Packet Loss Issue - Please help :(

[t1mmm]

Hi All,

I was hoping I might be able to get some help on something that's been infuriating over the last week or two.

I've recently moved into a new house which has fibre to the property. I'm using a Asus AC86u Router alongside a Fibertwist ONT.

I've been suffering from severe packet loss when gaming. My latency is always 4-5ms, 300mb up and 55 down when speed testing. Hard wired connection is also seeing the same issue. I've tried a couple of different ethernet cables,

I've tried pinging various IP's, e.g 1.1.1.1 and when hard wired I'm not seeing ANY loss at all. However when gaming I'm seeing the HUD notifications for packet loss pop up on nearlly all games.

My Nat type is open and connection appears good when testing within settings.

Does anyone have any ideas on what it might be? It's getting quite depressing that I can't resolve it and really impacting on playing games which is a big hobby of mine.

I'd be incredibly greatful if anyone had any advice.

Cheers and nice to meet you all,
Tim

 

[L&LD]

So are you saying this is an issue with Wi-Fi connections? Your description is a little confusing above (you state that there is an issue and there isn't an issue with a wired connection).

What firmware are you using on the router? When is the last time you updated it? When is the last time you performed a full reset on the router after flashing the latest firmware?

What wireless client device(s) are you testing with? Do they all have their wireless drivers fully updated? Have you tried resetting the network settings on the client devices? Does a reboot of the entire network help?

Troubleshooting 101 Asus/RMerlin Routers 2020

Top 10 Simple Asus/RMerlin firmware powered Router Troubleshooting steps to try first: NOTE: Although this is for Asus/RMerlin-firmware powered routers, the steps below may be relevant to all routers, to get to a quick fix for common symptoms. Check that the router’s System Time is accurate on...

www.snbforums.com

Have you tested with a different control channel?

Finally, what specific games are you having issues with? Have you checked that those servers are not at fault and not anything on your network?

 

[t1mmm]

So are you saying this is an issue with Wi-Fi connections? Your description is a little confusing above (you state that there is an issue and there isn't an issue with a wired connection).

What firmware are you using on the router? When is the last time you updated it? When is the last time you performed a full reset on the router after flashing the latest firmware?

What wireless client device(s) are you testing with? Do they all have their wireless drivers fully updated? Have you tried resetting the network settings on the client devices? Does a reboot of the entire network help?

Troubleshooting 101 Asus/RMerlin Routers 2020

Top 10 Simple Asus/RMerlin firmware powered Router Troubleshooting steps to try first: NOTE: Although this is for Asus/RMerlin-firmware powered routers, the steps below may be relevant to all routers, to get to a quick fix for common symptoms. Check that the router’s System Time is accurate on...

www.snbforums.com

Have you tested with a different control channel?

Finally, what specific games are you having issues with? Have you checked that those servers are not at fault and not anything on your network?

Hey

thank you so much for your reply. Really do appreciate it and sorry for the confusion.

this is purely on a wired connection. I’ve updated to the latest firmware 3.0.0.4.386.43129.

ive rebooted everything, factory reset everything and no joy.

Games wise I’ve tried them all and in some way I’m experiencing packet loss errors in the HUD’s for those games. Overwatch, fortnite, cod. Genuinely haven’t stopped researching it this week and I’m so out of ideas.

 

[L&LD]

I'm not sure where you got that firmware, but Asus shows the firmware below as the latest available for the RT-AC86U.

Version 3.0.0.4.386.42643
2021/04/28 61.87 MBytes
ASUS RT-AC86U Firmware version 3.0.0.4.386.42643
1. Fixed CVE-2021-3450, CVE2021-3449 OpenSSL related vulnerability.
2. Fixed authentication bypass vulnerability. Special thank Chris Bellows, Darren Kemp – Atredis Partners contribution.
3. Fixed PPTP and OpenVPN server username/password GUI bug.
4. Fixed high CPU utilization issue.
5. Fixed the fragattacks vulnerability.

Please unzip the firmware file first then check the MD5 code.
MD5: 3c8e995a903ab94877359f6e3b26482d

RT-AC86U｜WiFi Routers｜ASUS USA

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/RT-AC86U/FW_RT_AC86U_300438642643.zip

 

[t1mmm]

Hey

thank you so much for your reply. Really do appreciate it and sorry for the confusion.

this is purely on a wired connection. I’ve updated to the latest firmware 3.0.0.4.386.43129.

ive rebooted everything, factory reset everything and no joy.

Games wise I’ve tried them all and in some way I’m experiencing packet loss errors in the HUD’s for those games. Overwatch, fortnite, cod. Genuinely haven’t stopped researching it this week and I’m so out of ideas.

Sorry I’m being so useless. That is in fact the latest firmware installed on the router. Please see screenshot.

 

[L&LD]

And was a full reset performed afterward?

Did any of the suggestions in the offered link above help?

 

[follower]

Hi All,

I was hoping I might be able to get some help on something that's been infuriating over the last week or two.

I've recently moved into a new house which has fibre to the property. I'm using a Asus AC86u Router alongside a Fibertwist ONT.

