Has POTN been exceptionally slow, or is it me

[gjl711]

It seems like many web sites have been exceptionally slow for me since just before xmas last year. I borrowed a network sniffer from work and have been monitoring my link for the past several days. While some sites just blaze with a ping round trip time of between 30 and 50 ms. with less than 1% dropped packets, many sites and, unfortunately POTN is one of them, are very slow with ranges from 30 to 200 but trending on the high side and over 25% lost packets and lots of collisions.

So, if you could, can you post what you are seeing?

in a command prompt window type:

ping photography-on-the.net

You'll see four lines something like:
Reply from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" bla bla bla time=xxms

At the bottom it will sum it up. Whats your average round trip time?

I think it's my link and I want to rattle my provider a bit letting them know something is amiss but before I do so, I want a bit of ammo.

[rudgej]

My POTN access seems about normal for me, and here are the ping stats:

Ping statistics for 216.40.233.201:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 131ms, Maximum = 134ms, Average = 132ms

[tommykjensen]

My ping stats at the moment


Ping statistics for 216.40.233.201:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 151ms, Maximum = 151ms, Average = 151ms

[gjl711]

Hmmm... It's looking like me. Few more like this and I'm calling Comcast and gettin' their butt out here.

[Pete]

Average of 143 for me, but I agree that I sometimes experience a bit of lag (usually when I should be working on something else).

[pcasciola]

Ping statistics for 216.40.233.201:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 53ms, Maximum = 55ms, Average = 54ms

[T.D.]

See here for information from Pekka: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?p=2546151&postcount=22

[Ronald S. Jr.]

I went to open a command prompt, and it always says it's in use by another program. Hmm...ideas?

[rudgej]

I went to open a command prompt, and it always says it's in use by another program. Hmm...ideas?
I came across this: http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/t-65945-Command-Prompt-wont-open-Used-by-another-program.html

Are your spyware and anti-virus applications up to date?

[Ronald S. Jr.]

No. o_O I better renew, eh?

[rudgej]

It might be an idea. ;) You can get free AV software such as Avast (http://www.avast.com/), and there are many free spyware applications such as Spybot (http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html).

[Woolburr]

Ping statistics for 216.40.233.201:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 44ms, Maximum = 58ms, Average = 47ms

[gjl711]

I came across this:Are your spyware and anti-virus applications up to date? Yes, made sure everything is updated. But that is why I borrowed the sniffer. I wanted to make sure no one was tying up the link. Other that the few applications I let check for updates like McAfee, AdAware, and a few others. In over a week of monitoring, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. I also cleared my firewall block list just so I can see who is at least trying. Other than the MS crap and a couple other things, everything looked quite clean.

See here for information from Pekka: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showpost.php?p=2546151&postcount=22
This might explain POTN, but there are several other sites that also are exceptionally slow. I've been looking at routing headers to see if it's something local, which I suspect, or something more upstream. Last time this happened, I was able to show that one certain path seemed bad and they identified a local switch which was marginal. That was several years ago and my link has been screaming up untill xmas.

[rudgej]

Yes, made sure everything is updated. But that is why I borrowed the sniffer. I wanted to make sure no one was tying up the link. Other that the few applications I let check for updates like McAfee, AdAware, and a few others. In over a week of monitoring, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. I also cleared my firewall block list just so I can see who is at least trying. Other than the MS crap and a couple other things, everything looked quite clean.
Slight crossed wires here I'm afraid. ;) I was replying to Ronald S. Jr. about his problems with his command prompt.

I dare say though, that it is good that you're updated as that would confirm your problem is more likely to be your ISP rather than your PC being so infected that the infections were using up your bandwidth.

[Ronald S. Jr.]

Not to continue hijacking, but I downloaded spybot, and it apparently got rid of 53 "problems", but I still can't open a command prompt. Guess I'll have to fork over the $50 for the upgrade.

[rudgej]

Not to continue hijacking, but I downloaded spybot, and it apparently got rid of 53 "problems", but I still can't open a command prompt. Guess I'll have to fork over the $50 for the upgrade.
That's a bummer. I presume that the $50 is for your current anti-virus subscription, but in the meantime, you could try Panda ActiveScan (http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/ActiveScan.htm) which is a free online check down through your browser.

[Jamdiver]

My ping stats......

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/Jamdiver/Untitled-1.jpg

[Woolburr]

That's a bummer. I presume that the $50 is for your current anti-virus subscription, but in the meantime, you could try Panda ActiveScan (http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/ActiveScan.htm) which is a free online check down through your browser.

And then spend the money to buy the full version of Panda...best protection I have found.

[timbernet]

POTN is hosted at EV1Servers which recently merged with The Planet - EV1 was a good company, and The Planet was a good company - but since their merger I have been having a lot of issues with the Planet (where my servers are kept)...

Something else - EV1 uses Cogent bandwidth, which is cheap bandwidth (100Mbps for $1K/month) - yet it is cheap bandwidth... They don't "peer" with other providers in every major city - so when I run a traceroute to a Cogent host in Portland Oregon I first have to go to San Francisco and then back up to Portland - 16 hops total even though they are just a few blocks apart....


All of that said - your performance issues could just be how your provider is peered with Cogent....

[Dan-o]

My ping....

http://stantoneagles.com/me/ping.jpg

[BeccaNH]

No problems here:

Pinging photography-on-the.net [216.40.233.201] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.40.233.201: bytes=32 time=56ms TTL=46
Reply from 216.40.233.201: bytes=32 time=58ms TTL=46
Reply from 216.40.233.201: bytes=32 time=55ms TTL=46
Reply from 216.40.233.201: bytes=32 time=60ms TTL=46

Ping statistics for 216.40.233.201:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 55ms, Maximum = 60ms, Average = 57ms

[TomPierce]

From Atlanta, GA.

