Like a lot of people, I have been WFH for the past 2 months. My home internet was fine until about 1.5 weeks ago, when I started getting terrible latency on Zoom (>1000ms latency for both audio and video) and recently the internet has been dropping completely, consistently between 1pm and 5pm local time.
Behavior:
Typically I get 150-200Mbps down and 5Mbps up. This works really well on my Google Wifi mesh network when things are working fine, the service is great. As of 1.5 weeks ago, I have been having very high latency and slow download speeds during the afternoons. More recently, the internet has started to completely drop. I am almost certain it's not an issue with the routers, but rather the modem or wiring outside my apartment. When I am having issues and I power cycle/restart my modem, the internet comes back for ~5 min, and then it crashes again. The most peculiar part is that the internet always comes back full strength after around 5pm daily and I never have issues at night.
My setup:
Model - Motorola MG7315 8x4 Cable Modem
Routers - two Google Wifi 1st gen mesh network routers
Here is the stats from my modem (at night, when the internet is working fine):
Downstream Bonded Channels Channel Lock Status Modulation Channel ID Freq. (MHz) Pwr (dBmV) SNR (dB) Corrected Uncorrected 1 Locked QAM256 8 471.0 3.9 41.3 28 0 2 Locked QAM256 9 477.0 3.7 41.9 31 0 3 Locked QAM256 10 483.0 3.9 42.0 31 0 4 Locked QAM256 11 489.0 4.2 41.9 38 0 5 Locked QAM256 12 495.0 4.2 41.9 27 0 6 Locked QAM256 13 507.0 4.0 41.7 52 0 7 Locked QAM256 14 513.0 3.7 41.8 55 0 8 Locked QAM256 15 519.0 3.3 41.4 48 0 Total 310 0
I also ran a traceroute (again at night, when the internet is working fine):
Traceroute has started… traceroute to 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets 1 testwifi.here (192.168.86.1) 8.865 ms 4.189 ms 4.873 ms 2 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 4.906 ms 4.228 ms 8.991 ms 3 96.120.89.157 (96.120.89.157) 41.908 ms 43.281 ms 43.313 ms 4 96.110.179.13 (96.110.179.13) 43.993 ms 41.227 ms 47.349 ms 5 po-2-rur01.sffolsom.ca.sfba.comcast.net (69.139.198.5) 42.966 ms 36.266 ms 14.658 ms 6 be-209-rar01.santaclara.ca.sfba.comcast.net (68.85.57.241) 16.111 ms 16.443 ms 16.328 ms 7 be-299-ar01.santaclara.ca.sfba.comcast.net (68.86.143.93) 16.776 ms 15.206 ms 13.515 ms
And finally, here is the Event log from my modem. Note that this log does include times when I had really bad/dropped connections and includes multiple modem restarts I performed:
Log Time Priority Description Time Not Established Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=00:40:36:4... Thu May 07 23:56:23 2020 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received -... Mon May 11 00:37:13 2020 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/... Mon May 11 00:37:28 2020 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/... Mon May 11 00:37:29 2020 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire FEC ... Mon May 11 00:41:13 2020 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no U... Mon May 11 12:48:56 2020 Critical (3) Resetting the cable modem due to docsDevResetNow Time Not Established Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=00:40:36:4... Mon May 11 13:58:38 2020 Critical (3) Resetting the cable modem due to docsDevResetNow Time Not Established Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=00:40:36:4... Time Not Established Notice (6) Honoring MDD; IP provisioning mode = IPv6 Mon May 11 20:03:50 2020 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/... Mon May 11 20:03:50 2020 Warning (5) MDD message timeout;CM-MAC=00:40:36:4a:af:b8;CMTS-MAC=00:01:... Mon May 11 20:03:57 2020 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/... Mon May 11 20:03:57 2020 Warning (5) MDD message timeout;CM-MAC=00:40:36:4a:af:b8;CMTS-MAC=00:01:... Mon May 11 20:06:26 2020 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/... Mon May 11 20:06:26 2020 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no U... Mon May 11 20:07:01 2020 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/... Mon May 11 20:07:01 2020 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no U... Mon May 11 20:07:20 2020 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/... Mon May 11 20:07:20 2020 Warning (5) MDD message timeout;CM-MAC=00:40:36:4a:af:b8;CMTS-MAC=00:01:... Mon May 11 20:07:30 2020 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/... Mon May 11 20:07:30 2020 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no U... Mon May 11 20:07:45 2020 Critical (3) SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/... Mon May 11 20:07:59 2020 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no U... Mon May 11 20:08:17 2020 Notice (6) Honoring MDD; IP provisioning mode = IPv6 Mon May 11 20:08:29 2020 Warning (5) ToD request sent - No Response received;CM-MAC=00:40:36:4a:a...
The downstream stats are good. What do the upstream power levels look like ?
