Intermittent connection loss, very annoying

[blopsss]

I am getting an intermittent connection loss with my FIOS.  The problem has been occurring for almost a year now, pretty much since the day I got FIOS.  It's fairly annoying as it seems to happen for 10-30 seconds each time when I'm trying to do internet browsing.  In the recent weeks I've been trying to diagnose the issue and found this old thread that was resolved:

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-TV-Technical-Assistance/Verizon-FIOS-intermittent-connection-drops...

This person is basically describing my exact problem.  I am now running a PingLog app, which will log each time my connection times out for a ping against google's DNS (8.8.8.8) 3 consecutive times (5 seconds between each ping).  I log approximately 10 of these drops per 24 hour period, just like the person posting in the link above.

I've called Verizon tech support and was sent a new Router which obviously did nothing.  I was also told there was nothing wrong with my "signal".  When the problem occurs, my FIOS TV still works fine.

Is the solution replacing/servicing the PON card in my area like the post linked above indicates?  How do I get the Verizon techs to come out and actually "know how to" diagnose this instead of kick me around doing basic tests that I know won't work?

Thanks!!

[blopsss]

I am getting an intermittent connection loss with my FIOS.  The problem has been occurring for almost a year now, pretty much since the day I got FIOS.  It's fairly annoying as it seems to happen for 10-30 seconds each time when I'm trying to do internet browsing.  In the recent weeks I've been trying to diagnose the issue and found this old thread that was resolved:

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-TV-Technical-Assistance/Verizon-FIOS-intermittent-connection-drops...

This person is basically describing my exact problem.  I am now running a PingLog app, which will log each time my connection times out for a ping against google's DNS (8.8.8.8) 3 consecutive times (5 seconds between each ping).  I log approximately 10 of these drops per 24 hour period, just like the person posting in the link above.

I've called Verizon tech support and was sent a new Router which obviously did nothing.  I was also told there was nothing wrong with my "signal".  When the problem occurs, my FIOS TV still works fine.

Is the solution replacing/servicing the PON card in my area like the post linked above indicates?  How do I get the Verizon techs to come out and actually "know how to" diagnose this instead of kick me around doing basic tests that I know won't work?

Thanks!!

[Hubrisnxs]

intermittent connection loss is very annoying, and tough to diagnose.  You might find that you're problem is slightly different then the other guys, but if it turns out to be identical, then you have to go through the normal troubleshooting that everyone goes through.  there isn't a good way to skip past those stages and simply have them replace a PON card.

replacing a PON card for Verizon seems to be a really big deal, and they do it as a very very very last step usually.

So just out of curiosity, are you wired or wireless when you get this problem?  did you want some other possibilities that it could be?   

[blopsss]

Thanks for the reply.  So at this point should I just call Verizon again?  Does this forum help expedite things with Verizon tech support at all?  I'm always open to other suggestions you may have.

I should have mentioned in my original post that this is regardless of wired or wireless.  My network of computers is very small and doesn't typically run anything that will tax bandwidth (torrents).  When I'm running the ping logger, I'm directly connected to the router.  Changing the router itself also did not help, so I suspect it is something at my outdoor box or the PON card.

One more quick question and forgive me for my ignorance, but if my coax signal coming into the house is bad, my TV would also be adversly affected, yes?  This never happens and TV always works fine.

The problem seems to also get worse the more I browse.  If I'm clicking around a lot going from youtube to google to yahoo to cnn to espn, etc. etc. I'll lose my connection in a matter of minutes.  Tried on several PCs, mobile devices, wired, and wireless.

[Hubrisnxs]

when the connection is severe, then you may want to run a couple traceroutes to 8.8.8.8   or www.yahoo.com  and post the results here,  we can take a look.  

basically if the problem is on a Verizon Router, they may be able to do something, if it's outside their network - maybe not.   but the traceroutes will tell us a lot.

make sure your on a hardwired machine when you do those traceroutes.  

[blopsss]

I can practically ALWAYS recreate the problem by doing the following procedure:

1) Open up my web browser

2) Go to google.com, followed by yahoo.com, youtube.com, espn.com, cnn.com, facebook.com once each is finished loading.

3) At about the 4th or 5th website I hit, my browser gets a timeout and my pinglogger starts timing out as well for about 20-30 seconds straight.

I just ran a tracert during this to the google DNS, and the request just times out at the first hop.  When it's recovered, the tracert goes through normally.

