network probs? No DNS resolution? What's going on?!
Surprised that a bigger fuss hasn't been kicked up over this. Over the course of the last week, my net connection has been sketchy to say the least. I would unable to load any pages, or they would take a dial-up-esque time to load. Fair enough, network probs should be sorted in a day or two.
Fat hcance.
The connection has been dropping consistently for the past 8 days. I have noticed I'm not the only one with this problem. These threads describe exactly the same problem which i am suffering:
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33633362-weird-intermitent-connection-problem.html
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33631759-dns-problems-virgin-media.html (BTW i already tried the MTU adjustment, no dice).
What I have noticed is that the problem seem to happen with more frequency while I am d/l'ing torrents. The connection will quietly die while my torrent client is active. Thing is, I'm not even downloading, i just leave it on to upload to others. And My uploaded amount it something like 300kb or so, so it's not like i'm clogging the network or anything. If I close the client and wait two minutes, then it's back again.
BUT it's not just limited to happening while my torrent client is active. I happens during normal webpage browsing too.
Is VM taking steps to "discourage" users from d/l'ing torrents? Or is it simply a network fault? It it affecting mnay users, most of which are not even in my UBR, so it seems to be nationwide problem. What's going on?
moaningmags
27-05-2008, 01:08
Is your torrent upload limited or is it using all of your bandwith leaving nothing for browsing?
It's been rumoured that VM will start throttling specific applications/ports later this year.
Perhaps your area has been selected for testing?
Which area are you in and which UBR are you connecting to?
Which DNS server are you using?
If you download a very well-seeded 'public' torrent (from eg. Pirate Bay), what speeds do you get?
Do you have protocol encryption and DHT turned on in your torrent client?
Robertus
27-05-2008, 12:45
It's been rumoured that VM will start throttling specific applications/ports later this year.
Perhaps your area has been selected for testing?
Which area are you in and which UBR are you connecting to?
Which DNS server are you using?
If you download a very well-seeded 'public' torrent (from eg. Pirate Bay), what speeds do you get?
Do you have protocol encryption and DHT turned on in your torrent client?
Oh no :(
7@m3 G33k
27-05-2008, 15:26
This is *not* an STM issue - it would appear that VM are *allegedly* doing some network upgrade work and that this coincides with a severe degradation/complete failure of their DNS service and other network degradation that may or may not be alleviated by reducing the MTU on one's router.
I e-mailed web support on 29th April about this and they totally failed to reply other than the auto-response "we'll get back to you, usually within three days, you are a valued customer, honest..." - I replied to this last week only to have it bounce-back from VM saying: "your message was not delivered"! At that point I was almost ready to commit the sacrelige of investigating ADSL services in my area so I sent a complaint via the VM website. Surprise surprise a week later I have had no response (not even an auto-reply acknowledgement) from VM.
What do we have to do to get a response from these useless bunch of shysters at VM? :mad:
Edit: I've just read about the E-Contact redundancies in Liverpool so frankly I don't blame these people for not being quite so diligent in there (soon to be terminated) job. I'm going back to checking the ADSL services...VM can kiss my butt! :upyours:
Which area are you in and which UBR are you connecting to?
Which DNS server are you using?
If you download a very well-seeded 'public' torrent (from eg. Pirate Bay), what speeds do you get?
Do you have protocol encryption and DHT turned on in your torrent client?
I'm in NW london, and my UBR is barn7.
DNS servers are 192.168.4.100 and 192.168.8.100
D/L speeds (with good seeds) are 1.1MB per second
Encryption and DHT are being utilized.
This is *not* an STM issue - it would appear that VM are *allegedly* doing some network upgrade work and that this coincides with a severe degradation/complete failure of their DNS service and other network degradation that may or may not be alleviated by reducing the MTU on one's router.
