UDP issues on SuperHub3 - collective thread

[dinth]

Hi. I decided to open a collective thread for UDP issues on SuperHub3, as it seems that many users are pestered by them, the impact is high and Virgin Media is not aware or fails to acknowledge the issue so far (they've been trying to fix my issues for a past year and nobody ever suggested that this has anything to do with UDP packets, until i found whats exactly the issue on my own).

This is the main thread for those issues was this one: https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Speed/My-350Mb-connection-is-throttled-to-10Mb/td-p/3953746/pag... but it was originally created over a year ago and has a slightly misleading title. 

What we know so far:

1. The issue only occurs on SuperHub3 (and reportedly on SuperHub4) modem. SuperHub2 users are not affected. 

2. The issue occurs if an app/service is using an UDP connection to the internet. Examples of such apps: BBC Iplayer app, most online games, Microsoft Teams, Skype, third party VoIP apps, all kinds of VPN apps, torrent download apps. 

3. All UDP connections are performing very badly on Superhub3 modem, but also whenever there's a significant UDP traffic passing through the modem, other, non-UDP internet connections are slowed down to crawling speeds.

4. Depending on an user, the reported slowdowns are to between 10Mbps and 2kbps (!) speed measured through Speedtest. At the same time ping times go up all the way to 2000+ ms and huge packet losses (sometimes over 40%) occur. In other words, even web browsing is not possible if there's a significant UDP traffic going on through modem. 

5. VM street level fixes do not fix the problem - i had a whole uplink cable between CATV manhole and Virgin Media cabinet replaced by VM and it has not fixed the issue.

6. Replacing a modem does not fix the problem either - replacement SuperHub3 modems also have same issue.

7. Here's how the issue looks like on ThinkBroadband/Speedtest with just 1Mbps of UDP traffic flowing through the modem:

It's really sad, that Virgin Media fails to acknowledge this problem, as hundreds, if not thousands of people may be severly affected by it. The advice VM is giving out to the users is unhelpful and sometimes harmful (I've been told i need to chase the walls in the newly refurbrished house to replace my VM cable and desperate to fix the problem I have done that). Just look how many threads are being open on this forum describing similar issues with apps using UDP connections. 

[SolidCactus]

Sorry to revive this thread but I have been suffering with this issue for about 4-6 months and I have no idea what to do!

So far I have tried the following with the Virgin support team:

• 20+ support calls
• 2 SuperHub 3s
• 1 SuperHub 4
• 1 Engineering visit
• 4-5 calls to retentions team

I have 2 SuperHub 2ACs but the Virgin Support say they are unable to activate these devices.

One agent offered to ship me a SuperHub 2 (which I was elated with) but it ended up just being another SuperHub 3 😀

I’m desperately trying to get this resolved as my daily Teams calls are failing constantly and I’m unable to work effectively.

Any idea as to what I can do?

[Rod-IT]

I've managed to stop mine having issues, I'm not entirely sure what ultimately fixed it, but these are the steps I took, they may help someone having the same issues, I was also sent a SH4 which may or may not have helped.

In Pfsense under advanced, then networking, go to the bottom, disable (tick) the following and reboot the firewall;

Disable hardware checksum offload*

Disable hardware TCP segmentation offload*

Disable hardware large receive offload*

Even if your physical NIC supports these, your virtual NIC may not.

I also applied the latest firmware to my server (HPE DL360G9) using the HPE SPP media

I am also running the latest build of 2.5.1 of Pfsense.

If disabling any of the above help, please let me know so others can resolve their issues too

[SolidCactus]

Many thanks for the prompt response!

I'm using the latest version of OPNSense in my scenario and have the three settings listed above disabled already.

Unfortunately I'm still getting hit by the issue on a regular basis whenever large volumes of UDP traffic are hitting the SuperHub.

[Rod-IT]

On what hardware or what virtualization platform, what NIC cards?

Both *senses have issues with certain NICs and further tweaks are required, perhaps I am lucky, but even though my NICs are fully supported, i still needed to disable specific features.

Knowing your hardware or platform and NIC makes and models may help

[samory]

I am having the same Microsoft Teams / Zoom intermittency for seconds unless I disconnect/reconnect the wifi network.

Any solution so far? 

[Andrew-G]

@samory You're joining a rather old thread, best off starting a new one.  Most video call and gaming problems are not down to UDP issues, and more commonly are latency problems with the broadband connection.  Usually that's easily resolved power or noise problems, occasionally it's down to network congestion problems where the outlook may be less good.  But if you start your own thread we can explore the causes and hopefully get things fixed.

[jka94036]

Hi

I have read through this thread and although ‘old’ I think it’s still pertinent as it possibly explains the issue I have been getting for months. The below BQM shows the effect of using UDP traffic on my hub 3 on the 9th July

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/b2e665ddc6298a16a3d5a5db04420b09ef0f5b17-09-07-2021

I have had other BQMs showing the same graph results over the past few months and have never thought of associating the problem with the use of UDP traffic until I very recently discovered my daughter uses apps that use UDP,  instead blaming my broadband connection, no wonder the support on here couldn’t explain the reasons behind my problems. I guess this is a problem that VM mgt have not reported to members of their support teams otherwise it could have saved them a lot of time

[Eeeps]

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@jka94036 wrote:

Hi

I have read through this thread and although ‘old’ I think it’s still pertinent as it possibly explains the issue I have been getting for months. The below BQM shows the effect of using UDP traffic on my hub 3 on the 9th July

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/b2e665ddc6298a16a3d5a5db04420b09ef0f5b17-09-07-2021

I have had other BQMs showing the same graph results over the past few months and have never thought of associating the problem with the use of UDP traffic until I very recently discovered my daughter uses apps that use UDP,  instead blaming my broadband connection, no wonder the support on here couldn’t explain the reasons behind my problems. I guess this is a problem that VM mgt have not reported to members of their support teams otherwise it could have saved them a lot of time

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Out of interest, what is the BQM echoing off (the SH or some other device)?

If you are in modem mode, what happens if you switch to router mode?

[dinth]

@samory i dont think your issue is related to this UDP problem, as the UDP issues we are seeing are on the modem/between the modem and the rest of VM infrastructure - therefore are not dependant on one's wifi connection. Can you try on ethernet?

[fordy]

I decided to leave Virgin BB at the end of my reduced price contract period due to unwillingness to resolve this problem.  Shame, technically they should be the best in our area but they're let down by enforcing use of their own crappy CPE and beyond useless customer support. (Customer aggravation team?).

Virgin really need to wake up and go back to providing a simple functional modem, and letting people use whatever WiFi device they want to.