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Nearly unusable connection

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hamradio
Senior

Nearly unusable connection

Here we go again! About a week ago I called phone support about the problems. Was issued ticket # 125796 184. Engineering never called back. I called support again on 12-21-2019. They checked my ticket and said I wanted to know how satellite internet worked. Wrong! I gave them a laundry list of symptoms that they apparently ignored. I ran through my list of symptoms again. I was then forced to jump through the usual hoops (again) before any action would be taken. I complied. They then issued a new trouble ticket, # 126031828 and said engineering would call. I hope they follow through this time!!!! Symptoms: * Although testmy.net has sometimes previously indicated =>20 Mbps the actual *throughput* has been abominable for a long time. * Testmy also sometimes reports download speeds well in excess of 1,500 Mbps which is impossible. * Today testmy.net was indicating a download of ~3 Mbps using 25 MB testing and the actual throughput is even worse than usual * Testmy.net connection chronically dropped and reconnected. * Testmy.net hung and failed the latency test. * There are very, very long pauses during a web page load. Simply no activity, waiting... * Youtube low res videos constantly buffering. I don't even try streaming large videos, movies, etc. That is hopeless. * Often a web page fails to load at all. Repeated "reload" clicks will usually finally load the web site. * Testmy.net results: https://testmy.net/quickstats/KZ4AK Power down resetting of the HT2000W and flushing DNS have not effect. Signal:112, IPGW ID J2SDO068HNSIGW0103, ESN 13179424, Diagnostic Code 0000-0000-0000-0005 I am waiting for the call back from engineering sometime next week . If they bother to call back... It seems that Hnet is happy to sell their service with a draconian contract but do not provide the service advertised. If any Hnet moderators can help with this it would be very much appreciated!!! Woody - KZ4AK @Liz @Damian

70 REPLIES 70
hamradio
Senior

Sorry that on my post the line feeds (CR) got filtered out for some reason Woody

The moderators might not respond until Monday. 

 

In the mean time, you can edit the message by clicking the 3 dots on the upper right.  I think I have seen folks say that it is best not not have the SAN showing.  I guess somebody can do something nefarious with it, but I am not sure what.

 

I think you may be on the same beam and gateway with @MarkJFine , maybe you can compare notes a bit?

 

Can you try a traceroute to microsoft.com?  We can see if your routing is similar to what Mark has if you are the same gateway.  Mark mentioned this a few days ago, so it might be useful.

 

Also, you mentioned a diagnostic code, was that code from before or after you rebooted?  I ask because the diagnostic code is just a shorthand code for the condition of the last 3 hours of the checks/X graph that the system control center shows, and if the thing is rebooted then the code may not mean much until it has been running for 3 hours to actually have some history to show in the code.

 

I tried that testmy latency test a couple of days ago, but it does not seem useful right now to me.  I ran it 9am and again at 9pm to compare.  Since 9am is almost always fast because of light load, and 9pm is the rush hour so to speak, I was hoping to get a feel for understanding the meaning in context.  The result looked about the same which did not give me a good feeling about it.  I then connected to another machine with a hardwired high speed connection and ran that test, and again I was seeing graphs at 2000ms - 3000ms, with 'ping' results well above 1000ms for a hardwired connection that can do traceroute to places in 100ms.

 

The testmy page has some explanation links below it that shed some light on this new beta-test feature.  The ping the test uses is not a normal ping, but rather a TCP packet send.  The difference being that the TCP packet can be subject to funny routing and data verification, the difference in time from a real ping may represent some funny condition with the backbone or the graph might have a bug yet.  Perhaps some of the folks that know more about this can chime in.  For me, seeing that a hardwired machine had a similar graph with crazy average "ping" times made me think the test may not be ready for prime time.  After all, if I looked at those three graphs, I don't think I would have been able to tell which graph went to the machine with the high speed/low latency hardwire from the graph for the high latencysatellite during the most crowded point in the evening, and that seems to be the very point of a latency test.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We've actually been through this before.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.

Mark, you are certainly right. ...And no fixes are forthcoming. It seems to be getting worse. Today it took me almost 45 minutes to pay four online banking bills. Should have taken 5 minutes. ...Many "reloads" were required and then - super slow responses when the reload actually worked. Incredibly frustrating! Woody - KZ4AK

Thanks for you reply. Cannot locate an edit option (no dots), but your warning is good to know. It is pretty certain that Mark and I are on the same beam. We have compared notes and frustrations. I have also compared notes on tracert and pings. Somewhat similar results - lots of timeouts. Reported latency, when not timing out is between 600 and 700 ms which is what I would expect for transit time to the satellite. The diagnostic code from the HT2000W is after a power-down reboot, but several days after... Roger on the latency check. Thought I would give it a try, but flaky results on some sites. Ran a tracert to microsoft. All was OK to a point, with the typical 600-700 ms latency reported After hop #5 ( 4.14.190.73 ), #6 was a time out. Hops #7 through #13 ( ae160-0.icr01.dsm05.ntwk.msn.net ) worked. The rest of the hops to 30 were all time outs. Thought I once was able to add a screen grab image to the post, but can't seem to do it now. Any suggestions on posting / attaching an image to a post? FWIW, the browser could not find the two address hops mentioned. No doubt, there is something flaky with testmy. It is not uncommon for it to report download speeds between 1000 and 2000 Mbps. I wish! The latency test is inconsistent. It usually hangs on some locations, like Dallas. Works and reports "normal" latency on some other sites. Finally got one to work for Dallas and it reported >2150 ms... Cloudflare repeatedly reported an average of ~649 ms which sounds OK. Maybe @Liz or @Damian can kick-start an investigation when they return to work. The level 1 phone support is useless and, so far, "engineering" has not contacted me. Woody

I did not realise you posted before regarding this, and I have not read those long threads, so I will just drop out.

