Upload Speeds Drops to 0 when Livestreaming

[cwatty]

I'm on the Vivid200 Broadband Package and have the Super Hub 2, which I have in modem only mode connecting directly to my PC via Ethernet. When I perform Speed Tests I typically notice I get 220Mbps Download and apparently 21Mbps Upload. Which I believe should be perfectly fine for me to be able to stream to Twitch at 6Mbps without any issues. Yet in recent time I've noticed whilst I'll be midstream I suddenly start dropping a ton of frames and then my OBS software will report it has lost network connection. When I check my Upload Speed at this point it's always at 0Mbps. I go check the system status page on the Virgin Website to see if there are any issues, I even run the test on my equipment, which usually just tells me to restart my Hub, which I do but the problem persists after restart. Usually I find that over a couple of hours the Speed does return to normal, but obviously during that time I'm completely unable to stream.

Here is the data from checking my router status:

Cable Modem StatusItem Status Comments

Acquired Downstream Channel (Hz)	139000000	Locked
Ranged Upstream Channel (Hz)	53700000	Success
Provisioning State	OK	Operational

Downstream  DS-1 DS-2 DS-3 DS-4 DS-5 DS-6 DS-7 DS-8

Frequency (Hz)	139000000	147000000	155000000	163000000	171000000	179000000	187000000	195000000
Lock Status(QAM Lock/FEC Sync/MPEG Lock)	Locked	Locked	Locked	Locked	Locked	Locked	Locked	Locked
Channel ID	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Modulation	256QAM	256QAM	256QAM	256QAM	256QAM	256QAM	256QAM	256QAM
Symbol Rate (Msym/sec)	6.952000	6.952000	6.952000	6.952000	6.952000	6.952000	6.952000	6.952000
Interleave Depth	I=12 J=17	I=12 J=17	I=12 J=17	I=12 J=17	I=12 J=17	I=12 J=17	I=12 J=17	I=12 J=17
Power Level (dBmV)	6.32	6.32	6.37	6.44	6.25	6.11	6.06	6.04
RxMER (dB)	37.94	37.94	37.94	37.94	38.26	38.26	38.26	38.26
Pre RS Errors	1100	1004	349	345	313	299	300	276
Post RS Errors	291	279	281	290	301	291	292	273

Upstream  US-1 US-2 US-3 US-4

Channel Type	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0
Channel ID	2	4	3	1
Frequency (Hz)	53700000	39400000	46200000	60300000
Ranging Status	Success	Success	Success	Success
Modulation	64QAM	64QAM	64QAM	64QAM
Symbol Rate (Sym/sec)	5120000	5120000	5120000	5120000
Mini-Slot Size	2	2	2	2
Power Level (dBmV)	48.54	46.79	47.29	49.54
T1 Timeouts	0	0	0	0
T2 Timeouts	0	0	0	0
T3 Timeouts	0	0	0	0
T4 Timeouts	0	0	0	0

Upstream Burst  Req(1) Init Maint(3) Per Maint(4) Adv Short(9) Adv Long(10) Adv UGS(11)

Modulation Type	16QAM	QPSK	16QAM	64QAM	64QAM	16QAM
Differential Encoding	OFF	OFF	OFF	OFF	OFF	OFF
Preamble Length	56	640	384	104	104	104
Preamble Value Offset	652	0	0	716	716	716
FEC Error Correction (T)	0	5	5	10	16	5
FEC Codeword Information Bytes (K)	16	34	34	81	223	86
Maximum Burst Size	0	0	0	3	255	255
Guard Time Size	8	48	48	8	8	8
Last Codeword Length	Fixed	Fixed	Fixed	Shortened	Shortened	Shortened
Scrambler On/Off	ON	ON	ON	ON	ON	ON

General Configuration

Network Access	Allowed
Maximum Number of CPEs	1
Baseline Privacy	Enabled
DOCSIS Mode	EuroDOCSIS 3.0
Config File

Primary Downstream Service Flow

SFID	46690
Max Traffic Rate	230000061 bps
Max Traffic Burst	42600 bytes
Min Traffic Rate	0 bps

Primary Upstream Service Flow

SFID	46689
Max Traffic Rate	22000061 bps
Max Traffic Burst	42600 bytes
Min Traffic Rate	0 bps
Max Concatenated Burst	42600 bytes
Scheduling Type	Best Effort

Right now the modem is working fine and I'm getting the correct speeds when I check. However I really don't want to see this problem keep repeating. Especially when it happened today at 3:30pm and it was nearly 7:30pm before my speed was back to normal.