I e-mailed web support on 29th April about this and they totally failed to reply other than the auto-response "we'll get back to you, usually within three days, you are a valued customer, honest..." - I replied to this last week only to have it bounce-back from VM saying: "your message was not delivered"! At that point I was almost ready to commit the sacrelige of investigating ADSL services in my area so I sent a complaint via the VM website. Surprise surprise a week later I have had no response (not even an auto-reply acknowledgement) from VM.
What do we have to do to get a response from these useless bunch of shysters at VM? :mad:
Edit: I've just read about the E-Contact redundancies in Liverpool so frankly I don't blame these people for not being quite so diligent in there (soon to be terminated) job. I'm going back to checking the ADSL services...VM can kiss my butt! :upyours:
Just how long is this sub-standard service going to last?
I don't object to them fixing/improving the network, but not telling your customers and ignoring fault reports and enquires? If there was a decent alternative to VM broadband, I'd gladly take it.
anyone know if these "upgrades" are happening anywhere else?
i'm on the birk4 baguley ubr and been having trouble just surfing websites
i keep getting a few diff error messages :(
Server Error
The following error occurred:
[code=UNRECOGNIZED_REQUEST] The browser is sending an invalid request. Contact your system administrator.
Connection Interrupted
The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.
The network link was interrupted while negotiating a connection. Please try again.
Bad Gateway
The following error occurred:
[code=DNS_HOST_NOT_FOUND] The host name was not found during the DNS lookup. Contact your system administrator if the problem is not found by retrying the URL.
7@m3 G33k
27-05-2008, 23:33
Update: I called 150 earlier this evening to chase this up and pressed the buttons for the option "I want to cancel some or all of my VM services" as there were no other options that fitted.
Having explained the history to the call centre jockey he informed me that someone from the E-Contact team had looked at the problem I had logged and promptly did sweet FA about it! So he credited my account with £30 for poor broadband service and put me through directly to broadband tech support (i.e. for free as I had called 150).
The free tech support was a nice gesture but a bit futile as at the time there seem to be no DNS or other problems but the tech support call centre jockey promised me a call back from a supervisor as he could not see any record of DNS other problems yesterday. We shall see.
Anyway - get calling 150 and insist on a refund for your poor broadband service at the very least. This useless company only seems to value money so maybe this is one way that we can make them understand that it will cost them if they don't provide a decent service to customers.
What client are you using? Theres a few that slow down your net by just being open doing nothing.
I used to experience this before i used uTorrent, currently, my net is only slowed when maxing out my upstream bandwidth, otherwise its cushty, however i usually limit my upstream to 20 while im browsing anyway, or when im not downloading torrents from a private tracker.
Me and Ceegee have been testing the possibility of VM throttling bandwidth as soon as a torrent is being down/uploaded and it might bear weight. The torrent started off at an acceptable 500Kbps, and then after 30-45 mins the speeds dropped considerably to 100Kbps. I also could not access any pages while the speeds were so low.
It's not a problem with my torrent client, I've had speeds of over 1MB per second and my web pages only had the slightest delay in being loaded, whereas recently they won't even load up at all.
As a control, I haven't used Deluge (my torrent client) at all after the test, and my connection SEEMS to be fine. If what I suspect (and I hope I am wrong) is true, the VM are throttling torrent users to the point where even normal web page browsing is impossible. :shocked:
My bittorrent test produced slightly different results:
Using the same publicly-available torrent (late yesterday evening and overnight), uTorrent was downloading at around 30kB/s (240Kb/s) within a couple of minutes and then accelerated so that overall the average download speed was 58KB/s (450Kb/s). Not a wonderful speed but it suggests to me that VM are not throttling bittorrent downloads in my area.
As a control, I haven't used Deluge (my torrent client) at all after the test, and my connection SEEMS to be fine.
Something is affecting your http browsing speeds -- I'd guess that either Delulge is 'hogging' your upload bandwidth or you have a problem with your connection.
Could you detail the connection settings you have in your BT client?
(In particular the 'global maximum upload rate' and the 'maximum number of connections per torrent'.)
On another tack, which operating system are you using?
