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MrCRJP
Freshman

Slow or dropping connection

Hello.. For the last couple of days, we've been seeing seriously degraded performance from our Hughesnet connection. Last night, I had a yellow light on the diagnostics page due to a 30.1.1 state error. I went and reset the MBX connection multiple times, rebooted the modem from the Admin web interface several times, and power cycled the modem a few times. Eventually, it cleared the 30.1.1 error, but our speeds are still consistently very slow. Most websites and apps on our phones are timing out, and podcasts would fail to download this morning during the Bonus Zone time. We've had some snow here lately, but there's nothing on the dish itself.

I had previously had the modem plugged into the battery backed outlet of a true sinewave UPS, and just recently plugged it straight into the wall when I repurposed the UPS. I don't think that should be causing the problems, but perhaps our power needed the conditioning provided by the UPS? That's about the only thing I can think of which might cause the problem.

Is there any way one of the moderators could have corporate ping our device to see whether there's an adjustment needed? I'm happy to provide any input from this end.. Thanks!

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Good morning MrCRJP,

 

  It's been a while since we last heard from you, so we will close this thread. I also just ran diagnostics on your site and everything looks fine. If you still have concerns, please start a new thread and include a detailed explanation so we can better assist you.

 

 

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Slow performance? Click me!

View solution in original post

30 REPLIES 30
Liz
Moderator
Moderator

Hi MrCRJP,

 

I'm glad you found the community, thank you for posting the steps you've already tried so far. I'm running diagnostics on your site right now and so far, so good. I do see the 30.1.1 state codes in your history and am seeing that there was something that happened on your gateway over the weekend that seemed to have caused this. Let me escalate this to our engineers for their input. I'll post back once I have any news to share, instructions, or questions for you.

 

  Your cooperation, patience, and understanding are much appreciated.

 

If you have a tech or billing question and need help, please start a new thread in the appropriate board. Unsolicited Private Messages may not get replies.

Slow performance? Click me!

Thank you for the reply, and for getting someone to look into it for me. After fiddling with it earlier tonight, I powered the gateway down for at least 15 minutes. After turning it back on, we seem to be doing better. It would still really help to get some certitude regarding the cause of the problem, if possible. We've dealt with this before, but never for such an extended period. It honestly scares me a little, because we opted to buy the hardware outright rather than lease, so I'm worried about what happens if the gateway eventually fails. We've only had the hardware for about 14 months now.

Thanks again for your help!
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@MrCRJP

 

The gateway Liz is speaking of is the gateway for your beam.  The signals from your spot beam, and a few other spot beams, are routed through a specific gateway, which is located in a state that is different than yours.  The gateway is where your service actually enters the internet.  I'm in NY, but my gateway is located in OR.  

 

When you reboot your modem it can put you onto a different "channel" within the beam, which can sometimes fix, at least temporarily, minor issues.   

 

Here's a rough graphic regarding the gateway...

Gateway.jpg

Yeah, I feel a bit silly having used that term.. I was thinking of it in terms of the gateway as viewed by a client inside the LAN. I'm thinking the gateway in your diagram is the one running BGP. 🙂

 

This morning, the connection seemed to be OK, but then it fell apart again. I needed to go back to the IP address of the modem rather than systemcontrolcenter.com, since the modem had also apparently lost its DNS mind as well. Is there a chance that doing a factory reset on it might clear up the problems?

Good morning MrCRJP,

 

Thanks for this update, I just cleared the modem's DNS cache. Let me know if sites load properly now. (Doesn't hurt to flush your computer's DNS cache as well).

 

 

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Slow performance? Click me!

Hi MrCRJP,

 

There's another adjustment I'd like to make to your modem which may resolve your concern. I see you're currently connected to the internet, so please let me know when you are done so I can make the adjustment, for it will temporarily disconnect you.

 

  Your cooperation, patience, and understanding are much appreciated.

If you have a tech or billing question and need help, please start a new thread in the appropriate board. Unsolicited Private Messages may not get replies.

Slow performance? Click me!

 

Hi MrCRJP,

 

I was able to make this latest adjustment. Please monitor your system performance and let me know how it goes.

 

 

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Slow performance? Click me!

Sorry I didn't respond earlier. I'm actually at work, and it's my wife who was online! I've asked her to verify that things are working properly now

No worries! Thank you!

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Slow performance? Click me!

Well, again, thank you for your help. It's working at this point, but sometimes still very slow loading elements. This isn't just the latency overhead, since we're accustomed to that.

What can we do on our end, other than power cycling the modem and of course keeping snow off the dish? Are any of the steps you took repeatable by the end user?

I do like the service when it's working properly. The latency isn't a big hassle, and the speeds are good. I'd just like the experience to be consistent.

As of this morning, we're dead in the water again. I powered down the modem while eating breakfast, since we couldn't get anywhere with the connection. Powered back up, still no good. I connected a laptop via Ethernet, also no good. Went into system control center on the laptop, we see all green on there. Ran the connectivity test, 60-90% packet loss.

Is it possible that we have developed a line of sight problem? The dish is on the north side of our house, free standing on a pole about 40-50 feet from the house, pointed over the roof. We have a single story ranch style house. The dish worked fine all last winter pointed in this way, regardless of snow pack on the roof. We even took down many trees just south of the house over the summer.

