Forum Discussion

MaffewE's avatar
MaffewE
Dialled in
7 days ago

Packet loss spikes every 70-75 mins since March 3rd

From around 7pm on the evening of Monday 3rd March, regular small 'red spikes' of packet loss began appearing on the Broadband Quality Monitor graph associated with broadband for our home. These have continued for the past week, and are still occuring.

Graph for 3rd March:

Graph for 4th March:

The distance between each spike is quite consistent, at around 70-75 minutes. We've tried restarting our Hub 3.0 twice over this weekend, and each time it hasn't made any difference. It also doesn't seem to have impacted the timing of the spikes, as is shown when looking at the graph for today so far:

If the 100% red block from when the Hub was off was not there, then it looks like the timing of the spikes still matches the same 70-75 minute interval.

Nothing has changed relating to our setup or connection recently, or indeed in the past few months - no change of plan (still 250mb), no new devices added to the network, no new appliances that could be causing interference, and movement of the Hub or any computers. The problem seems to have come from nowhere. Have also checked the cables etc. are in correctly and tight, as per the troubleshooting advice provided by the My Virgin Media app.

Checking various testing websites for packet loss, the packet loss potentially appears to be affecting upload rather than download - packetlosstest.com has shown upload packet loss of 0.5 to 5%, with download packet loss almost always 0%.

When checking service status a few days ago, we were notified that there was a potential issue in our area that could be causing intermittent issues for broadband, TV and phone (F011730399). However, while we were notified that this was resolved at around 1:30pm on Saturday, the issue with our connection seems to be unaffected.

Why has this problem suddenly appeared with our connection, and how can we get it resolved?

    • MaffewE's avatar
      MaffewE
      Dialled in
      7 days ago

      I had seen mention of this relating to users on 1Gig, but didn't think they were doing it for users still on lower ones like myself? (250)

      • legacy1's avatar
        legacy1
        Alessandro Volta
        7 days ago

        VM are just greedy for Statistics to show they are the best.

        You could do a over night test with hub in modem mode to a PC and new BQM to see if you still get the drops

  • MaffewE's avatar
    MaffewE
    Dialled in
    7 days ago

    Router stats (though as I restarted the router earlier today, they're quite empty):

    Downstream bonded channels
    Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID

    1 338750000 7.6 40 256 qam 26
    2 138750000 8.3 40 256 qam 1
    3 146750000 8.5 40 256 qam 2
    4 154750000 8.5 40 256 qam 3
    5 162750000 8.5 40 256 qam 4
    6 170750000 8.5 40 256 qam 5
    7 178750000 8.5 40 256 qam 6
    8 186750000 8.5 40 256 qam 7
    9 194750000 8.5 40 256 qam 8
    10 202750000 8.3 40 256 qam 9
    11 210750000 8 40 256 qam 10
    12 218750000 8 40 256 qam 11
    13 226750000 8 40 256 qam 12
    14 234750000 7.8 40 256 qam 13
    15 306750000 7.9 40 256 qam 22
    16 314750000 7.8 40 256 qam 23
    17 322750000 7.5 40 256 qam 24
    18 330750000 7.6 40 256 qam 25
    19 346750000 7.5 40 256 qam 27
    20 354750000 7.5 40 256 qam 28
    21 362750000 7.5 43 256 qam 29
    22 370750000 7.4 40 256 qam 30
    23 378750000 7 40 256 qam 31
    24 386750000 7 40 256 qam 32

    Downstream bonded channels
    Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors

    1 Locked 40.9 15 0
    2 Locked 40.9 9 18
    3 Locked 40.9 14 0
    4 Locked 40.9 28 0
    5 Locked 40.9 24 0
    6 Locked 40.9 22 0
    7 Locked 40.9 20 0
    8 Locked 40.9 23 0
    9 Locked 40.9 20 0
    10 Locked 40.9 22 0
    11 Locked 40.9 7 0
    12 Locked 40.9 10 0
    13 Locked 40.3 8 0
    14 Locked 40.3 10 0
    15 Locked 40.9 12 0
    16 Locked 40.9 27 0
    17 Locked 40.9 10 0
    18 Locked 40.9 11 0
    19 Locked 40.3 12 0
    20 Locked 40.3 5 0
    21 Locked 43.3 8 0
    22 Locked 40.9 6 0
    23 Locked 40.9 12 0
    24 Locked 40.9 7 0

    Upstream bonded channels;
    Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID

    1 30099966 42.8 5120 64 qam 4
    2 23600000 42.3 5120 64 qam 5
    3 36600024 42.8 5120 64 qam 3
    4 43100021 42.8 5120 64 qam 2
    5 49600061 44.3 5120 64 qam 1

    Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts

    1 ATDMA 0 0 0 0
    2 ATDMA 0 0 1 0
    3 ATDMA 0 0 0 0
    4 ATDMA 0 0 0 0
    5 ATDMA 0 0 0 0

  • MaffewE's avatar
    MaffewE
    Dialled in
    6 days ago

    Following on from the issue that showed on service status towards the end of last week (F011730399), but was marked as 'resolved' on Saturday without any change to the issue we've personally been experiencing, there's another pretty much identical issue showing on the tracker as of today:

    F011733959 - 'You might find that your Virgin Fibre, Voice and Virgin TV services are intermittent, with the picture freezing or disappearing now and then. We are sorry and our engineers are working hard to resolve this for you'

    Supposed to be resolved by 6pm today... guess we'll see if it ends up actually being connected, or is just another problem...

    • Steven_L's avatar
      Steven_L
      Forum Team
      3 days ago

      Hello MaffewE,

      Welcome back to the Community and thanks for taking the time to post. I’m sorry to hear of the issues that you’re having with your connection since the 3rd of March. 

      Having looked into your account, we can see that there is an SNR issue in your area, this is an issue within the network in your area and is to do with the signal to noise ratio in the connection. If the noise is too high this can cause interference and affect the strength and stability of your connection, I can assure you that the team are working on resolving this as soon as possibly but it can take more time to resolve these issues than other faults. The team would need to identify the location of the interference this could be at the distribution, street cabinet or even a customer in your area not using correct or approved cabling, this is the reason why SNR issues can take longer than other faults to resolve. We may also need third party assistance in the form of construction or partner assistance and working alongside their availability. When it comes to area issues they are not simple to fix and can be complex and unpredictable, as much as we try to ensure down time is kept to a minimum, like all other providers we cannot promise a 100% fault free service. Please do keep us updated here and we can look into any faults further if you'd like.

      Kind Regards,

      Steven_L