Hi,
I currently experience an issue with crashing/disconnects from a varied range of tasks whilst using multiple devices. Desktop, mobile and laptop. I am the only user in the household who routinely plays video-games, and my parents don't soak up much bandwidth.
Crash type 1:
Video/internet/VoIP. Typically, during this type of crash, I am not playing any video-games or anything majorly demanding, possibly even a VoIP Discord call alongside a 720p YouTube video or stream. My friends on the receiving end of the VoIP communication will not be able to hear me when I crash, but I am able to hear them the entire time. After around 15-35s (this is the typical amount of time for me to crash/disconnect), all of my VoIP data is cached and played in a fast 0.1s clip (really fast talking).
Crash type 2:
Video-games. Some games that I play do not have this issue at all, no latency, no packet loss, no connection related issues at all; League of Legends. Whereas, other games like Rainbow6 Siege, I will randomly stop hearing any VoIP communication in-game, I can still hear over Discord VoIP at this point, and I can still interact with the game before losing connection to their servers effectively crashing from the match. Once again, around 15-35s for reconnecting.
Crash type 3:
Remote Desktop/Home working. As the pandemic has hit quite hard, it has required home working. I will be using the Remote Desktop Session hoisted on a VPN to the network, where I will suddenly just drop connection for the aforementioned amount of time. This typically results in a complete inability to see the SSID broadcasting (for my Laptop only), but on my Desktop, mobile phone and other users' devices the SSID displays correctly.
There are many tools I have tried to use to understand what is happening in the background process of all of this.
For example, Wireshark and Glasswire, which have provided trivial and limited information from what I have had professional IT engineers interpret. On Glasswire, when I disconnect, all my inbound and outbound network traffic will effectively drop to zero. Immediately after the time span of 15-35s (sometimes less, sometimes longer) but typically never longer than a few minutes. When I reconnect or appear to stop having my issue (where my VoIP outbound is able to be heard by end users), all of the data that dipped when I crashed looks as if it was cached and suddenly floods outbound and inbound traffic causing it to spike.
With Wireshark, I connected to a video-game, and recorded a packet session where it showed signs of what (I perceive) to be similar to how SYN Flood works based on research.
Now, you may be questioning how I am connecting? Firstly, I have tried Wi-Fi over USB adapter, TP-Link Power line adapters, and a CAT6 Ethernet connection to my Desktop, where all issues are persistent regardless of the connection type. My Laptop, which has been tested in multiple parts of the house (Crash type 3), typically connects via Wi-Fi (NIC). Based on research, I saw that there may be problems related to this with the Hub 3.0, where other users were having similar issues, but nothing as short, inconsistent or hard to troubleshoot as what I was experiencing. So I decided to get an external Router, and place the Hub 3.0 into Modem mode, such that I could use it to just forward traffic, however, the exact same issue reoccurs.
I have replaced components, wires, and tried multiple attempts in resolving this issue, there are no patterns in behaviour for when it is about to happen, its onset is very sudden and no warning will occur. I cannot get the problem to consistently happen, for example, it may happen once every hour for a day, then five times an hour the next day. Often, it will crash at least four or five times within six hours.
So, aside from different NIC, Router, Ethernet cables, and ruling out environmental due to using CAT6 cables (tested with other machines to ensure functionality). I am absolutely out of ideas.
If you have any queries, suggestions or otherwise, please let me know. And if you have read thus far, I sincerely appreciate your time.
Kind regards,
Adam.