Here is the upstream data (again this is while the internet is working fine; i'll try to capture again if i have service drops later today):
Upstream Bonded Channels Channel Lock Status Channel Type Channel ID Symb. Rate (Ksym/sec) Freq. (MHz) Pwr (dBmV) 1 Locked ATDMA 4 5120 35.6 44.8 2 Locked ATDMA 3 5120 29.2 45.0 3 Locked ATDMA 5 1280 40.4 45.0 4 Locked ATDMA 2 5120 22.8 45.3
I'm starting to have some service stability issues now and this is what a ping test looks like:
Ping has started… PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=0 ttl=53 time=249.568 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=246.819 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=53 time=486.781 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=53 time=567.907 ms Request timeout for icmp_seq 4 Request timeout for icmp_seq 5 Request timeout for icmp_seq 6 Request timeout for icmp_seq 7 Request timeout for icmp_seq 8 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=5 ttl=53 time=4674.579 ms Request timeout for icmp_seq 10 Request timeout for icmp_seq 11 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=12 ttl=53 time=726.842 ms Request timeout for icmp_seq 13 Request timeout for icmp_seq 14 Request timeout for icmp_seq 15 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=16 ttl=53 time=249.871 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=17 ttl=53 time=43.935 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=18 ttl=53 time=29.662 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=19 ttl=53 time=18.967 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=20 ttl=53 time=35.252 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=21 ttl=53 time=31.772 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=22 ttl=53 time=34.824 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=23 ttl=53 time=32.078 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=24 ttl=53 time=42.895 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=25 ttl=53 time=29.476 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=26 ttl=53 time=59.585 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=27 ttl=53 time=21.061 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=28 ttl=53 time=29.832 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=29 ttl=53 time=17.727 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=30 ttl=53 time=78.030 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=31 ttl=53 time=38.353 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=32 ttl=53 time=116.759 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=33 ttl=53 time=122.307 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=34 ttl=53 time=255.774 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=35 ttl=53 time=164.712 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=36 ttl=53 time=151.867 ms 64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=37 ttl=53 time=100.017 ms
as well as a traceroute:
Traceroute has started… traceroute to 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets 1 testwifi.here (192.168.86.1) 5.233 ms 5.036 ms 4.242 ms 2 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 6.474 ms 4.730 ms 4.257 ms 3 96.120.89.157 (96.120.89.157) 83.709 ms 48.184 ms 51.116 ms 4 96.110.179.13 (96.110.179.13) 38.532 ms 24.385 ms 18.673 ms 5 po-2-rur01.sffolsom.ca.sfba.comcast.net (69.139.198.5) 34.795 ms 27.142 ms 27.309 ms 6 be-209-rar01.santaclara.ca.sfba.comcast.net (68.85.57.241) 31.344 ms 32.112 ms 27.977 ms 7 be-299-ar01.santaclara.ca.sfba.comcast.net (68.86.143.93) 21.301 ms 28.676 ms 17.398 ms 8 96.112.146.26 (96.112.146.26) 27.848 ms 29.406 ms 22.281 ms 9 72.14.239.204 (72.14.239.204) 29.250 ms 31.880 ms 24.040 ms 10 209.85.247.55 (209.85.247.55) 27.318 ms 36.514 ms 53.049 ms 11 dns.google (8.8.8.8) 61.557 ms 53.650 ms 67.812 ms
I'm having exactly the same issue, and based on your traceroute it looks like you're also in the Bay Area. I imagine the connections are very congested here given so many people are working from home.
I've got the 175 Mb/s plan and it's fine at night and early in the morning, but during the day it's so slow to the point where I need to use "mobile hotspot" on my phone to get a usable connection. I'm using Ethernet so it's not a wifi problem. This has been happening since the start of April and Comcast support have not been helpful in resolving it at all.
Good luck.
Wow ok, sounds like the same EXACT problem. Yes, I'm in the Bay Area - San Francisco, specifically. Ialsopay for the 175Mbps package from Xfinity. Internet is stable and fast in morning hours (e.g. before 12pm) and at night (after ~6pm).
I could definitely see this just as overall platform congestion since a ton of tech workers are presumably all WFH and on high bandwidth programs like videoconferencing. The only odd thing for me is that things seemed to be OK until only ~2 weeks ago, but the WFH situation has been going on since March...
@Daniel15au does your service just get really slow or do you get dropped connections?
The upstream power is good as well but the error log entries indicate that something is going on. Perhaps there is noise ingress into the line(s) somewhere.
There are other signal stat figures that can't be read by the modem. They are the "Upstream Rx Power" (Upstream Receive Power Level), the "Upstream SNR Ch." (Upstream Signal To Noise Ratio), and the "Upstream ICFR" (In Channel Frequency Response). These are as equally important in diagnosing connectivity issues as are the modem's stats.
I'm going to escalate your issue to the Comcast corporate employees that are available to these boards. They will be able to poll the CMTS to see whether or not everything is in the green zone, see your node / cable plant and modem health, and also see a history plot for the modem. You should get a reply here in your topic. Good luck !
@EG thank you so much! from your expertise (and fully knowing I have only provided limited data/information), do you think the issue could be with my modem? I was thinking of buying a new modem with more channels/RAM to just test and rule out the modem as an issue, but don't feel that the issues I have observed necessarily support the hypothesis that the modem is at fault?
from all my research, i also feel like it could be an ingress issue, but outside of my apartment unit. for context, I live in a small apartment building in the city that has 7 separate apartment units. I'm assuming the xfinity line comes into the building and then there's a bunch of splitters to the individual units? i'm worried there could be leakage/connection issues on one of the lines leading to a unit other than mine, which might be causing issues that are difficult to diagnose.
@dwang953 wrote:
I was thinking of buying a new modem with more channels/RAM to just test and rule out the modem as an issue, but don't feel that the issues I have observed necessarily support the hypothesis that the modem is at fault?
Anything is possible but looking at those RF signal errors, it is much more likely to be a line / connection quality impairment rather than a modem hardware issue.
Hello dwang953. We appreciate you visiting and posting on our Forums. I can assist with further troubleshooting your internet speed / connectivity issues. Please reach out to me via private message and include your full name so I can assist you. To send a private message: click my name (ComcastJoeTru) to view my profile. Then click the link that says "Send a message" and there you can private message me.
it looks like comcast has network congestion everywhere, my entire neighborhood has the exact problem due to network congestion , the problem disappears at night as well.