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I have been putting up with slow system now for over four months.

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RogerYates
Freshman

I have been putting up with slow system now for over four months.

I have been putting up with slow system now for over four months. Cant watch most facebook videos without haveing it buffer over and over. But today is the last straw. My son went to the Tulsa drags, I tried to watch the video, it first came up then it turns BLACK and only has sound, (and its buffering) As much as you charge, this should NEVER happen.
24 REPLIES 24
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

If you are having speed issues, please head to http://testmy.net/ and set up an account.  Please connect a single device directly to the modem.  No router.  Then run some speed tests using the 12MB manual test size for download tests.

Please try to run a batch of three to five tests, each test spaced at least five minutes from the others, and try to run a batch in the morning, afternoon and evening.  The point is to run some tests at different times of the day to get an average.

After you've run a few tests, please click on the Results tab and post your Results page URL.  It will look something like the following, with your account name where it says "yournamehere". 

http://testmy.net/quickstats/yournamehere


Amanda
Moderator

Hello Roger,

 We recommend following GabeU's recommendations to get started. Do you mean to say that your internet has only slowed down in the past four months? Did you upgrade your HughesNet equipment? I see that you had posted in our forum about 3 years ago with the same concerns. Looking forward to helping you,

Amanda
Lab-Lover
New Member

Thanks for posting this Gabe! This was another issue I was having, as well as my data. The huge data amounts were more pressing for me.. now I will start taking data on the speed of my system!
Lab-Lover
New Member

Roger- heads up on the facebook vids. From what I understand (anyone feel free to correct me or steer me to more info) But, I have read and done some research on Facebook (FB) videos. FB doesn't use the best platform for playing back videos. YouTube, which is in the biz of videos has a much better platform. This does not work for private vids that go across FB, but, if the Vid is mass produced and shared on FB, many times you can find the same exact vid on Youtube and it plays just find over there.. yes, it is a PIA to do this, but, what I am trying to say is that FB vids might be the culprit for that specific video buffering.   

HOWEVER, that being said... there are times when my net just will not load, it is super sluggish and I turn off my wifi and I turn on my cellular data and bingo, I am flying thru the net... when that happens, I do get absolutely peeved! So, now with Gabe's great suggestion, I can test my speed...at those times and other times to see what my speed truly is.

LabLover AKA Kim
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

Kim,

You're welcome.  Were you able to determine what was/is using the excess data, at least for the most part, or are you still in the process of monitoring your devices to figure it out?  I know it's only been a few days and you might be needing more time to glean enough information, but I just figured I'd ask.   

To add, if you end up testing your upload speed for whatever reason, make sure to use the 2MB size for that, not the 12MB size used for download tests.

Lab-Lover
New Member

I guess You would have to ask Amanda, I have had no communication from her or Hughes net in regards to the excessive data usage. I did send a message, explaining my data usage this weekend and what Apple said about my devices. I explained how I will take the convenience and safety of the auto back up feature on my apple products and back up manually, by getting up earlier in the morning, or setting an alarm in the middle of the night or wee hours, so I can use the bonus bytes to back up to the cloud on a weekly rather then daily basis on my devices as is recommended.

I do know, it was NOT US, NOT OUR HOUSEHOLD. After tracking our data and TRYING to make it excessive, I can't even get close! I am at a loss, and I am frustrated. I think what frustrates me, I called in originally as a novice, so I actually "believed" them when they made the indication it was on my end. Now, that I have become familiar with our data usage and how it relates to us. I am understanding that the amounts of data that physically was downloaded NOT BY US, but charged against our system is just is not physically possible. I would have to have 20 iPhones, AND 20 tablets among numerous other devices, all streaming movies at the same time in HD or something? So, it frustrates me that I was "accused", my husband was "accused" and my non existent children were "accused". I have to wonder if the techs that I spoke to on the phone even realize how MUCH that data physically is? Granted, I have only been tracking since Wednesday. But truly, YESTERDAY, I did my own little test...and, I could NOT download that amount of Data.. Even TRYING to purposely do it. It is SO MUCH DATA, and downloading that amount of data would bog the system down so badly, that there are so many physical reasons why it can't happen! Yesterday, I could NOT back up two iPhones to the cloud at the same time! It would take HOURS AND HOURS! I literally set an alarm for 330 am this morning and downloaded the 9.3.3 updates and iCloud updates, within 30 minutes each!

Now, as far as these incidents, after a lot of phone calls, frustration, and my time AND the extreme generosity of two techs, I was "given" enough tokens to get to my data recharge day August 3. But, in al honesty, I have no idea if and when it will happen again, however, it is now a routine, I wake up, jot down data usage, I go to bed, jot down data usage. ANYTIME, I use "more data than usual" (when I back up devices,watch a you tube 3 minute video, etc) , I will document it, and note the usage as well as the day/date/time. I think all of this is a lot of inconvenience on my part, but if Hughes net doesn't admit and step up to solving the problem, this is my only recourse until the contract is up. In the meantime, I will look for an alternative Satalite provider, but, in all honesty, I doubt I will find one, and I will NEVER trust one .....sad, it is very sad..... But truly, this week has been extremely frustrating, and, unaware to any of you, stress just flares up a medical condition to the point where I feel HORRIBLE today and I am in a lot of pain. Frustrated does not even cover it.
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

Hopefully whatever it was/is will eventually be revealed.  With that said, sometimes devices do odd things that we can never figure out.  I'll give you an example...

