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?

[Alecmac007]

Here is the traceroute to bbc.co.uk as requested.

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [151.101.64.81]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms vodafone.broadband [192.168.1.1]
2 6 ms 6 ms 4 ms host-212-158-250-33.dslgb.com [212.158.250.33]
3 31 ms 8 ms 8 ms 63.130.105.130
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 14 ms 8 ms 75 ms 151.101.64.81

[mmotti]

Here's mine (yes, I'm on OpenWRT but the same behaviour is apparent on the Vodafone box)

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [151.101.192.81]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  OpenWrt.lan [192.168.1.1]
  2    16 ms    16 ms    15 ms  host-212-158-250-33.dslgb.com [212.158.250.33]
  3    19 ms    20 ms    20 ms  63.130.105.130
  4    20 ms    25 ms    19 ms  90.255.251.105
  5    20 ms    19 ms    20 ms  151.101.192.81

Trace complete.

Also here's some further evidence of YouTube in particular with FireFox Profiler that I caught a day or so ago before I realised it was a routing issue (captured whilst video was taking eternity to load):

[Ripshod]

Try with all the extensions in Firefox disabled.

212.158.250.33

Is formally cable & wireless and has caused these problems since way back. I can't get a true identity from Arin as it hasn't been updated since 1997. However, the ping time would suggest a great distance - Leeds to Edinburgh is just 12ms. 

[mmotti]

Just for the sake of being fair, here it is again with all Firefox addons disabled (troubleshooting mode)

[Alecmac007]

well it sounds like you have more technical evidence to raise to the support team. Please let me know if you get anywhere with Vodafone admitting a fault as well as providing a solution. Such a shame as internet speed is great and only issue is this for the past week

[mmotti]

It's pretty slow going at the moment but I appreciate it's the weekend. They mentioned they want to test the line despite the fact that it's an issue further down the network than that.

I've also just messaged them to let them know it's not a Vodafone router connected to the socket in case it causes diagnostic issues, so they may very well flat out refuse to help me despite it being proven to be an issue with the network with multiple users in the same area affected.

It may help push the issue further if you raise it too in case they do end up just throwing out the "we won't support anything without our equipment" line. I threw my Vodafone router out long ago.

[Alecmac007]

Will do, what is he best way to explain it so I don’t go round the whole reboot router response?

keen to demonstrate similar people have the same issue so anyway to tie in with existing issues might make it easier for them to go up the chain of command.

[mmotti]

It's difficult to say as no matter what you say to the "first line" support, they're going to follow a set script / set of procedures so they will probably take little notice of the fact it's not a router / household line issue.

However I would advise specifically mentioning that it appears to be a routing issue on their side being that otherwise the internet is fine, it's just YouTube/Google play issues. It would also probably be important to mention that the problems can be mitigated by running a VPN or switching to mobile data although stressing that this is not practical. After all, if you can use YouTube etc through a VPN whilst using the same network and this is the case for multiple people, how does this not scream an issue on their end somewhere?! Perhaps also worth mentioning that actually browsing YouTube/Play store is fine and that it's when you actually go to interact (i.e. play a video or download an app) that the fault occurs.

I'm really not sure how much clearer we can make it for them, but it'll definitely be helpful if you're using the Vodafone router.

[daern]

Trying to reply to this thread, but my posts keep getting deleted - any chance a moderator can go in and restore them please? They have some weird URLs in them, but they are pertinent to this discussion!

Edit: reposted below - hopefully it'll work this time!

[rogfrog]

Really bad for me today, I can't watch anything on youtube.  BBC videos are also stuttering, everything else is fine and speedtests etc show no issues at all.

If I access youtube via a VPN it works perfectly.