Forum Discussion

11aidandawes's avatar
11aidandawes
Tuning in
2 years ago

Internet keeps cutting out on wired ethernet connection.

On Monday 1st April, the internet was down for everyone in my postcode, it came back on 2nd April at around noon but since then my internet has been randomly cutting out on my PC every few minutes which is connected directly to the Hub4 router via ethernet cable. The task bar in the bottom right does not say I have lost connection to the internet or anything but games and apps such as Discord fully freeze up/cut out so I am definitely getting 100% packet loss or fully losing connection.

I've attached two clips showing my issue below, please see the links below, if you aren't familiar with this game it may be a little hard to follow but you can see me lose connection, the characters either freeze or continue to walk in one direction before teleporting to where they're supposed to be. (You can see a red square with a warning symbol in it on the left in the first clip at around 0:04 seconds as well as a lightning bolt symbol which I know means bad/lost connection to the server and at 0:05 there is an icon on the left with 3 orange rectangles that signify packet loss. Same for the second clip.

This happens literally every few minutes:

https://streamable.com/syphlo

https://streamable.com/sjnst7

I've shared my experience both in this forum and on the Virgin Media subreddit over the past couple of weeks but haven't been able to fix the issue I am facing. I will provide my Broadband Quality Monitor below but I don't think the issues are represented on there somehow. 

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/0c17ac529c00d48229d05cbf74cafcee343cba78

I have factory reset my router multiple times since the problems started occuring and even bought a brand new ethernet cable yesterday and even with both of these things taken into account I'm getting the same issues still. I'm thinking about purchasing a brand new coaxial cable too just to be fully sure it's not any of my own equipment.

I had ZERO issues prior to the maintenance in my area on April 1st and there isn't any more maintenance scheduled for my area so I'm not sure what's happening. One thing that may be of note or just some strange coincidence is that about a week after the issues started, there was an electric power outage in my area and once the electricity came back on for everyone my internet was actually perfectly fine for about a day before returning to my previous problems.

It's been 18 days now and I'm still having issues, any advice of any sort would be very much appreciated and I'd be more than happy to give any further info that is required.

Thank you very much everyone.





12 Replies

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta

    That's an unusual BQM. The latency is pretty good with few significant delays BUT with a constant low level of lost packets. 

    These could be the cause of your gaming problems. 

    It would be useful to see your upstream and downstream and router logs. 

    • 11aidandawes's avatar
      11aidandawes
      Tuning in

      Hi there,

      Thank you very much for the help, please see below upstream, downstream and router logs.
      (may have to send across multiple replies) 

       

      3.0 Downstream channels

      Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID

      253310000000.90000238.605377QAM25625
      11390000004.19999738.605377QAM2561
      21470000003.79999938.605377QAM2562
      31550000003.79999938.605377QAM2563
      41630000003.29999938.605377QAM2564
      51710000003.00000038.605377QAM2565
      61790000002.79999938.983261QAM2566
      71870000002.90000238.983261QAM2567
      81950000002.70000138.983261QAM2568
      92030000002.59999838.605377QAM2569
      102110000002.59999838.605377QAM25610
      112190000002.79999938.983261QAM25611
      122270000002.79999938.983261QAM25612
      132350000002.79999938.983261QAM25613
      142430000002.59999838.605377QAM25614
      152510000002.59999838.605377QAM25615
      162590000002.79999938.605377QAM25616
      172670000002.79999938.983261QAM25617
      182750000002.59999838.983261QAM25618
      192830000002.20000138.983261QAM25619
      202910000002.09999838.983261QAM25620
      212990000002.00000038.983261QAM25621
      223070000001.79999938.605377QAM25622
      233150000001.40000238.605377QAM25623
      243230000001.09999838.983261QAM25624
      263390000000.90000238.983261QAM25626
      273470000000.90000238.605377QAM25627
      283550000000.59999838.983261QAM25628
      293630000001.00000038.983261QAM25629
      303710000001.09999838.983261QAM25630
      313790000001.20000138.605377QAM25631
      323870000001.20000138.983261QAM25632



      3.0 Downstream channels

      Channel Lock Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors

      25Locked38.60537700
      1Locked38.60537700
      2Locked38.60537700
      3Locked38.60537700
      4Locked38.60537700
      5Locked38.60537700
      6Locked38.98326100
      7Locked38.98326100
      8Locked38.98326100
      9Locked38.60537700
      10Locked38.60537700
      11Locked38.98326100
      12Locked38.98326100
      13Locked38.98326100
      14Locked38.60537700
      15Locked38.60537700
      16Locked38.60537700
      17Locked38.98326100
      18Locked38.98326100
      19Locked38.98326100
      20Locked38.98326100
      21Locked38.98326100
      22Locked38.60537700
      23Locked38.60537700
      24Locked38.98326100
      26Locked38.98326100
      27Locked38.60537700
      28Locked38.98326100
      29Locked38.98326100
      30Locked38.98326100
      31Locked38.60537700
      32Locked38.98326100