I update my folks' computer on a regular basis because they have dialup and the updates on their Windows 8.1 computer would take them forever to do.  Previously they had Windows 7 on the computer.  I had a legacy plan at the time, which gave me a daily amount rather than monthly, and it was 425MB.  They also gave one free token per month, up until you had a total of six.  If you then used one, the next month they would give you another one.  The tokens were worth a day's data. 

When I would update their computer with Windows 7, I would do the normal updates, and update other programs as well.  Then, with the computer just sitting there, it would start using data.  I couldn't figure out what was going on.  One day I ended up using four tokens.  The total usage for that time ended up being over 2GB, and it took a long time as my speed was about 1.5MB.  I normally would update it at night as the legacy plans had the "download zone," which was an unlimited period between 2-7AM that didn't count towards your daily allowance, but this time I couldn't do it during the night.  This happened a few times, though never using as much as the 2+GB it did the one time.  It would often use nearly 1GB, though. 

Finally, after nearly pulling my hair out over the course of about a year and a half of dealing with this, I figured out that the downloads were being done through a program called BITS, which stands for Background Intelligent Transfer Service.  It's a Windows program.  It's designed to update things that don't update during the normal procedure.  What those things are, I couldn't tell you, and I never did figure out what it was that was using all the data.  I even installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 on their computer, but it would still do it.  If they had high speed internet, they would have never noticed it as it would have done it bit by bit, day by day, but they gave it to me to update on a monthly, and sometimes bi monthly, basis, so it would all happen in one pop. 

Finally I upgraded them to Windows 8.1, and although it still does it a little bit, it's nothing like it was. 

The point it is, sometimes these devices do things we don't expect, don't know that they are going to do, and sometimes can never figure out.  It may or may not be your devices, but in all honesty, I still tend to think it is.  Let me say, though, that in no way do I think you're embellishing what's going on, nor lying about it.  I 100% believe you.  I just would not at all be surprised if one day, some time down the road, you come and here and say, "Hey.  Guess what.  I found out what was eating all of that data.  It was such and such."  It happens a lot, actually.  We find it by searching and even by accident.  Or we just catch it in action, so to speak.

Writing down what you are using may be a good idea for a while, just to make sure whatever happened doesn't spring back up.  How are you able to monitor your usage on your separate devices?  Do they all have monitoring programs?  

I personally won't even use the cloud.  Too much data needed and I can't control it.  It just does what it does.  I have mine disabled on all of my computers.  The only backups I do is saving important data and programs and on a flash drive and doing monthly system images of my computers. 

As for the phone reps...they can sometimes be...well...less than cordial.  It's why I'm grateful that we have this place.  Most of the phone reps are nice, but once in a while you get one that just irks that heck out of you.  I've had it happen, too, though it was many years ago.  I've not had to call the phone reps very much in the last seven or eight years, but did so more often before then. 

Did you end up creating that private thread?  My experience with the reps on here have been great.  When something like this happens it's often difficult to learn what actually happened and the only thing that can be done is trying to be vigilant in adjustments to programs and such and monitoring it to see if it does or doesn't happen again.  Basically not being able to correct what happened, but hopefully making it so it doesn't happen again.  Hence all the monitoring advice and such.  It's good that they gave you some tokens to get you to your reset date. 

I hope it doesn't happen again, but if it does, with your vigilance you may be able to tell what's going on and stop it.

I wish you luck.     

Lab-Lover
New Member

I am measuring data in a very very crude way. Basically, I just watch the monitor. So, for example, I document the data "left" and then, before I update the cloud, on one device, I document the data, then once the update is complete, I document the data. Extremely crude. However, I can see the increase and watch it. Nothing goes crazy. I did this individually with each device. Because my intenet can't handle but one at a time. I signed in to that speed site, I have to get that straight connection to the modem. But, not feeling well today.

As far as my download amounts, remember, I am the one who has documented downloads of
12GB in one 5 hour period. 14GB in. 7 hour period, 5GB in 3 hours, 15 GB over 5 hours... And so on.... There are more, And I am not sure the techs told me all of them either, but When it was all set and done... 46 GB over an accumulated 20 hours. So, what type of program do you suppose could do that? One tech likened it to playing super super HD movies for hours upon hours straight over multiple devices. Again, remember my internet speed... I bet, if there was some way that was documented, it would show that it was prob near impossible to get that downloaded?

