T3 timeouts and other fun

[Icantcrabhere]

Hi there,
noticed over the past few weeks that i'm getting random bursts of T3 timeouts,
also yesterday in the morning, I lost a whole upstream channel - rebooting restored this, however it still isn't a good sign.

I've checked both the online fault checker and the phone version:

Yesterday the online fault checker showed no issues in my area. - then I clicked the "test your hub" option.
It showed "intermittent signal in your area" - but today it's back to normal, showing just the standard "We couldn't find an issue, let's try resetting the hub!" style message.
However this is far from the case, clearly.

I'll share my fresh stats from the restart yesterday, these are from after 12PM yesterday afternoon.

I'll have to split the post due to character limits.

Firstly, BQM live graph:(Nothing much to see here, just for future reference)

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/1700d27c199ce3ea214d66ce063ff9f395507b3e

Downstream bonded channels

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

1	539000000	0.5	38	256 qam	17
2	547000000	0.2	38	256 qam	18
3	555000000	0	38	256 qam	19
4	563000000	-0.2	38	256 qam	20
5	571000000	-0.5	38	256 qam	21
6	579000000	-0.4	38	256 qam	22
7	587000000	0	38	256 qam	23
8	595000000	0.5	38	256 qam	24
9	603000000	0.4	38	256 qam	25
10	611000000	0.2	38	256 qam	26
11	619000000	-0.4	38	256 qam	27
12	627000000	-0.5	38	256 qam	28
13	635000000	-0.5	37	256 qam	29
14	643000000	-0.2	38	256 qam	30
15	651000000	0.2	38	256 qam	31
16	659000000	0.5	38	256 qam	32
17	667000000	0.5	38	256 qam	33
18	675000000	0.2	38	256 qam	34
19	683000000	-0.2	38	256 qam	35
20	691000000	-0.2	38	256 qam	36
21	699000000	-0.4	37	256 qam	37
22	707000000	0	37	256 qam	38
23	715000000	-0.4	37	256 qam	39
24	723000000	-0.5	38	256 qam	40

Downstream bonded channels

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

1	Locked	38.6	30	0
2	Locked	38.6	38	0
3	Locked	38.9	44	0
4	Locked	38.9	43	0
5	Locked	38.6	68	0
6	Locked	38.9	47	0
7	Locked	38.6	37	0
8	Locked	38.6	22	0
9	Locked	38.9	18	0
10	Locked	38.6	61	0
11	Locked	38.6	90	0
12	Locked	38.6	125	0
13	Locked	37.6	121	0
14	Locked	38.6	78	0
15	Locked	38.9	58	0
16	Locked	38.6	61	0
17	Locked	38.6	48	0
18	Locked	38.6	78	0
19	Locked	38.6	126	0
20	Locked	38.6	136	0
21	Locked	37.6	110	0
22	Locked	37.6	78	0
23	Locked	37.6	108	0
24	Locked	38.6	124	0

Upstream bonded channels

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

1	49600258	45	5120	64 qam	1
2	36600000	44.3	5120	64 qam	3
3	23600000	43.8	5120	64 qam	5
4	30100258	44	5120	64 qam	4
5	43100000	44.5	5120	64 qam	2

Upstream bonded channels

Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts

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

[Icantcrabhere]

Yeah, it'll be the same as I've had it before.
Intermittent issues > modulation goes down the toilet >  finally gets bad > lose full upstream channels > terrible performance > flagged > fixed after lots of complaining > rinse and repeat.

Living the rodeo life style, eh

[Ilyas_Y]

Thanks for the reply @Icantcrabhere 

Is the hub in modem mode?
Do you have any 3rd party equipment routes / hub / devices attached to the hub?

Do you notice any patterns with the drop outs in the connection?
We are struggling to find any network issues on our side.

Kind regards,
Ilyas.

[Sephiroth]

If you still suffer 16QAM/32QAM upstream modulation, then modem mode is neither here not there.

On the other hand, because the Forum Team are briefed that these modulation levels are normal behaviour, they're probing as to how that impacts your actual broadband experience.

Lets be clear about a couple of things:

1/

If you have reduced upstream modulation all the time, your uploads would be slower and particularly at peak times, there would be demand contention with neighbours suffering the same issue (always worth checking with a neighbour or two).