What might cause this situation where the hardware and firmware looks fine, but we're suddenly seeing significant packet loss?

The packet loss could also be the segment the signal traverses from the satellite down to the ground station.
What is the number to the right of Data IPGW when you go to this page? Should be something like "J2xxxyyyHNSIGWzzzz". Mainly interested in the xxxyyy part.


* 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.

I called the support number on Thursday, and they gave me case ID 116869955. The last thing the first level tech did was to get the advanced tech to change my gateway. It's now J2OMA013HNSIGW0101, to answer your question. They said that this should hopefully fix the problem within 24 hours; That does appear to be the case. It was a little bit discouraging at first, though, because we still saw tons of packet loss and very slow speeds yesterday morning, but by yesterday evening, the connection was quite solid.

 

All of this testing and troubleshooting burned through the last of our data for the month, unfortunately, but even in the degraded state during normal hours, we're seeing much faster speeds now.

 

Thanks to everyone who has read and replied on this thread!

Well, not sure what it used to be, but your gateway is in Omaha, Nebraska now. You may want to check the weather there when you have a connection problem, just to be sure.

That said, that's just the first thing to check if something's intermittent. The other things that can affect it are:
1. Dish alignment - in case it's been hit hard by something like a lawn mower or falling tree limb, or if the mount has otherwise been somehow dislodged.

2. Blockage and/or reflections - Blowing tree limbs and foliage can cause havoc if anywhere within 45 degrees of the dish's view. The signal can be reflected back into the dish causing nasty standing wave patterns, increasing the overall error rate (and reducing the signal quality number you see).

3. Unsecure cable connections/leaky cables - Cables should be finger tight at the back of the modem as well as at the dish. The cabling itself should be water-resistant, so the outer covering should be clear of any nicks or breaks. Might want to inspect all connections and cabling to make sure there are no problems.
4. Power supply - The modem should be plugged directly into the wall and not go through a filtered power strip or other uninteruptable power source. Power variations and low voltage situations can disrupt the way the modem regulates power to the transmitter through the cabling to the dish.


* 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.
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@MarkJFine wrote:

Well, not sure what it used to be, but your gateway is in Omaha, Nebraska now.  


If they actually did change his gateway, it must mean he's in one of those fringe areas with overlapping beams in which they could remotely swap his service to the alternate beam.  If that's the case, I wonder if being in that fringe area could have made his service more susceptible to signal issues with the previously used beam.  

 

 

Good morning MrCRJP,

 

Thank you for all your updates, glad to hear the service is working better now. I've escalated your case to our engineers here at corporate to ensure the same concerns don't pop up again later. I've also sent you some free tokens for the troubleshooting efforts, so you may receive an e-mailed order confirmation for the complimentary tokens.

 

If you do encounter anything out of the ordinary, please note the state code you see at the time so it can help us focus our efforts.

 

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Slow performance? Click me!

Thank you for the tokens and the resolution here. I'll be sure to post again if anything changes. I think GabeU might be on to something about our location being on the transition point between two beams. Thankfully, the new gateway seems to be doing what we need.

In response to MarkJFine, the power supply is something I don't quite understand about satellite modems. When we first had our install done, the installer was hesitant to connect the power supply to our UPS. I didn't understand this; Shouldn't a UPS or filtered power strip provide stability against the power variations which would otherwise cause problems? Plus, our UPS produces a true sine wave when it switches to battery.. If it was the more blocky DC/AC conversion of a conventional UPS, I could understand the problem. Either way, we operated just fine on the UPS for 14+ months until this problem cropped up.. Ironically, when I pulled the power supply from the UPS and connected it directly to the wall outlet!

We also have some tree limbs which might now be starting to cause a problem, although there are no leaves on the limbs any more, of course. I may look into doing some additional trimming in the spring just to eliminate this. We took down about 10 trees this last spring to clear the skies for our Dish service!

Again, thank you to everyone who has replied. I'm going a bit verbose here in case any other customers stumble across this thread, so that maybe they can glean a solution from it. 🙂

Hi MrCRJP,

 

I just got a call from an engineer who looked into your site and we'd like to monitor your modem through tomorrow to make sure nothing is functioning out of the ordinary. Please don't reboot the HughesNet modem until I get the OK from the engineer. 

 

Please also monitor your internet performance for anything notable. 

 

  Your cooperation, patience, and understanding are much appreciated.

 

If you have a tech or billing question and need help, please start a new thread in the appropriate board. Unsolicited Private Messages may not get replies.

Slow performance? Click me!

Oh shoot, I just now saw your post after rebooting the modem several times, including a power cycle, and resetting the MBX to clear a 30.1.1 error. Earlier in the day, my wife was seeing very slow speeds, and tonight I've been seeing speeds as low as 150Kbps. There was one burst where I saw over 9Mbps on a speed test, but that was very isolated. Please continue to monitor, as we're not out of the woods yet.

Good morning MrCRJP,

 

Thanks for letting me know you rebooted the modem. First thing this morning the engineer asked me about that, haha. He'd like to monitor your terminal for the next 24-48 hours for a good sample. Please don't reboot and take note of service degradation if you observe any.

 

I'll post back once I have news to share from engineering, I appreciate your help.

 

 

If you have a tech or billing question and need help, please start a new thread in the appropriate board. Unsolicited Private Messages may not get replies.

Slow performance? Click me!