Virgin Media Community

[Gary144]

Hi, the issue I'm currently having is in relation to my upload speed.

To stream as a broadcaster twitch requires a consistent upload speed otherwise frames of the video feed are dropped.

I have a 21 Mbps upload speed and far exceed the 6,000Kbps (6Mbps) upload speed that twitch requires, however my upload speed is very inconsistent.

Currently and recently I've seen my bitrate to twitch fall to 200Kbps and bounce between 200Kbps and 6,000Kbps causing as many as 35% of the frames sent to twitchs servers to be lost/dropped.

I've streamed on twitch for many years and this loss of upload speed is a recent issue, all of my other hardware is perfectly capable and has been capable of streaming at 6,000Kbps(6Mbps) in the past.But now YouTube and Twitch have this same upload issue

I had a Technician from Virgin Media check my Coax cable on Saturday and he requested another technician to repair a fault in the road outside my house the first technician stated that the "low end frequencies" were practically "non existent" and that it should be sorted after the fault is corrected in the road.

The second technician has now been and the ticket raised for the road fault is ended but the problem is still there.

I then called tech support who said they'd monitor my connection and email me their findings.

Any help with my situation would be appreciated, I feel like I don't have a question to ask other than can anyone help me find a solution to this problem?

Some additional info would be that my Hub shows a constant orange light and there are no other blinking or flashing lights, as I mentioned the first technician disconnected my coax cable from the hub and tested it without looking at the hub , so could this issue purely be that the hub is in need of replacement? I've attached a photo of the hub

The PC I'm streaming from is on wired ethernet and is more than capable of streaming at 6,000kbps and has done in the past (Ryze 5 5600x and RTX 3070) so it's not an issue with the encoding bitrate, Twitch Inspector states that it's the network connection and not the encoding as well to rule out encoding as a factor.

Again thanks to anyone who reads this and suggests a solution, I'm going to call again tomorrow and suggest a replacement router and see how that goes.

[Client62]

Best to have some hard figures to aid the analysis of speed loss.

If your Hub(3/4/5) is in Router mode you can test the service speed to/from the Hub and then to/from your computer via :

https://www.samknows.com/realspeed/

This will confirm if the speed at the Hub matches your subscription rate - once the test begins click on Run full test

If your in Modem mode do take 15 mins to use Router mode and rule the Hub in / out as an issue.

[Gary144]

https://i.imgur.com/FPCs8VY.jpg

Above is a link to my results.
their doesn't seem to be any issue showing using that testing service.



Here are some graphs from Twitch Inspector, Twitch Inspector is an analytics tool which shows the upload rate to Twitch.tv and highlights errors in red.

the Y axis of the graph is the connection speed in Kbps ie. 5,000 Kbps is 5Mbps
As you can see, there are dips below 1,000Kbps (1Mbps) upload, essentially my Virgin Media connection cannot consistently upload at 6Mbps to any of the multiple twitch servers in London, I even tried Germany and France but I had the same issues.

The third graph in this gallery I have highlighted a dip where it dropped to 2,919Kbps (2.9Mbps), the effect of these dips is unsent frames from my computer to Twitch, causing 25% of the frames across the 26 minute test period to be entirely lost.

I have the same issue with youtube however there isn't an analytics tool to show this same Data

https://imgur.com/a/edGSUsG

[Client62]

We have just seen the Hub and computer do have good bandwidth to the internet in Router mode.

Do you normally operate in the Hub in Modem mode with a 3rd party router attached ?

[Gary144]

The router is normally in router mode as it is set right now. I haven't touched anything in the settings.

All of my devices are plugged directly into the hub.

[legacy1]

Testing here with OBS Studio at 6000kbps is fine see if its any better in modem mode.

Could be that the route you go to Twitch is under heavy load or a bad connect along the way for you.

[Gary144]

If I set it to modem mode can I connect to the hub 3.0 using an ethernet cable as normal? I do not own another router.

I will try changing my hub to modem mode and connecting later today.

If this solves the issue with my upload to twitch being slow , would this mean I require a new hub that can run in router mode?Or a third party router at some point?

I'm assuming that in modem mode the hub 3.0 can only run a single device and won't have WiFi because the hub won't be functioning as a router while in modem mode?

[legacy1]

Yes modem mode will work without a router to a wired PC and you can only use modem mode for a single source MAC.

[Andrew-G]

Have you set up a BQM to check for latency and packet loss problems?  Whilst your problem is evident as speed, that may be due to time outs on data packets or timeouts on DOCSIS connectivity.  Post a link to live, shared chart and we can comment.

At this stage I'd say not to spend money on a new router or mesh setup, as I don't believe that it will resolve the problem you are experiencing.  I suspect that the network fault hasn't in fact been fixed, or that it was fixed  but overlaid a problem unique to your line which was incorrectly assumed to be the area fault.  Whilst VM hubs are pound shop devices, there's many people happily twitching away using a VM hub without problems.  The circumstances for buying your own router or mesh are (1) where the hub's wifi is inadequate, (2) where you're running a lot of connected devices, (3) where there's a specific compatibility issue, such as devices that don't like VM hubs (eg some Sonos systems) or where the devices would be OK but don't work well with VM's "intelligent wifi", as is often the case with smart home gadgetry.  I should point out that I chose to use my own mesh wifi system and hub in modem mode when I was a VM customer, so I approve of the idea, I'm just unconvinced that it will resolve the problem you have. 

As for "monitoring your line and sending you an email", believe it when you see it.  Sounds like another offshore promise, made to get you off the line and chalk the call as resolved.

[Gary144]

"I don't believe that it will resolve the problem you are experiencing. I suspect that the network fault hasn't in fact been fixed, or that it was fixed but overlaid a problem unique to your line which was incorrectly assumed to be the area fault."
I've been suspecting this and the way to resolve that would be for them to send out another technician to check the Coax cable again, but I'm still not happy with the lack of attention they paid to the hub itself, it's showing a solid orange light with nothing else, something that's not in any documentation other than 2 forum posts.
I'll possibly try the BQM later today, for some reason, without changing anything at all today my twitch connection has ran at a solid 6,000Kbs.

https://imgur.com/a/4dqk4Bs
Example of a good and bad stream via Twitch Inspector.
I'll definitely keep note of the BQM and the other users idea of trying Modem Mode - but all of this testing takes time as the issue's sometimes only show up around the 1 hour mark of each test (then are continuous every 2-6 minutes)

Thanks again for your reply