[cwatty]

Okay so have attempted to stream again today, after taking a day of yesterday as I had to go take care of some stuff which kept me away from the house. I managed to stream for about 2 hours 30 mins today then the frame drops came and within a few minutes had dropped 2819 frames. I look at the time and notice we're again at that 3:30pm point of the day where this seems to happen. I've had to stop streaming now and need to wait and see when the speed will normalise again so I can resume. Obviously this is not a good sign with the weekend coming and Friday/Saturday/Sunday are the prime days for a streamer. If I'm having these issues and can't stream, then this is now starting to effect my income greatly.

[cwatty]

Okay I've just noticed there is a Virgin Media Engineer Van parked in the layby across the street from me. I wonder if he's messing around in the box outside my property at this moment, which may have caused the dropouts. I'll check again what my speeds are once he's finished doing whatever he's doing and has gone.

However he seems to have gone sheltering in his van at this point as we're currently getting a deluge of rainfall, so it may be a while before he carries on with whatever he was doing.

[Beth_G]

Hi cwatty,

I hope you had a nice weekend.

How did things go after the Virgin Media engineer left on Friday? I checked your account and there are no registered outages showing in your postcode area, and nothing reported over the end of last week.

I can see that you are currently in modem mode - if you are having issues, can you please pop yourself back into router mode with your Virgin Media hub so we can run diagnostic checks for you?

Thanks

Beth

[Andrew-G]

Judging by the BQM there's something very odd going on.  I'd suggest running the hub in router mode for a few days, and seeing what the BQM shows.  If you need your own router for connectivity, put that in access point mode whilst the hub is in router mode - not ideal, but avoids relying on the hub's wireless.  You'll need to edit the BQM because swapping between hub modes changes your IP address.

When the issue has resolved then put the hub back in modem mode and your router into router mode.

[cwatty]

I have popped the Hub back into Router Mode, so you can do whatever diagnostics you need to do, please let me know when I can put it back into Modem Mode.

I have created the new BQM for the Hub in Router Mode

[Steven_L]

Thanks for coming back to us @cwatty.

I have looked into this and you do have a downstream channel that's power levels are too high and we would need to arrange a technician visit to resolve this.

We would need to confirm a few details via a private message, so that we can get this booked in for you.

I will drop the private message over in a moment.

Regards,

Steven_L

[Steven_L]

Hey @cwatty,

Thanks for confirming your details.

I have arranged for the appointment and you can find all the information that you need about this on your online account by clicking My Account and Track Your Order.

Regards,

Steven_L

[legacy1]

Was you streaming between 1pm and 2pm?

[cwatty]

I was uploading YouTube videos. I was streaming today between 6pm and 10pm.

[cwatty]

Okay so have had an engineer visit today. He's checked the levels and says everything is fine. He certainly couldn't see any issues on Downstream. He has though replaced my Hub 2, with a Hub 3. So have setup a new BQM for that, as it's got a new IP so the old graphs don't work anymore. I'll leave it in Router Mode for until after the weekend so the graph can populate it's data, then I'll probably drop it back to Modem Mode as don't have the wireless enabled typically as don't use it. I hope it works okay, as one thing when I went into the Router's Settings there is nowhere near the level of options that were available on the old Hub 2, and I can't seem to find an option anywhere to enable "WAN Ping Respond" or "Respond to ICMP echo requests sent to WAN IP" which the BQM site asks for on Virgin Hubs.