YouTube terrible speed and buffering

[Alecmac007]

I am on Vodafone fibre so just under a year and no problems getting 10mbps but over the last 5 days I am getting terrible performance on YouTube on wifi on all devices. It either buffers, doesn’t play video and occasionally I get a period of a few minutes with no problems.

I have rebooted router and reset firmware and spoke to  Vodafone but no solution. If I connect to mobile data all is good, and all other streaming video sites work fantastic and my wifi speed is always good. Any ideas?

[embattle]

Firmware is irrelevant to the issue surrounding Google services problems (YouTube, Playstore, etc ) as it is happening with people using the Vodafone router and those that are using third-party routers 

[rickyoleary]

They're awful. I was told it was my firmware and then he changed his mind and said the line. I spoke to someone else shortly after who repeatedly told me she's rebooting the line (and several minutes silence) and when explaining over and over again that's its fine with a VPN, she put me on hold to for a further few minutes. I don't mean to sound disrespectful but it really felt she didn't even know what a VPN was and just gave me the usual spiel. It's incredibly bad. And it doesn't seem complaining will do anything, and we're just getting the general speak to social media comments. 

[Jayach]

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@4pack wrote:

Even TR-069 Protocol (CWMP - customer-premises WAN management protocol) can't update the router when its fully unplugged.

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I never suggested it could, I was just pointing out that the ability to do updates is not "an undisclosed security back door", and that the T&C's state they can,

Also, it is used to give configuration changes to the router, not firmware updates.

[embattle]

I'm going to look for a way out of our contract if this carries on much longer.

[Dtkwong]

So far, we have not seen Vodafone doing anything sensible to deep dive into the issue (if they did, they failed to communicate to the customers which is just as bad), let alone fitting the issue anytime soon. 

Affected customers are certainly not going to put up with the issue and the poor customer support, and would certainly look to switch supplier. Is Vodafone so bad that they don’t care about customer retention ? 

Where are the Vodafone senior managers ? 

[mmotti]

I have followed up with someone today whom has told me that it has been with the engineers but they have been unable to indentify a cause / replicate thus far.

They asked me whether the issue was still present and if I could reconnect my Vodafone router and run a tracert to the following when connected and disconnected from a VPN:

1. play.google.com
2. dl.google.com
3. android.clients.google.com

I have done so and emailed them the results.

Will see what comes of it. Not looking good so far for a quick resolution.

I also tried to remind them in the email that YouTube is still a prominent issue as not to focus entirely on one area but whether this will be relayed to them I don't know.

[4pack]

Try this...

On a wired connection to your router, or wifi (ensure your network speed is over what your connection is to Vodaphone).

Go Ookla and run a speed test, make note of the server it has connected to, (usually the fastest best would be a Vodaphone server). If it's not a Vodaphone server, click to change it and then select a Vodaphone server, i.e Vodaphone Bracknell. Run the speed test. All being well you should be able to max out your connection speed.

Now change the server to one beyond the Vodaphone network, i.e Wessex internet.. (make a note of the server for later). Run the speed test, again your connection should be maxed out and give you the same speed as before or within a few percent. If it does try switching to a few different servers and see if the speed drops and if so make a note of the slowest you find. (if there is no slow down anywhere then congrats) you should be fine.

Now connect your VPN.

Go back to the original Speedtest we did with Vodaphone, run it again using the VPN. The result should be slower as traffic sent via the vpn has to be encrypted and decrypted and usually vpn providers are more likely to have capacity or contention issues. Hopefully though the speed should still be near maxing out your connection but if not then we can presume this is the all the bandwidth the vpn provider can spare you. You might also like to refresh the page and allow the speedtest to choose its own best default server, to test for the top speed.

(If you speed is much much slower via the vpn, try changing where the vpn connects to, or try a different vpn provider).

Once that test has completed, go back to the other speedtest window with the alternate and hopefully slowest server. With the vpn still connected run that speed test again. Again you should get a similar result as without the VPN.  (if the vpn changes the available server list then you can search for the server you used and still select it).

If you want to see more of whats going on also try the speedtester at thinkbroadband.

Is your connection speed the same across servers?

Is your connection speed the same or worse when using the vpn to connect to the same servers?

Share your results...

[4pack]

VPN OFF:

Dl 200.60  - Up 27.89 - pings 08-13-179 - Vodaphone Bracknell

Dl 100.54 - Up 28.19 - pings 14-14-132 - Wessex internet Blanford

Dl 138.25 - Up 27.78 - pings 14-13-181 - Oxford University IT Services

Dl 147.94 - Up 27.87 - pings 16-16-187 - Fasthosts Gloucestershire

VPN ON:

Dl 192.49  - Up 26.93 - pings 14-14-168 - Vodaphone Bracknell

Dl 191.98 - Up 26.48 - pings 29-28-196 - Wessex internet Blanford

Dl 194.94 - Up 26.75 - pings 13-16-181 - Oxford University IT Services

Dl 191.78 - Up 26.52 - pings 15-16-180 - Fasthosts Gloucestershire

I think its pretty clear whats going on

[Jayach]

Sorry, but what do speedtest results have to do with YouTube buffering?

This thread is about problems with using YouTube/Google services, not general speed issues.

[daern]

I've also supplied traceroutes to different Youtube URLs that either work, or don't work. e.g. on Saturday, these were the two URLs I was seeing in the Chrome trace:

Link to URLs due to this forum blocking pasted URLs

...which take very different routes out of Vodafone.

Having just tried again today, using incognito mode (so nothing lingering about), these were the URLs in the log:

Link to URLs due to this forum blocking pasted URLs

Note the "cgne" suffix consistently on the failing URL's hostname. Every failing URL I've seen for Youtube features this cgne suffix. Wonder what this means...perhaps a Voda-specific, direct-peered URL? Wonder what "cgne" means in this context? Something to do with carrier-grade NAT (which I don't /believe/ Voda are using for consumers...)

Would anyone willing to do so please see if their own failing youtube videoplayback URLs also contain this cgne suffix, or anything else that might link them with mine. (Note: you'll need to creatively share them here, due to this technical forum blocking pasted URLs (lol). Easiest way to find this in Chrome is to hit F12, select the network tab, type "videoplayback" into the filter box in the top left and start mashing away at videos. The failing URLs will (eventually) show up in red and you can click on them to find the URL.)