Pinging photography-on-the.net [216.40.233.201] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.40.233.201: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=53
Reply from 216.40.233.201: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=53
Reply from 216.40.233.201: bytes=32 time=35ms TTL=53
Reply from 216.40.233.201: bytes=32 time=35ms TTL=53

Ping statistics for 216.40.233.201:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 34ms, Maximum = 35ms, Average = 34ms

[R_Metzel]

Average 56ms here

[gjl711]

Just a quick update. I called my provider today and we had a long chat. They told me that they are doing some work in the area but it should not be affecting my performance. They said that they would "monitor" it for a bit and I should call them back Monday. Sounds like a brush off to me but what the heck. I'll keep pinging them until something gets done. It is driving me crazy. I can load the page once, twice, no problems. Third time can take a minute to load. It is very erratic. I have started using their own home page as it also shows the same behavior only a lot worse. Round trip times can be as short as 32ms or forever with mostly a 50% timeout but sometimes as high a 75%. Anyway, thanx to all respondents. It is clearly an issue between me and my provider.

[Tsmith]

I experience the POTN slowness quite often. Try and click on a thread and its as if the site freezes up. This has been an issue for a while, kinda learned to deal with it though.

No junk on my system either so thats not the problem. Other sites work fine.

[ayotnoms]

results from the west coast...

[Citizensmith]

Not to continue hijacking, but I downloaded spybot, and it apparently got rid of 53 "problems", but I still can't open a command prompt. Guess I'll have to fork over the $50 for the upgrade.

Spybot (and adaware, etc) are good at dealing with 90% of spyware but something that locks out your command prompt is a trojan or a piece of spyware built well enough that it can protect itself. The $50 would be a waste of money. It probably came with something you downloaded an installed, casino software, cool looing little weather apps, or similar.

The best solution in that sort of circumstance is to reformat. It's actually a pretty good thing to do every 6 to 12 months anyway. If not a decent virus checker or trojan removal software will probably do the job.

[MDJAK]

I gave up ping (pong) years ago when my friend's wife routinely trounced me.

But I HAVE BEEN experiencing slowdowns on this site, especially when replying to threads.

It's caused me to stop the loading and attempt to submit again, and that's resulted in dupe posts. :evil:

me

[pcasciola]

I've been getting timeouts during replies, maybe 10% of the time. I'm at the point now where I copy my post into the clipboard (a quick Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C) before hitting 'submit reply' just in case.

Originally I was getting DNS timeout failures which was an Optimum Online problem, confirmed by others on broadbandreports.com. I switched to OpenDNS and haven't had a DNS failure since, but I still get about 5-10% timeout or near timeout on POTN hits lately.

[gjl711]

Well, the weekend monitoring of my link yielded results. I guess that there were not feeding me a line after all. When we called this morning with out case #, they said that there indeed is something wrong. Their thought is that the cable modem has somehow begun to fail. In any case, they are headed out here tomorrow first thing new cable modem in hand. Yea.. :):)

P.S. I have done a bit more poking around and nearly all web sites I access have some timed out packets. Today POTS is 50/50, sometimes quick, sometimes not. but my carriers home page sucks and continues to have over 50% of the packets time out. :)

[gjl711]

Well, it's been an interesting week and my saga continues. Bottom line, things still suck. Tuesday we had one of the repair guys come out. He waved his hands around a bit, switched me to a different server, got some ping results around 10% and said it was fixed. His claim is that 10% was good. Well, hours later is fell back to %25 dropped packets so we called them out again. Today another tech came out, she plugged in her meter and said "this link sucks". She tested the modem, wiring, splitters, tap, and all looked fine. Finally she replaced everything from the distribution box to the PC and it still sucks. However, she did fess up that they consider anything above 5% to be horrible and %25 is over the top horrible. She said that there is nothing else she can replace as we have new everything, including wiring from the pole to the pc and that the next step is to get the lineman in here to start working backwards from the distribution box. Oh well, we'll see who shows tomorrow.

[pcasciola]

Check out dslreports.com. There are some really smart techs hanging out on that forum.

[gjl711]

Hmmm... Interesting site. I ran the speed test three times. Once is screamed and I got back great results. The other two times, the test could not finish. I am convinced that something in the neighborhood is amiss. Maybe a squirrel chewed 1/2 way through a wire or it could be them little pests the voles.

[pcasciola]

Mine was bad about six months ago, and after a few complaints from me and several neighbors, we finally got a qualified tech out here, followed by a couple of trucks and they really fixed it up nice.

http://www.casciola.com/pics/speed.jpg

[gjl711]

Mine was bad about six months ago, and after a few complaints from me and several neighbors, we finally got a qualified tech out here, followed by a couple of trucks and they really fixed it up nice.

Yea, I don't even come close. I am just starting the crusade. The first tech that came out was the biggest waste of tech-skin I have ever seen. This guy knew less than my grandma ans she passed years ago. The young lady that came today at least knew what she was doing and worlds more competent. I am starting to talk to neighbors and get them rilled up as well. Many notice the poor performance. Anyway, here is m wimpy stats. :(:(

[pcasciola]

Holy $&)&@!!! Yeah, you got a problem there. Show that to Comcast if they don't believe you. See if you can convince a couple of your neighbors to complain too. That's what finally fixed it for me.

I just started a poll where everyone can post their speed test results:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=268179

[gjl711]

The saga continues. A new service tech came out today with a different box. He measured, pinged, through-putted for over 1/2 an hour and we together have finally determined that it has to be the modem itself. Everything rocks all the way to the coax on the back of the modem, but sucks from their. Anyway, new modem coming out tonight. Then it's surfin' time :)