      3.1 Downstream channels

      Channel Channel Width (MHz) FFT Type Number of Active Subcarriers Modulation (Active Profile) First Active Subcarrier (Hz)
      159964K1840QAM4096759


      3.1 Downstream channels

      Channel ID Lock Status RxMER Data (dB) PLC Power (dBmV) Correcteds (Active Profile) Uncorrectables (Active Profile)
      159Locked39-4.5537990165208
      • 11aidandawes's avatar
        11aidandawes
        Tuning in

        3.0 Upstream channels

        Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID

        14960000045.0205995120 KSym/sec64QAM1
        22360000043.5205995120 KSym/sec64QAM5
        33010000043.5205995120 KSym/sec64QAM4
        43660000044.0205995120 KSym/sec64QAM3
        54310000044.5205995120 KSym/sec64QAM2



        3.0 Upstream channels

        Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts

        1US_TYPE_ATDMA0000
        2US_TYPE_ATDMA0000
        3US_TYPE_ATDMA0000
        4US_TYPE_ATDMA0000
        5US_TYPE_ATDMA0000



        3.1 Upstream channels

        Channel Channel Width (MHz) Power (dBmV) FFT Type Modulation
        610.047.52KQAM128


        3.1 Upstream channels

        Channel Channel Type Number of Active Subcarriers First Active Subcarrier (Hz) T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts
        6OFDMA20053.900
  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta

    It looks like your Hub had a factory reset on Thursday. The stats are all normal except for the 3.1 Upstream channel. That might explain the constant lost packets.  I think you are going to need a technician visit, and probably a new Hub. 

     

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta

    Correction to my last. Having checked again I don't think that upstream reading is causing your problem. But your live BQM is still having regular packet loss, which should not happen.

    You really need a technician visit to sort this out. Perhaps a VM person can pick this up and help. 

  • Sephiroth's avatar
    Sephiroth
    Alessandro Volta

    The BQM tells me that your locality is busy on the Internet when the upstream latency (blue) is densest.  That said, we’ve seen much worse.  But Jpeg1 has spotted the consistent low level packet loss across the 24 hours which is not significantly denser during the busy hours.  This suggests noise and its is usually the upstream frequencies that are more prone to noise.  

    The Forum Team need to arrange a tech visit and need to take the BQM into account.  It would help to post ta new BQM to show that this lost packets happen all the time.

    If the problem was in the downstream, it would show as Post-TS errors.

    • 11aidandawes's avatar
      11aidandawes
      Tuning in

      Hi Sephiroth,

      Please see below my BQM for today:https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/81d2668b837c5d1c25f275155ddea6b6467cf14f-20-04-2024

      I'm talking in private messages with a VM person as we speak to arrange a technician visit however they've told me that if they find the issue is my equipment and not theirs they're going to charge me £25?? So for that reason I want to make sure I've done everything I can to try to fix this myself before concluded that it's a fix Virgin Media need to do. Any advice?

      I also asked to switch my Hub4 for a Hub5 but they told me there would be another extra charge for this, despite me being told that there are faults with the Hub4 by multiple people online so it seems a bit unfair for them to charge me for me having issues with their service. It's just a bit of a nightmare really.

      Any advice on stuff I can try before a technician visit? Thank you very much for the help btw.

  • Sephiroth's avatar
    Sephiroth
    Alessandro Volta

    The BQM still shows the small but persistent packet loss.  I assume that you are in router mode so that there is no third party equipment involved; right?

    One thing you could do, and it would be valuable, is to see what's happening with a neighbour.  The techs won't find anything wrong with your circuit unless they put a noise meter on - but it helps to have a neighbour's BQM so that they can get the matter referred to Network Team.

    • 11aidandawes's avatar
      11aidandawes
      Tuning in

      Hi again,
      I'm using it in router mode yeah, there's no third party equipment involved. I've got brand new ethernet cables and a brand new coaxial cable on top of factory resetting the router and I'm still having the same issues. I just hope that if I tell the VM Support member I'm talking to that it's likely something to do with noise they will tell the technician to put a noise meter on it because when the technician visits I won't be home, only my mother will and she doesn't know anything about this kind of thing so she won't be able to tell them what the issues are. 

      • jpeg1's avatar
        jpeg1
        Alessandro Volta

        Leave your mother with a print of the BQM and a brief note to show the technician. Some of them do understand BQMs. 

  • I had the same with my hub 5. Putting it into modem only mode cured it for me.