I've been suffering from severe packet loss when gaming. My latency is always 4-5ms, 300mb up and 55 down when speed testing. Hard wired connection is also seeing the same issue. I've tried a couple of different ethernet cables,

I've tried pinging various IP's, e.g 1.1.1.1 and when hard wired I'm not seeing ANY loss at all. However when gaming I'm seeing the HUD notifications for packet loss pop up on nearlly all games.

My Nat type is open and connection appears good when testing within settings.

Does anyone have any ideas on what it might be? It's getting quite depressing that I can't resolve it and really impacting on playing games which is a big hobby of mine.

I'd be incredibly greatful if anyone had any advice.

Cheers and nice to meet you all,
Tim

I don't think that's the router or ISP issue. That's a game server route issue. If you have that issue a lot use a paid VPN for gaming like 'ExitLag'. It works great.
3 days free. So you can check it out the difference.

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Get a better online experience through gamer developed technology. No more issues with Lag, Ping, Packet Loss and Jitter. Try it out now for free!

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[t1mmm]

Thanks follower.

interestingly this is a new issue and not something I’ve had before, after living in a few houses and with various phone lines.

L&LD - thanks too for the link buddy I’ll take a look in the morning to see if there’s anything I can try.

Ive also sent a fairly strong worded email to the isp as I’m getting exhausted by it all now and I’ve tried everything.

 

[t1mmm]

And was a full reset performed afterward?

Did any of the suggestions in the offered link above help?

Morning L&LD.

Sadly I performed all of the steps above with my router and still seeing packet loss on the Xbox - literally just the xbox. The problem is it seems to be a UDP/TCP port issue but these are open within the router.

I've emailed my ISP and hopefully they will escalate it today.

 

[t1mmm]

Hi All,

Just to note the ISP have been looking into this and tried a few tests their side but it's still happening. I'm getting regular packet loss drops and i've exhausted every possible test i can./ It's all hard wired, the router firmware is updated. I've been through the troubleshooting steps L&LD kindly linked above but it's still happening and it's getting me really depressed.

Does anyone have any ideas or thoughts on what I might be able to do to resolve this? Do I need to change ISP's? I'm in a village with not a tonne of options so I'm really lost.

The ISP are fully convinced everything is fine and the lines good.

If anyone has any ideas at all id honestly really appreciate it so so much.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Given your testing this doesn't sound like it's a problem with your equipment or ISP connection as this is only effecting Xbox gaming.

If you see packet loss when connecting to particular game servers make a note of their IP addresses and then monitor the ping to those specific servers from another PC.

Do you have a different router you can swap out with the AC86U temporarily to see if the problem is consistent?

 

[t1mmm]

Hi Colin,

Thank you so much for your reply. The problem is, I don't know how to prove it is only literally the xbox experiencing any loss.

When testing directly to my girlfriends work laptop and pinging, we aren't seeing any loss there but is that an accurate test?

When I bought the router, I bought two devices - one was the ASUS ac86u (which i kept) and the other was the AC5400 TP Link. Both the same issues.

I've even plugged the xbox directly into the ONT (fibre to the premesis).

Is there anyone who might know what else i can try? Will literally pay for any support on this right now

 

[ColinTaylor]

When I bought the router, I bought two devices - one was the ASUS ac86u (which i kept) and the other was the AC5400 TP Link. Both the same issues.

I've even plugged the xbox directly into the ONT (fibre to the premesis).

So you've proved it's not an issue with the router. You also changed the Ethernet cable to the Xbox.

I know that you said you have open NAT but have you confirmed that your ISP is giving you a public IP address (Network Map > Internet status > WAN IP) and not a CGNAT address?

Are you using IPv4 only or IPv6?

How quickly can you confirm this problem exists when playing a game? It sounds like it happens straight away.

 

[ColinTaylor]

When testing directly to my girlfriends work laptop and pinging, we aren't seeing any loss there but is that an accurate test?

Where is your girlfriend's laptop, another town? Where were you pinging from/to, your own PC?

 

[t1mmm]

Colin, thanks so much for the replies.

Yes, it's a public IP as I know the ISP have been pinging it for testing.

It's currently IPv4 on the xbox UI.

It's instant, in fortnite, in overwatch i get constant packet loss symbols showing in the netgraph. Between 1-7% download and Upload.

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Here's an example.

My GF's laptop was plugged into my router and we were pinging various IP's.

Thanks again!

 

[ColinTaylor]

Thanks for the video. So this is some sort of in-game connection test or is it an Xbox system test?

My GF's laptop was plugged into my router and we were pinging various IP's.

I think you really need to determine that actual IP addresses of the game servers you're having the issue with. Then you can perform a traceroute to those addresses and see where the problem is. Bear i mind that if the game is connecting you directly to another player the packet loss could be on their connection not yours.

 

[t1mmm]

Hi Colin,

Sadly I've no idea how to get hold of the fortnite IP's or overwatch as an example, to test.

It's server based as the maps often contain 150 odd players!

 

[t1mmm]

P.S This was in game, rather than a test.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I found this article, it's a bit old so I don't know whether the information is still valid. It has a link to this: https://pingtestlive.com/fortnite and this: https://pingtestlive.com/overwatch

 

[t1mmm]

Thanks mate - a couple of spikes but i'm testing that on wifi.

Really just don't know how else I'm going to get rid of this packet loss issue