Latency and Drop out issues

[TheDiamond]

For a number of days now I found myself being kicked from game servers and had frequent crashes while gaming online. I also had similar issues trying to work from home.

I decided to investigate as the vodaphone tools always said that everything was fine. I started by downloading a chrome extension called "Internet Connection Monitor" (Would recommend) and ran it.

I was terrified by what was reported back to me. I was getting dropouts on a regular basis. Often multiple times in a single minute. It also reported that there where major issues with latency. It would hover at maybe 20 ms for a while then shoot up to >1000 and then back down. I have also tried running speed tests on my connection. It shoots up to 80 or so Mbs then suddenly it throttles down to about 30/40 Mbs.

I checked the router logs to be confronted by a ton of errors, none of which I understand.

Can anyone shine a light on what may be happening? I have restarted the router e.t.c and that has had no noticable effect. It is utterly of no real use at the moment and trying to get through to support stresses me out so much I feel like screaming.

[Jayach]

@TheDiamond 

Do you have the THG3000 router?

Go into the router settings and disable IPv6, delete the log, and see if you get any more IPv6 errors (presumably you shouldn't)

If you are still getting drop out with Ethernet, that would rule out Wi-Fi.

How are you seeing these drop outs recorded?

[Jayach]

Actually I've disabled IPv6 in my router, but the errors still keep occurring. 

Presumably because I've only turned it off for the local network. Can't see a way to turn it off for the WAN. (unless I'm missing something)

[Cynric]

@TheDiamond About the "Failed to send DHCPV6 message to ff02::1:2" message, would you also check that your local devices have IPv6 clients switched off.

[Cynric]

@TheDiamond  Thank you for the information.

Given the speeds you report I am assuming that you are on FTTC, i.e. copper wires to the house.

The number of disconnects is horrible. This needs to be reported to Vodafone, the test suggestions below may be useful evidence when dealing with the (un)helpdesk. Have you tried the line test here https://speedtest.btwholesale.com/ do the first and second part.

Look here https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL for what the state of the line could be. The second row "VDSL Range B (Impacted)" is the one to look at.

Also see if the line check https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/run-a-line-check/ says anything.

The log lines which go like this "DROP wan in: IN=pppoe-wan OUT= MAC= src=185.224.128.17 DST=[hide your external IP] ..." are incoming packets which are excluded by your router's firewall. These can be ignored.

The log lines ending "TIMEOUT" sounds like the Vodafone end is "sulking".

The log lines containing any reference to DHCPV6 are because Vodafone currently does not support IPv6.

[TheDiamond]

Thanks for that info.

I will run those tests and post back.