What could be the problem with my internet?

[Botond]

Hi,

 

I'm having problems with my internet connection. Some of the symptoms:

• Some pages load slowly or don't load at all for the first time. After waiting a bit and doing some refreshes, it usually loads, but it's still slow sometimes.
• My samsung tablet could not update because it could not connect to the update server to check for updates
• It could take tens of minutes to launch League of Legends. When I try to launch it, it usually brings up something that indicates that it's loading (e.g. the Riot Client logo), but most of the time it just goes away and does seemingly nothing. If I close the Riot Client from the task manager, I can start it again from the beginning. When the game client loads, it usually can't load the things inside it, usually with different errors. I'm attaching a screenshot of one of the error messages.
• The speedtest is usually not working. I tried it using the webpage, using the Windows application and using the Android application. I'm attaching a screenshot of the error messages.

However, I can watch 4K videos on youtube without distruction, for example. The first symptom I noticed was the one with the League of Legends, and I thought that it's the fault of my PC, but the same thing happens on both my laptop and PC using my home internet, and it does not if I use my mobile data, for example. The speedtests are also working with my mobile data connection.

 

What did I try:

• restart the router several times
• test it with both wifi and ethernet (using different ethernet ports as well)
• test it with different devices
• check the router if there is any port/ip adrress is blocked
• wait a few days hoping that it would go away

 

I'm also attaching the result of pinging google.com on windows (with the "ping -l 512 -n 100 www.google.com" command). It had fluctuation, but no packet loss.

 

My internet speed, according to my provider: 500Mbps down, 22Mbps up.

 

I contacted my ISP a few days ago and all they said was that they will look into it, but I don't expect anything from it anymore.

 

Note that I'm using another router in my room connected to the modem provided by the isp, both for it's switch and ap property (to get better wifi here, and to be able to use more devices with cable). I don't think that it can cause the problem, but you never know.

 

Questions: What could be the source of the problem? What could I tell to my provider to look into?

 

This might not be relevant, but I used to have the internet from the same provider at  my previous house. Back there, I had a problem with not being able to connect to a vpn provided by my work place. They solved the problem and they told me that the problem was that I had in ipv6 address but not an ipv4, and some services require it. Could it be the problem this time again? Now I'm able to connect to the same vpn.

 

Thanks in advance,

Botond

ping result.txt

[mtz_federico]

Did you change your DNS server? Does it only happen when you use your router (not the ISP one)?

check your score in test-ipv6.com.

 

It could be some ipv6 related problem. Specifically with NAT64/DNS64.

 

You also forgot to attach the result of the ping. And why are you using ping -l 512?

[Falcon1986]

20 hours ago, Botond said:

My internet speed, according to my provider: 500Mbps up, 22Mbps down.

Should be the other way around.

 

20 hours ago, Botond said:

I'm using another router in my room connected to the modem provided by the isp

Make and model of each, please. And who is your ISP? What type of internet connection?

 

20 hours ago, Botond said:

test it with both wifi and ethernet (using different ethernet ports as well)

For the ISP device or your router?

[Botond]

 

Thank you for your replies!

 

5 hours ago, mtz_federico said:

Did you change your DNS server? Does it only happen when you use your router (not the ISP one)?

check your score in test-ipv6.com.

 

It could be some ipv6 related problem. Specifically with NAT64/DNS64.

 

You also forgot to attach the result of the ping. And why are you using ping -l 512?

I added the ping result to the post, thank you. I used the -l 512 just to increase the package size, but it should not matter much, I think. I think I did not modify the DNS server. I tested it both on my phone and on my PC. I'm attaching them to this post. When I ran it previously on my pc, I've got 9/10, but could not screenshot it. If it matters, the speedtest was working at the time of testing on my pc, and was not working on my mobile. No, it happen both on the ISP's modem and my router.

 

2 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

Should be the other way around.

 

Make and model of each, please. And who is your ISP? What type of internet connection?

 

For the ISP device or your router?

Thanks, I fixed the up-down confusion. My router is a TP-Link Archer AX20. Our ISP is Vodafone (it bought the UPC), and I'm living in Hungary. The modem is Compal Broadband Networks CH7465VF. What do you mean by the type of internet connection? I'm having a coaxial cable connected to the modem; does it answer your question? I tested it both from my router (both ethernet and wifi) and the modem (both ethernet and wifi; and using it at the moment).

Updates:

• The ISP replied to our report and it find nothing wrong with it (from the distance).
• I did a factory reset on the modem (it was suggested by the support), but it did not solve the problem.
• I disconnected my router from the modem and instead plugging in the ethernet cable directly into my PC. It did not solve the problem.
• I checked that the modem is using ipv6, and my previous one was using ipv6 (checked it in the modem's info page).
• They are sending someone in person to check it at the end of the week, but this does not sound comforting to me.

[mtz_federico]

18 hours ago, Botond said:

...

I find it weird that your phone only has ipv6 but your desktop is dual stack (has ipv4 and ipv6). You mentioned that the first test that you ran on your PC came back as 9/10 and later came back as 10/10, if you run the test multiple times does it switch between the two often? (like sometimes 9/10 and then 10/10 and then later back to 9/10)

 

You are going to have to see what your ISP does because this seems like an ipv6 related issue (my guess is something related to NAT64/DNS64) and the only things that you could really do is make sure that you have ipv6 and ipv4 on and are using your ISP's DNS (specially for ipv6).

 

NAT64 and DNS64 make your computer think that all domains have an ipv6 address and route those that don't actually have one via the ISP's routers. This is used because we have ran out of ipv4 addresses and most of the internet hasn't transitioned to ipv6.