You are such an AWESOME SON to do all that for your parents! That is really really nice to do. So many kids these days (I have heard) just don't care about their aging parents.... So sad. Mine passed when I was 21, never even had aging parents... So, cherish your time with them... ❤️❤️
Lab-Lover
New Member

Oh, one more thing, yes, I did the private discussion thing with Amanda on Thursday... I sent a private note to her today. She must have read it, because she "merged" it to the original discussion, and apparently only reps can do that. So, either she or. Rep did something to it
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

Ah.  I didn't see about how large the usage actually was.  That's a lot.  No doubt.  About the only thing I can think of that might do that is the DirecTV, but you had that disconnected at that point.   I wonder if maybe a device is getting into some kind of perpetual download loop.  I don't really know.  I'm not as technical when it comes to that sort of stuff as some of the people on here are.  I truly hope someone can figure it out.  That's a tremendous amount of data. 

Sorry about your folks.  That must have been hard to have them gone so young.  I try to help my folks whenever I can.  They helped me when I was down on my luck in the early 2000s, so I try to repay that any way I can.  My stepfather is actually only 12 years older than I am (I'm 44), but my mother is 70, so I try to do what I can to make their lives easier.  I live right across the street from them, so that helps, too.  LOL.   

Lab-Lover
New Member

Amanda said it is did not seem indicative of Ditect Tv. I called direct tv twice, I am absolutely certain I got two completely different techs! Because they were from different countries
Gwalk900
Honorary Alumnus

Not to sound like a broken record but .......
The very first step in finding a data leak is to connect a single computer directly to the modem and troubleshoot from there, rebuilding the "network" one device at a time.
Any user, after a period, after pointing this out, that refuses to follow logical procedures is ... not going to find the root cause of their "leak".

Slow speeds along with data loss screams of concurrent connections.

Not one screenshot has been posted, no clue as to the ratio or character of the data loss .... upload/download.
Facts matter, opions ... don't carry any weight.
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

I know Amanda said that she didn't see any traffic that would indicate it was DirecTV, but this sure looks like what I would expect to see when the receiver downloads those frequent films that are never asked for.  Normally they are done through the DirecTV dish themselves, but like a lot of the other stuff with DirecTV, when the net is connected, it will take that route, instead.  It'll sure be interesting to finally figure out what caused it. 
eledkins
New Member

I am SO glad that I am not the only one that has had this happening for months and was basically told that it HAD to be on my end.  I have been incredibly busy and therefore have not had time to pursue the issue like I would have.  I did spend quite a lot of time several months back tracking my usage, yet I would have 3GB disappear in the middle of the day when no one was home and no devices were powered on.  It has been that most of the time that my phone is never connected to my hughesnet.  My husband does a little, and my son rarely does.  It's terrible ALL the time.  We can not watch a video of ANY kind on our internet most of the time.  We have been out of town 10 days of the last month, yet it shows that we are out of data with 7 more days to go.  I NEVER had this problem in the past, yet now the data usage runs out with less activity than we have ever had.  It is incredibly frustrating, and I am at the point of looking at other options ASAP.  At this moment it is looking more satisfying to just turn it off and up the shared data on our phones.  It's not like we could ever fathom using hughesnet for any kind of movie streaming.  It's never been possible for us.  
RogerYates
Freshman

I do have my DirecTV hooked into wifi. Its only to be used for show schedules. It don't build the upcoming shows without being hooked up.
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

How have you adjusted it so only updates show schedules?  Also, why would you use your Wifi for show schedules when DirecTV already updates them?  Are you speaking of the mobile app?
Lab-Lover
New Member

Hey Roger, did direct tv say this? Have you tried without the wifi? The reason I ask is, we have power outages here ALL THE TIME.... Our direct tv was rarely hooked to wifi and we still got show schedules? Then HN said to DC the wifi. I spoke to direct tv, they said the ONLY reason wifi is needed was to load "on demand" movies, we do not and have not watched "on demand". So, our wifi Is now DC'd permanently. I asked about updates to the system, the tech at direct tv told me that the updates will come thru the Satalite, he said we will be last to get the updates, but we will get them. So.. Good enough for me, Wifi is NOT connected to my direct tv.
Lab-Lover
New Member

Eledkins, I hear you in the movie streaming! I kind of feel like I am in the dark ages when my friends and family talk about streaming movies! I am like, "what is that like!?" Anyway, I can tell you, by posting in here, or, better yet, create a NEW post dealing with your problem (maybe you already have, if not do so!) A rep on this community will find you and will hopefully give you some tokens to provide you with some internet for the next few days. They will also give you some super quick hints to use less data. Another user in here, Bird Dog, has an excellent post about reducing data... PLEASE UNDERSTAND, I am not saying you are using the data, but if you are able to get tokens, they will last longer with the hints of reducing data. Hope that helps and I hope it helps to know you are not alone. Sad.... But true... Also Eledkins, not sure if you have tried CALLING HN... If not yet, save your breath and time, deal with the reps in here. They truly have more access. Kim
Lab-Lover
New Member

I AM USING CAPS SO GWALK90 WILL SEE THIS!!
Lab-Lover
New Member

GabeU, I am not sure exactly what data Amanda was looking at. Poor thing, she is going to arrive in here and see her name tossed around all over the place! As for downloading unwanted movies, wouldn't I SEE something like that in my guide or on my TV? Then, this is the other factor to remember, which again, I have not started to investigate as of yet, because I Have a bit much on my plate. But, Seriously, and I do not have screen shots YET, my speed is too slow to download movies!