If it's XP sp2 or Vista, have you patched tcp.sys to increase the number of permitted half-open connections?
If what I suspect (and I hope I am wrong) is true, the VM are throttling torrent users to the point where even normal web page browsing is impossible. :shocked:
I'm fairly sure that's incorrect.
If/when VM throttle bittorrent traffic they'll do it by detecting data using that protocol -- leaving your browser data unrestricted.
Well, believe it or not, it looks like VM were taking steps to minimize torrent usage. I took the very easy step of changing my port number used by deluge, and lo and behold my service is back to normal! I only changed it two hours ago, but my DNS resoultion has been rock solid. I will leave my client on for the night and report if, at any time, I cannot load pages in my browser.
Bear in mind, VM thought they would try and throttle the port is was using for bittorrent before (stupidly I used the default port in azureus which is 65555 or something) and it worked fine for a few months, then I noticed very slow speeds. i changed the port to a random vacant non-essential port, and everything's fine after that. I actually had to change the port again last year as well, due to crap speeds, but it takes less than a minute to do, and is worth it to get the speeds to which you pay for.
I know it seems outlandish that VM would monitor the ports of heavy downloaders, and throttle their bandwidth into the ground so even normal web page usage is impossible, but TBH if VM tried it I wouldn't be surprised. :(
---------- Post added at 19:19 ---------- Previous post was at 19:12 ----------
I'm fairly sure that's incorrect.
If/when VM throttle bittorrent traffic they'll do it by detecting data using that protocol -- leaving your browser data unrestricted.
I get that they might just throttle UDP, but if they blocked TCP as well then I wouldn't be able to use my browser to load web pages - which is exactly what has been happening while my torrent client was active on the old port number.
VM would only throttle while the port was in use so as to avoid appearing to be draconian.
However, this does not account for the times when my DNS wasn't working while deluge wasn't active, nor for the problems of other users. More investigation is required.
Very pleased to hear that you've found a solution.
I get that they might just throttle UDP, but if they blocked TCP as well then I wouldn't be able to use my browser to load web pages - which is exactly what has been happening while my torrent client was active on the old port number.
VM would only throttle while the port was in use so as to avoid appearing to be draconian.
That's certainly not how other UK and US ISPs have throttled bittorrent traffic.
But I'm not surprised by anything VM do these days...
:erm:
Torrent client has been on for 23 hours now, all web pages have loaded within 2-3 seconds. For me at least, it looks like changing the port number used for bit torrent transfer has solved my problem.
Trying to get the latest Dattebayo Bleach release from a torrent with over 20000 seeders yielded speeds of about 80KB/s for me. I eventually got the file from Usenet at full speed.
The port number I was using was 49000, away from the default 6882 that KTorrent uses normally. Which port number have you been using, Ash?
Well, looks like I jumped the gun a bit. Same "page not found" error started happening today. Interestingly, it seems to have started occurring when I opened a port in my software firewall. TBH this should be redundant as only the ports open in your router are visible to the outside world.
Jelly: I used a port randomly chosen from a value of 49152–65535. My d/l speeds (when the damn VM DNS servers decides they want to work) is actually quite good, upwards of 500kBps.
In order to satisfy my suspicion that port numbers have nothing to do with the problem, I'll remove the open bit torrent port, and see if I have any connection problems today. I'll report back tonight.
Just make sure I'm not being subjected to STM, here's my speed test on a 20MB connection:
Thu, 29 May 2008 14:08:04 GMT
Test 1: 1024K took 975 ms = 1050.3 KB/sec, approx 8654 Kbps, 8.45 Mbps
Test 2: 1024K took 845 ms = 1211.8 KB/sec, approx 9985 Kbps, 9.75 Mbps
Test 3: 1024K took 901 ms = 1136.5 KB/sec, approx 9365 Kbps, 9.15 Mbps
Test 4: 2048K took 2984 ms = 686.3 KB/sec, approx 5655 Kbps, 5.52 Mbps
Overall Average Speed = approx 8415 Kbps, 8.22 Mbps
It STM was active then wouldn't my speed be limited to 4MB?
