Bitrate dropping every 7 minutes, tested with a multitude of equipment

V

v2rt1go

New Member
Hey guys, I need some help diagnosing this problem.

1666126935348.png

Whenever I stream, at some point my bitrate will start dropping every 7 minutes, like, on the dot.

I haven't been extremely methodical with documenting my troubleshooting, but here is a general list:

  • This happens for every device I stream from (different hardware and OS: desktop PC windows 11 OBS 28, laptop Windows 10 OBS 27, Streamlabs iOS)
  • I've swapped modems (my first was a netgear router modem combo with intel puma chipset, now just a standalone netgear modem no intel puma)
  • I've swapped numerous routers (initial modem router combo, TPlink router, new netgear router, now a new ASUS router)
  • I've turned the wifi off on all routers and issue still persists
  • I've connected the modem and router directly to my cable drop in my backyard and wired my laptop, problem still persisted
  • I've ran CMD pings to my router, modem, and 8.8.8.8. The latency to my modem and router never drops, the ping to 8.8.8.8 times out during bitrate drops in OBS.
  • I had an ISP tech come out to the house. He said he found noise in my coax cabling runs, replaced the cables, and left. Issue persisted.
Yesterday I went and bought a new ASUS router that was capable of network bandwidth monitoring per device since my netgear router couldn't. I was trying to figure out if I had a device on my network doing large downloads or uploads every 7 minutes, but it was hard to tell because it didn't break down activity for devices or apps by the minute, only by the hour. When my bitrate would drop, my upload graph would stop flatlining. My download graph would sometimes cut to 0, but other times it wouldn't. I had some random programs with large uploads, but they would cease uploading while the bitrate drops persisted.

There are only 3 possibilities I can think of at this point:

  1. When I had all my network equipment hooked up to my cable drop in the back yard, I may have forgotten to turn off my router's wifi, and there may still be some network device connected that has been wrecking havoc on my bandwidth somehow every 7 minutes that I haven't discovered yet. When I get home today I will completely disconnect every wired device and turn off all wifi besides my streaming computer and see what this does.
  2. Perhaps Netgear modems don't work with my ISP? I have Astound, formerly grande, and own my own equipment, but maybe this is some form of sabotage to push me to rent their equipment instead. I just hate to keep buying more and more network gear for troubleshooting
  3. My ISP's fault? This would obviously be the most popular opinion but the fact that my internet literally drops so relentlessly on the 7 minute timer, I feel like a cable infrastructure issue would be more sporadic, but I may just be wrong in that assumption.
Would anybody happen to have any input? I feel like once I run my last isolation test tonight that I'll pretty much have no other conclusion than my ISP or netgear modems. And I don't want to reschedule a tech without feeling confident in saying what he did last time wasn't enough and the issue is no longer on my end.
 

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.norman.

.norman.

Member
you can test your local hardware by setting up your own rtmp server on a computer on your network and streaming to it for a test. this will help to determine if the problem is within your local network or if it is possibly something with your connection to your ISP.

as far as your theory about sabotage by your ISP, as crazy as it may sound i know for a fact that at least 1 major US ISP did exactly that many years ago, they were blacklisting customer owned routers on their modems, they would allow it for about a month or 2 then they would disable it in an effort to get the customer to pay for wireless from the company (at the time this ISP charged extra for wireless), in the end they were eventually caught i don't remember the exact outcome, but it comparable to a slap on the hand.

if you are interested in trying to setup your own rtmp server for testing, try monaserver, small server, easy to setup. search youtube for videos.

There is a chance that the issue is with your ISP, but if it is something as repeatable as every 7 minutes that is less likely to be on the ISP. but there still could be other mitigating factors such as your modem is transmitting outside of its normal operating range, there could be a downstream SNR issue caused by damaged lines. all of which your ISP will be able to verify (the tech may not want to do it, but that is a different story). you should be able to check some of this by logging into the modems GUI and locating the signal information, depending on the modem there will be information about the modems transmit power levels as well as the receive levels (there will likely be more than one for both) if you can locate this information, a good rule of thumb for proper levels would be: transmit (TX): 32-49 dbmv. receive(RX): -10 - +10 dbmv). if you get any SNR information anything below 34 is going to be a problem.

Good luck
 
V

v2rt1go

New Member
ngholson said:
you can test your local hardware by setting up your own rtmp server on a computer on your network and streaming to it for a test. this will help to determine if the problem is within your local network or if it is possibly something with your connection to your ISP.

as far as your theory about sabotage by your ISP, as crazy as it may sound i know for a fact that at least 1 major US ISP did exactly that many years ago, they were blacklisting customer owned routers on their modems, they would allow it for about a month or 2 then they would disable it in an effort to get the customer to pay for wireless from the company (at the time this ISP charged extra for wireless), in the end they were eventually caught i don't remember the exact outcome, but it comparable to a slap on the hand.

if you are interested in trying to setup your own rtmp server for testing, try monaserver, small server, easy to setup. search youtube for videos.

There is a chance that the issue is with your ISP, but if it is something as repeatable as every 7 minutes that is less likely to be on the ISP. but there still could be other mitigating factors such as your modem is transmitting outside of its normal operating range, there could be a downstream SNR issue caused by damaged lines. all of which your ISP will be able to verify (the tech may not want to do it, but that is a different story). you should be able to check some of this by logging into the modems GUI and locating the signal information, depending on the modem there will be information about the modems transmit power levels as well as the receive levels (there will likely be more than one for both) if you can locate this information, a good rule of thumb for proper levels would be: transmit (TX): 32-49 dbmv. receive(RX): -10 - +10 dbmv). if you get any SNR information anything below 34 is going to be a problem.

Good luck
Click to expand...

I Isolated my one laptop streaming today and still had drops. When I checked the modem status, all the power levels seemed to be in good ranges, however channel 32 was not locked. I'm going to come home for lunch and start a test stream. If my bitrate isn't dropping, I'll check the modem settings to see if this channel is locked. That could be my issue.
 
V

v2rt1go

New Member
Here's my newest lore drop:

1666193737180.png


I've been running my troubleshooting stream all morning and noticed this phenomenon. So I went from weirdly consistent bitrate drops every 7 mins, to now this scenario of perfectly good bitrate for hours at a time then BAM crazy instability but for some reason with a random hard floor on the bitrate @ 1150 kbps. This phenomenon has been repeated for my past 3 streams now.

Also, after examining my modem, the power levels all seem to be good. I found in my router settings a second-to-second bandwidth monitor per device in my QOS settings so I can see if there is a device causing this to my network, however I am running out of ideas. I will attempt the local RTMP server before reaching out to my ISP and letting them know if they can't fix this, I will be changing providers.
 
V

v2rt1go

New Member
Also, I don't know if I'm interpreting these graphs correctly from my router software, but my packets received from the local network, and packets sent out from my router have pretty identical graphs. This intuitively makes me think my networking gear is working perfectly and simply sending out what it receives, just not receiving good bitrate? I'm hesitant to believe this since I've tried direct ethernet to my router with different devices and OS multiple times and the problem persisted, so surely this doesn't mean that.

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