 

[Botond]

On 10/13/2021 at 6:29 PM, mtz_federico said:

I find it weird that your phone only has ipv6 but your desktop is dual stack (has ipv4 and ipv6). You mentioned that the first test that you ran on your PC came back as 9/10 and later came back as 10/10, if you run the test multiple times does it switch between the two often? (like sometimes 9/10 and then 10/10 and then later back to 9/10)

 

You are going to have to see what your ISP does because this seems like an ipv6 related issue (my guess is something related to NAT64/DNS64) and the only things that you could really do is make sure that you have ipv6 and ipv4 on and are using your ISP's DNS (specially for ipv6).

 

NAT64 and DNS64 make your computer think that all domains have an ipv6 address and route those that don't actually have one via the ISP's routers. This is used because we have ran out of ipv4 addresses and most of the internet hasn't transitioned to ipv6.

 

I tried to reproduce the switching, but I did not succeed.

 

The ISP sent someone yesterday, who found some problems with the coaxial cable (he removed 1 old splitter and 1 bad part). He also told me that our ethernet cables are bad and it can cause the problem as well (one was squeezed a bit by a door; we can't run them through the wall, so we need to run it on the floor, besides the walls). I told him what you said, but he did nothing with it. After he went away, I started to notice the same problems again. I unplugged all of the ethernet cables and started using the modem's wifi, and it was OK. I replaced the cables, used my pc with and without my router, but the problems were present. Now I'm using it with my router connected, but my pc disconnected, and it seems to work. So connecting my pc to the network might be the source of the problem?

[mtz_federico]

I can't think of anything that your PC could be doing. Maybe @Alex Atkin UK@Donut417or @Falcon1986 have an idea of what this could be.

[Falcon1986]

6 hours ago, Botond said:

I unplugged all of the ethernet cables and started using the modem's wifi, and it was OK. I replaced the cables, used my pc with and without my router, but the problems were present. Now I'm using it with my router connected, but my pc disconnected, and it seems to work. So connecting my pc to the network might be the source of the problem?

Sounds like your ethernet cables might be defective. Even new cables that are poor quality can have issues. Check the link status in your adapter properties to see if 1Gbps is maintained. Additionally, you can check to see if performing an iperf3 LAN speed test gives consistent results. If you don't want to deal with CLI, try OpenSpeedTest.

 

What type of ethernet cable are you using? Is it running through anything else between the computer and the router/gateway? When you changed the cable, did you also change the one in between the router and gateway?

 

My only other suggestion would be to change the DNS servers for both ipv4 and ipv6. Use one provider...

• Google DNS

  IPv4
  Primary DNS: 8.8.8.8
  Secondary DNS: 8.8.4.4
  
  IPv6
  Primary DNS: 2001:4860:4860::8888
  Secondary DNS: 2001:4860:4860::8844

   

• Cloudflare DNS

  IPv4
  Primary DNS: 1.1.1.1
  Secondary DNS: 1.0.0.1
  
  IPv6
  Primary DNS: 2606:4700:4700::1111
  Secondary DNS: 2606:4700:4700::1001

   

• Quad9 DNS

  IPv4
  Primary DNS: 9.9.9.9
  Secondary DNS: 149.112.112.112
  
  IPv6
  Primary DNS: 2620:fe::fe
  Secondary DNS: 2620:fe::9

   

[Botond]

On 10/15/2021 at 9:39 PM, Falcon1986 said:

Sounds like your ethernet cables might be defective. Even new cables that are poor quality can have issues. Check the link status in your adapter properties to see if 1Gbps is maintained. Additionally, you can check to see if performing an iperf3 LAN speed test gives consistent results. If you don't want to deal with CLI, try OpenSpeedTest.

 

What type of ethernet cable are you using? Is it running through anything else between the computer and the router/gateway? When you changed the cable, did you also change the one in between the router and gateway?

 

My only other suggestion would be to change the DNS servers for both ipv4 and ipv6. Use one provider...

• Google DNS

  
  IPv4
  Primary DNS: 8.8.8.8
  Secondary DNS: 8.8.4.4
  
  IPv6
  Primary DNS: 2001:4860:4860::8888
  Secondary DNS: 2001:4860:4860::8844

   

• Cloudflare DNS

  
  IPv4
  Primary DNS: 1.1.1.1
  Secondary DNS: 1.0.0.1
  
  IPv6
  Primary DNS: 2606:4700:4700::1111
  Secondary DNS: 2606:4700:4700::1001

   

• Quad9 DNS

  
  IPv4
  Primary DNS: 9.9.9.9
  Secondary DNS: 149.112.112.112
  
  IPv6
  Primary DNS: 2620:fe::fe
  Secondary DNS: 2620:fe::9

   

I have 2 long enough cable to connect my modem and my router and I tried them both. Tried them both also to connect my PC directly to the modem. They seemed to work when my PC was not connected to the network. I also tried to use several different cables between my router and pc. It had no effect.

 

Now I'm back to the original cables, but I reinstalled my operating system on Friday, because I was so fed up with it (I was running Windows 11 beta; now I installed a fresh Windows 11 from Microsoft's website). I didn't have a lot of time to test it (maybe some hours), but it seems to work now. I'll try to see how it works in the next few days, and I'll come back with an update. Thank you for your replies!

 

[Botond]

Update: the reinstall did not solve the problem after all. I called the ISP and told them that I want IPv4 instead of the IPv6, and they switched it. It happened about 5 days ago, and everything works fine! However, I still don't know why was my pc making it bad.