Well, looks like I jumped the gun a bit. Same "page not found" error started happening today. Interestingly, it seems to have started occurring when I opened a port in my software firewall. TBH this should be redundant as only the ports open in your router are visible to the outside world.
I suspect that's simply a co-incidence.
Overall Average Speed = approx 8415 Kbps, 8.22 Mbps
It STM was active then wouldn't my speed be limited to 4MB?
I believe the XL download speed is limited to 5Mb/s while STM'd but you shouldn't be limited now as STM doesn't start until 4pm (unless you are in one of the trial areas) as the newly-released STM thresholds aren't operational yet.
That online speed tester suggests that you may have a problem with your connection (other than possible STM and DNS problems).
Recommend you try a 'real' download test -- instructions and follow-up tips available here (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34561668-post2.html).
I've seen enough threads on here to realize that it's not a localized problem, and that's it is triggered by using torrents. What we need to do now is is for members who are experiencing connection dropouts to start down/uploading torrents to try and prove that VM are purposely or accidentally throttling or blocking DNS resolution to torrent users.
Once a wide spread of members have confirmed the existence of this problem, then VM will have get off their arse and do something about it. Or in a worst-case scenario admit to a new STM which targets torrent users specifically.
Who's with me?
something worth reading A$h X: http://www.formortals.com/Home/tabid/36/EntryID/57/Default.aspx
Cheers dev, definitely give that a read. :)
just downloaded a 800mb torrent at 1.8mb/s with some decent QoS settings on my router while pinging my server and the max ping over the whole torrent was 40ms
Dev mind giving me an example of some QoS settings? I'm running dd-wrt v23 SP2 on a linksys router. Just to prioritize browser traffic over bit torrent traffic.
i'm not sure how you'd do it on dd-wrt but the basics of it are:
set the max upstream amount to a bit lower than your connection limit, eg 700-750kbps for the 20mb (768k upstream). this makes a queue build on the router, without it, it's hard for it to properly prioritise the traffic
i did the similar thing for downstream altho that is less important (if at all).
i'm using tomato firmware on my router so can set the lower priority traffic a low cap for uploading, eg 600-650 so as to give room for other traffic
Before I start implementing QoS lets just look at the facts:
* I've been using torrents on my VM BB for around 1.5-2 years without ANY problems (apart the odd outage)
* Browsing speeds, ping etc have been UNAFFECTED even with torrent's hitting 1.1MB speeds
* These problem have only started happening around 2 weeks ago, right around the time people nation-wide started complaining about time out while browsing. Here a thread describing the EXACT same symptoms as me FFS:
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33633689-torrents-cause-internet-to-stop.html
Now if this doesn't indicate either underhand tactics or ignorance of network problems, then I'm liz hurley.
TBH there must be other people out there who use torrents experiencing the same problem. It's time to speak up and let VM they have to own up about STM and what exactly it entails.
Web browsing is slow when torrenting, but only if my upload exceeds about 15KB/s. Though a month ago I was able to upload at 30KB/s without any negative affects on the browsing, leading me to believe that VM are doing some kind of backstage magic. I'm on 4MB broadband.
^ this surely cant be a coincedience now there obviously fiddling with the internet connection..
Rock solid proof VM are either blocking DNS access to torrent users or a network problem which results in torrent users not being able to load web pages.
As a test, I put in some QoS settings into my router, leaving bit torrent lowest priority and HTTP the highest. This means that any web page traffic is ALWAYS pushed down the cable first, and torrent traffic has to make do with what's left of the bandwidth.
My torrent speeds are the same, and I left my PC on and uploading torrents for 2 hours. Come back, torrent client on, and lo and behold, no pages can be loaded. I stop all my torrents, close the client, and VOILA LIKE MAGIC my web pages all suddenly start loading as per normal.
