iPlayer buffering

[JoeWright]

We had cityfibre installed yesterday.  Everything is solid (better even than before), except BBC iPlayer which on multiple PCs has gone bad.  Downgrading of quality after a couple of minutes and buffering.

Odd that everything else is very good (Youtube, Twitch, Channel 4, Channel 5, etc...).

Anything worth trying?  Thanks

[laptopman]

Is that full fibre what speed are you getting??

[Cynric]

@JoeWright 

A quick search suggests that this is worth a try, "Changed the DNS server (from automatic) on the router and the TV to Google (8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4) and miraculously the buffering stopped."

See https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Other-broadband-queries/Baffling-connection-problem-to-LG-smart-TV/m...

[JoeWright]

@laptopman 

Yep, cityfibre full fibre.  On the main machine I'm getting problems, download tonight was 675mbs.  Oddly, upload was consistently faster, 800-900mbs with nothing much else going on in the house.  On another machine that is connecting via a suspect cable (rush purchase from Homebase, was supposed to be cat 6) I'm getting only 100mbs but that's still 3 times faster than BT was. I've had buffering issues on iplayer on that machine as well. Tested speed on a phone and got about 100mbs via wifi.

@Cynric 

Thanks, I'd seen that thread but had glossed over that part.  I actually assumed it was that problem after having something similar from Virgin years ago, so tried the cloudfare 1.1.1.1 dns.  That didn't change things and neither has the google dns servers.  The google ones were causing some issues tonight (temp. dns lookup fails) so I'll change back to cloudfare or auto.

All other streaming services seem to be flying.  I watched the stats for nerds on youtube speed fill the buffer. So odd that iplayer is struggling.

[laptopman]

Is it any better now ??

[JoeWright]

Sorry for the late reply.

No. I thought I had solved it but that was a very temporary window of good performance.  However, the situation does seem more complicated...

From my old setup I had a spare router acting as a range extender.  I had lazily plugged that in and it seemed to work but I wondered if it was messing things up so I disconnected it. Things seemed to improve for a day or two. But that turns out to be random.

Oddly, the symptoms extend to more than streaming and seemed to vary by device. I have a PC that is rock solid, I have a PC with the streaming issues, I have an android phone that struggles with all internet things (its like the internet goes to sleep and has to be woken up with some page refreshing or just waiting, but can affect all internet based apps), a kindle that has streaming buffering issues, and a couple of other devices that I'm not sure about.

I was wondering if there is a problem with the vodafone router as all devices were fine before switching, and as my my main PC is rock solid it would seem the cityfibre feed is fine (actually a big improvement).

Not sure how to diagnose from here.

[Gemma]

@JoeWright - thanks for the detailed reply and the tests you have done. The next steps are for us to go through some live testing on your line. To help with this, please go to our Home Broadband Support page. 

[JoeWright]

@Gemma  Ok, just run the test.  It just came back with no network outages detected and gave the option to chat to someone online.  Since online went VERY badly previously I'm loathe to do that so what should I do next to diagnose?

Thanks

[Mark]

If you don't want to reach out to our team online @JoeWright, you can reach out to us by calling 191 from a Vodafone number, or 03333040191 from any other UK line.

[JoeWright]

Thanks @Mark 

Is there any more diagnostics I can do before making that call?  From previous experience of intermittent or subtle problems I would want as much info to give as possible.