2/

When the Forum Team look at your circuit, they either looking at a point in time or, if you are lucky, they are monitoring at various points.  When you post your modem stats, you're doing the same thing.  There are no logs in the Hub other than those you and they can see.

3/

Because you lose the upstream entirely, the Forum Team should be concerned with that.  Such events should be recorded in the CMTS logs (I think I'm correct there).  I hope that the FT go one step further and ask Networks to take a look.  The request will need to come from you.

[Icantcrabhere]

HI, Ilyas! - firstly, thank you for your reply!
Yes I'm in Modem mode,
However that really doesn't matter here - nor for the checks you'd be doing in relation to this issue.

The issue is intermittent, hence why you wont be finding it when you look.
As mentioned there's no full "Drop out" - just modulation lowering, and a before: a full channel going away. 

As of now, all stats are looking fairly normal/have done for a few days.

As mentioned by Sephiroth: It might be worth asking Networking to take a look into their CMTS logs, if that's doable.
As i don't believe the forum team can do much with these levels of intermittency.

Also thank you very much @Sephiroth for all your input thus far, truly appreciated!

[Ilyas_Y]

Hey @Icantcrabhere Thanks for the reply. 🧾

We can get this looked in to - however it may be a blip on the network if everything seems to be fine now.
We can get this raised, however it may be hard to find any issues as the logs are intermittent itself and not causing spikes for the networking team to be involved.

With the issues now gone, for now, it does seem to be a network blip.
Do monitor this and keep us posted on how it is and we can go on from there.

Kind regards,
Ilyas.

[unisoft]

---

@Icantcrabhere wrote:

HI, Ilyas! - firstly, thank you for your reply!
Yes I'm in Modem mode,
However that really doesn't matter here - nor for the checks you'd be doing in relation to this issue.

The issue is intermittent, hence why you wont be finding it when you look.
As mentioned there's no full "Drop out" - just modulation lowering, and a before: a full channel going away. 

As of now, all stats are looking fairly normal/have done for a few days.

As mentioned by Sephiroth: It might be worth asking Networking to take a look into their CMTS logs, if that's doable.
As i don't believe the forum team can do much with these levels of intermittency.

Also thank you very much @Sephiroth for all your input thus far, truly appreciated!

---

Sephiroth is right, the networks team can look at CMTS logging to see when connection are dropped and range of stats on connection, uptime etc. Although other QAM levels can still work on the upstream, they are not ideal and effectively reduces bandwidth with more error correction guards. Should be QAM64 if operating normally all the time. One thing I am surprised though is your upstream power levels don't go up during noise events, but perhaps the cabinet is having to scream from its side instead rather than your modem doing it...

[Icantcrabhere]

Hi,thanks for the reply!

After mentioning it was "Normal" for a few days, the modulation did indeed start jumping around again.
Although it's "fine" for this second, we know the joy(Lack of) of noise issues, etc.
I'd love networking to take a proper look into this.

Also thanks for the confirmation @Unisoft! ❤️

[John_GS]

Hi @Icantcrabhere 

Thanks for coming back to the thread. 

We've ran a check here and no issues are showing, all levels in spec etc so we do hope all is resolved.

If still having issues, can you pop the router in router mode for me and let me know? We can then run further checks 🙂

[Icantcrabhere]

Hi there, firstly thanks again for your reply.

I'm currently unable to run without Modem mode due to the way stuff is setup and the connection is in use.

Although the checks you'd perform would not help the current situation,
and the checks you're currently running would NOT always show the issue at hand, due to the intermittent nature of it.
Please at this point, trust me - get networking to check their logs.
It's wasting both our time by not doing so =/
I don't want a repeat of previous issues where I'm running in circles.

I'm not intending to come across as blunt, so please excuse it if that is the case - I however am very against making situations more drawn out than they need to be. - especially given my past with this ISP.

[Sephiroth]

I don't mind coming across as blunt.  Have you noticed - the Forum Team never give a full reason for asking you to go into router mode.  Presumably it's in their script and possibly they don't really know why they're asking..  What else can they check if you are in router mode?  Nothing that is within their domain (beyond their WiFi)  is visible to them and in your case, it's the upstream failures that they need to deal with.

All they have to do is involve the Networks Team (if they're allowed to).  VM is giving you no help at all and just wasting your time.