Now this means one of two things:
1) Something in my torrent client is going wrong. Impossible as the settings are EXACTLY the same as I have had them in the last 2 years, with NO problems.
2) VM is, knowingly or unknowingly, throttling my DNS connection while I'm using torrents. My overall bandwidth is unaffected as my torrent speeds remain the same.*
* If anyone knows how torrents work, then you'll know that you only need DNS for the initial announce, once the connection has been made between peers, the the tracker plays no further part, except to introduce new peers to an existing connection. So my speed would remain the same until all the seeds/leechers left, then my up/down speed would drop to 0kBps
So now the question is when will VM admit they are imposing new limits on torrent users, or admit there is a fault on the network? We are not stupid, we can see exactly what is happening, and will not stand for this kind of blatantly underhand tactic.
Newsgroups and/or tech support, they will be hearing from me very soon. :mad:
Do browsing speeds improve when using OpenDNS?
I have decided to test some of the theories listed in this thread this evening with the following results:
The only time that I am unable to contact the Virgin DNS cluster (routed via 194.168.4.100/194.168.8.100) is when I am close to saturating my upstream bandwidth. When running some tests on this (using my Linux box) I found that I can successfully create an SSH Tunnel over port 53 (DNS) allowing me to connect to the DNS servers successfully, however the connection is slow. I believe this is due to the transmission stream being compressed whilst in an SSH tunnel and thus the packet size being lower.
I have tested this now across both the Virgin DNS cluster and that of OpenDNS and my own DNS servers located in both Germany and America (Atlanta). On all tests the result is identicle. If I make sure that I do not saturate my upstream bandwidth, then everything works perfectly. I cannot see how people can say they have concrete proof of any form of port throttling without doing full and complete tests on standard ports used for DNS/Web/Torrents/MSN etc whilst downloading....
Thanks
Keith
I've thrown VM's DNS in the bin and am trying out openDNS. I'll report back in a few hours, whilst leaving 5 torrents on the go to give my bandwidth a thorough workout. :)
---------- Post added at 21:59 ---------- Previous post was at 21:51 ----------
Kweefy: I've set my global upload to 40kBps. On my 20MB connection I have 720 to 730 kBps upload. I am nowhere NEAR hitting my upload limits.
Just to prove my point, I'll crush my upload limit to 10kBps, stop seeding, and just d/l a big file, that way it's only my downstream bandwidth being sorely tested.
Yes I know there will be data uploaded as well, but only 10kBps worth. Surely you can't call that "close to saturating my upstream bandwidth". Actually, that will be the next test. Let's just see what happens with using openDNS and normal upload behaviour.
Then I'll (further) limit my uploading bandwidth.
PernodMan
02-06-2008, 22:44
You bunch are lucky you can use torrents. I can't even get a response 9 out of 10 times on IE! Called tech support 2 weeks ago to be told it was my 6 year old NTL modem because it wasn't able to get a 10mb connection. Well, to be fair, Google isn't exactly going to use up the full bandwidth of that, but fair play. Was assured that a new modem would be sent via Royal mail with a green and yellow slip left through the door as they were unable to send to office address. I politely advised the gentleman that green and yellow was normally the CityLink courrier and was he sure that it was sent via Royal mail. Was advised that it was definitely royal mail. Got home from work 4 days later to a "While you were out" slip from Lynx courrier. 24 miles from my house, and only open until 6pm - about as much use as an ash tray on a morot bike. So persuaded the boss to give me an hour off to pick it up. Was then registering the MAC address which wasn't working, so was advised to turn everything off and leave it 10 minutes, but they were unable to wait on the line (not that I was expecting them to wait 10 minutes) but that the call was at 20 minutes so he needed to hang up on me! seeeethe!
Finally got the router working after another 20 minutes of some magic button being pressed. My speeds were no better. All I was trying to do was download Windows SP2 for a machine I'm rebuilding, and it kept timing out and losing the connection. Anyways - that was last week, and since then my connection has been 90% failure and 10% working, but slower than dialup. So I called tech again pretty livid at the shockig performance. Prayakah checked my connection and bless her discovered that there was a noise/feedback problem in the area, and an engineer was going to investigate in 3 to 4 days, even though I've had an unstable connection for 2 weeks.