 

Regarding the traceroute timeout, I don't think that really does mean much -- I understand many machines are configured to block ping with the firewall so it just times out.  Since the traceroute reached the next hop, I think we can know it made that hop without issue, and the latency was likely something less than what shows for the next hop.  There are probably folks familiar with networking that can confirm.

 

Since we're on the same beam, and since I'm not experiencing the same slowdown, I'm going to go with that there's either something on @hamradio's LAN, modem, or dish alignment that's causing it.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.

Mark, That would be nice because something might be fixable. But... A ping to the router indicated zero ms. Mark, A tracert to the router indicated <1 ms. The signal strength is usually >100. Currently 112 Would this be down if an alignment issue? Sometime back service came by and re-adjusted the dish and changed the polarization. That did not have any affect on the signal strength or "waiting" times. Slow download speed summed with excessive "waiting" time seems to be the root of (at least) some of my problems. The HT2000 - ? Don't know how to evaluate it alone- and why would the issue abate sometimes? FWIW, the last 3 download checks (requested by phone support) are 2.25, 3.22, and 3.07 Mbps. Add the waiting time that affects actual throughput - and that is why I say "almost" unusable. With this information, could it be the network / router / up to satellite ? I know this has been discussed previously but it is getting even worse. I will sat that this problem is not always present. Sometimes the connection works pretty well. However, more often than not, I have a very poor throughput connection. It does not appear to be solely a prime time issue. It can be terrible on a weekday morning, sometimes OK in the evening (albeit rarely these days). Woody - KZ4AK
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@hamradio wrote:
Thanks for you reply. Cannot locate an edit option (no dots), but your warning is good to know. 

If you're using an ad blocker, try temporarily disabling it and refresh the page.   I've had a problem with uBlock Origin removing some of the page options for me, including the option to edit posts.  

Thanks for the tip Gabe. You nailed it. I am running ublock and when I disabled it for this site and reloaded, there were the three dots! Woody

Another thing - I am not going crazy.  The tool bar for attaching images, etc. that I could not locate also re-appeared.  Wondered where it went 😉

Woody

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@hamradio wrote:

Another thing - I am not going crazy.  The tool bar for attaching images, etc. that I could not locate also re-appeared.  Wondered where it went 😉

Woody


Nope, you're not going crazy.  😛  I noticed that one too.  I figure they must have changed something either with the Community or uBlock Origin, as I had been using it for months without issue, but after figuring it out I went back to AdBlock Plus, which is what I was originally using.  I changed due to finding a few pages that could get around AdBlock Plus' blocking, but it's been fine since going back to it.  You just have to remember to uncheck "Allow Acceptable Ads" in the options of Adblock Plus or you'll still get a lot of them.

Gabe,  

Roger that...  I just turned off the blocker for this site.  Seems to be fine with that setting.

 

BTW, service is pretty good today, Sunday.   My connection is like the proverbial box of chocolates, you never know what you will get  😉

You guys are remarkably mellow - having dealt with repeated tech calls, and latency so high that I cannot really do anything except check email, I am about ready to hurl my dish into the creek.  I cannot believe I am paying this kind of money for this level of service.

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@ks5289 

 

If you'd like to get help, please start a new topic in Tech Support.  Please be sure to describe your issue(s) is detail, and what, if anything, has already been done to try to mitigate the issue(s).

UPDATE

Hnet "engineering" just called.  They are sending me a replacement moden to try.  I sure hope that will fix the problem, but considering my symptoms, not too optimistic that the modem is the source of the problem.  However,  I have noticed one particularity involving the modem.  When logging into it (Firefox), occassionally the resultant screen shows the "code" instructions rather than what the code is supposed to display.  A reload has always fixed that...

Sure willing to give the modem a try!   It is supposed to be delivered in 2-3 days.   After the change and several days have elapsed for trials, I will report back.

Seasons Greetings to all!   ...Woody

UPDATE 2

@Damian 

@Liz

The replacent HT2000W modem arrived, is installed, and booted.     Some testing over time will be needed to appraise any changes.  However, so far connectivity is worse, not better.  There is still very much "waiting" inactivity and a testmy.net result was miserable. In addition, the connection to testmy was being repeatedly dropped and re-established!  See the test : 12/26/19   at    https://testmy.net/quickstats/KZ4AK

 

Woody

testmy.JPG

 

There may have been an issue with  testmy today - I had the same experience with it dropping my connection (having spent the better part of the morning working iwth the HN team).  Unfortunately, "3rd level" has decreed that my 3 mbps download speed is acceptable and there is nothing wrong....

Ran another test.   Testmy is still dropping connection then reconnecting - as it has been for weeks or more.   The tested speed improved, but the actual throughput is still awful.

 

3 Mbps is not good, but due to the periods of no data waiting, even my reported 19.69 is super slow.  😞

 

 

12/26/19 10:36:40 pm 19.69 Mbps 2.46 MB/sHughes25 MB48534989369573 gVem0JNWz

 

 

After a few days using the new modem, I can say that (as I suspected) there is no improvement in performance.   Testmy speed is currently in the neighborhood of 20 Mbps but the connection to Testmy is still being intermittently dropped and, in general, the waiting times still there.   Again will say - the poor performance is intermittent.  Sometimes not too bad, other times terrible (even at off peak traffic times).

Capture.JPG

I spend a lot of time watching this.  The site does not matter...

Woody