  1     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3     *       11 ms     7 ms  G5-0-8-1827.WASHDC-LCR-08.verizon-gni.net [130.8
1.140.154]
  4     9 ms     7 ms     9 ms  so-1-1-0-0.RES-BB-RTR2.verizon-gni.net [130.81.2
9.2]
  5    15 ms     7 ms    12 ms  0.so-6-1-0.XL4.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.36.237]
  6    17 ms     7 ms    10 ms  0.ae4.BR1.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.33.121]
  7    16 ms     9 ms     7 ms  192.205.36.141
  8    16 ms    10 ms    23 ms  12.122.81.246
  9    12 ms     9 ms    10 ms  12.122.135.149
 10    79 ms    35 ms    41 ms  12.88.155.14
 11     9 ms    11 ms    17 ms  216.239.48.112
 12    18 ms    17 ms     9 ms  72.14.236.200
 13    14 ms    15 ms    19 ms  216.239.49.149
 14    18 ms    16 ms    12 ms  google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]

Trace complete.

Above is what I see when it finally comes back after waiting on the first 2 hops for 10-20 seconds timing out.

A few other quirks I've noticed.  The PingLog running by itself (without me trying to web browse) logs significantly less connection drops, e.g. during the day when I'm at the office and no one is using my FIOS connection (other than the PingLogger).  I also rarely disconnect from online gaming, for instance battle.net.  It feels as if Verizon is throttling my web browsing capabilities on every 5th website I visit in a 20 second timespan.  I've just recreated the problem 3 times now in typing this response.  Seems ridiculous, no?  Is this some sort of Verizon DNS issue then?

Anything else I can try to troubleshoot with?

[blopsss]

Just for reference, here's a healthy trace route when everything is "working normally"

Tracing route to google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [192.168.1.1]
  2     9 ms     9 ms     9 ms  L100.WASHDC-VFTTP-127.verizon-gni.net [96.241.32
.1]
  3    12 ms     9 ms    10 ms  G5-0-8-1827.WASHDC-LCR-08.verizon-gni.net [130.8
1.140.154]
  4    11 ms    10 ms     9 ms  so-1-1-0-0.RES-BB-RTR2.verizon-gni.net [130.81.2
9.2]
  5    13 ms     9 ms     9 ms  0.so-2-3-0.XL4.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.30.13]
  6    12 ms     9 ms    10 ms  0.ae4.BR1.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.33.121]
  7    14 ms     8 ms     9 ms  192.205.36.141
  8    16 ms    17 ms     9 ms  12.122.81.250
  9    13 ms     9 ms     9 ms  12.122.134.157
 10    39 ms    39 ms    51 ms  12.88.155.14
 11    18 ms    19 ms    18 ms  216.239.48.112
 12    10 ms    12 ms    17 ms  72.14.236.200
 13    12 ms    20 ms    18 ms  72.14.232.21
 14    10 ms     8 ms     8 ms  google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]

Trace complete.

[Hubrisnxs]

that is pretty trippy,  I'll tell ya what though,  if it's timing out to the 192.168.1.1 gateway when it's baed, then that throws up a possibility of a bad ethernet cable on that machine, or a bad router port?    

that''s my first thought at least.

[blopsss]

Thanks again for the reply.  You would think that based on where the timeout is, but take a look at this tracert I did 30 seconds ago when the connection is acting up again.  Keep in mind I'm only starting the tracert once a website fails to load. so the first hop will always be "broken".  Notice all of the hops that time out in between.

Tracing route to google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  2    13 ms     8 ms    10 ms  L100.WASHDC-VFTTP-127.verizon-gni.net [96.241.32
.1]
  3    13 ms     8 ms     9 ms  G5-0-8-1827.WASHDC-LCR-08.verizon-gni.net [130.8
1.140.154]
  4    19 ms    19 ms    18 ms  so-1-1-0-0.RES-BB-RTR2.verizon-gni.net [130.81.2
9.2]
  5    22 ms     *        *     0.so-2-3-0.XL4.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.30.13]
  6     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  7    17 ms    11 ms     7 ms  192.205.36.141
  8     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  9     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 10     *       49 ms    48 ms  12.88.155.14
 11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 12    12 ms    12 ms    15 ms  72.14.236.200
 13    20 ms    13 ms    17 ms  216.239.49.145
 14    13 ms     9 ms    10 ms  google-public-dns-a.google.com [8.8.8.8]

Trace complete.

[Anti-Phish1]

That traceroute says you've got a problem between your PC and the router.

The ICMP ECHO packets are not getting to the router and back.

You need to address that before looking at issues beyond your router.

A ping to your router should come back 100% of the time in 1ms or less.

I can't explain why pings start to fail after browsing some number of sites.

Since you've replaced the router, it would seem it's not the router.

You've also tried this on a couple of machines so that should rule out a bad NIC.

The only thing left are cables or something that is causing the router to hang.

If you reboot (power cycle) the router, I would assume the problem clears until you open several sites again.

What revision Actiontec do you have.

[blopsss]

Thanks.  I will not rule out the fact that it could be my Desktop's NIC (hardware error? any possible explanation?).  I've never seen my Local Area Network Connection go down (indiciated in the taskbar) so I've assumed my NIC is fine.  I'm going to try to get another PC here in the next several days (going on vacation soon).  I just changed the cable between my router and Desktop and recreated the problem again, so it isn't the cable.