Right now I'm at the end of my rope, and have been doing my online baning and surfing with my 3G connection on my phone which is going to cost me a small fortune.
New VM Technology? Pah - they'd have been better downloading whatever web pages people wanted to get to and sending them out in the post. Sorry - courrier!!
Rant over, hopefully it's fixed soon, cause my mate needs tanned at Mario Kart which allows me a lap before disconnecting.
Jon
^ Not surprised mate, VM customers services are an regular comedy show, I was sent a junk mail from VM stating why I should join them and take their services despite being a customer for over six years. :rolleyes:
Now, the results of yesterday's testing:
First using openDNS instead of VM's own DNS. Worked great for the first 20 mins, then the dreaded "page load error" stared happening with firefox. Could not get web pages to load after the first error. Once my torrent client was closed, service went back to normal after about 30 seconds.
Next, limit my upload speed to 10Kbps or less. Again seemed to work, could up/download torrents and browse simultaneously for 5 minutes, then the connection died. I even lowered the upload speed to 5kBps and still no web pages in firefox. Closed the torrent client and everything is fine.
I had QoS settings for both tests to make sure my bandwidth wasn't being eaten up by greedy torrent clients, made no difference.
So now it's proved beyond all reasonable doubt that VM is killing torrent users' DNS connections or it's accidentally (yeah right) happening without their knowledge. Either way it's unacceptable, I for one am not going to take this deceitful crap any longer. My VM contract is ended and the 30 days notice is being given as I type.
Thanks for **** all VM. :mad:
did you try using the IP address directly? i highly doubt they are doing what you suggest and as i showed it's perfectly possible to be downloading via bittorrent and be browsing fine
*hangs head in shame*
After toying with LOTS of variables (updated router firmware, downgrading firefox 3 to firefox 2, various QoS settings) I have ascertained that it was my torrent client. :erm:
Deluge is good at what it does. Too good in fact. It will readily will swallow whatever bandwidth you have, no matter the reported speed. On my network, I tried grabbing a large 2.4GB torrent via utorrent under windows. Took around 2 and a half hours, okay speeds of around 300-400kBps. No dropped connections, firefox browsing is fine.
On my ubuntu machine, grabbed a big torrent, let deluge do it's thing and the connection went dead in less a minute. As soon as I exit deluge the connection sprang back to life. I tried another torrent client and my connection was fine. As a speed test, I tried the same torrent in both deluge and transmission. Transmission maxed out at 350kBps. Deluge hit 1.1MBps. Like I said, too good at what it does.
So it looks like I have to find another torrent client for Linux. Thing is, I've been using deluge for 6 months with no problem. They (like most Linux apps) tend to update regularly (2 new versions every month) so I reckon deluge broke it's bandwidth grabbing rules somewhere in the last month or two. It's far and away the best non-windows torrent client, so I either hunt down the last non-offensive-to-browsing version, or change to something else. :(
rtorrent or maybe even utorrent && wine
I'm sticking with Deluge; great speeds and if you slow the upload speed it barely affects browsing.
I tried limiting the upload speed to 5kBps, and I still couldn't browse with deluge active.
Utorrent under WINE has crappy speeds (but it's the best client with real windows), but seeing as it's emulated then it's to be expected.
Does rtorrent have a GUI? If so then I'll give it a try.
rTorrent is text-based.
I used KTorrent before moving to Deluge, but the new version (3.xx) doesn't have the same great GUI. You could try it since it has all of Deluge's features and other stuff like peer banning.
Strange.. after not being able to use deluge whilst browsing sites last night, this morning I'm hitting 650kBps and sites are running faster than an ethiopian with a luncheon voucher.
Makes me wonder if the problem really was on my side...
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