Radio Dropping Out

[Silver Hair]

Silver haired newbie here and would appreciate any help with internet radio dropping out and loss of connection.

Problem seems to have deteriorated since the new year and spoke to VM faults last week who found ping loss. Engineer duly came round and changed old silver modem for new black Ambit 256 modem.

Radio kept dropping out though actual connection loss does not seem to be so frequent now.

Got back to VM who were'nt very helpful and as long as I could get a website then as far they were concerned the service was ok.

However, I would very much like some clarification please on the actual modem lights. I was told that as long the sync and ready lights were permanently on then I had service to the modem. However, when the actual connection is working ok, both these lights are on and the enet/send/recv lights flash. When the connection is lost, sync and ready are on, enet light is also on, permanently, but send and recv lights are blank.

I was informed by VM that as long as sync and ready lights are on then it's ok regardless of what the send and receive lights are doing.

Could someone kindly clarify/confirm/explain this please.

On the radio issue, if I listen to any BBC station, Capital, Heart, Capital Gold with or without real player it repeatedly drops out ( not at regular intervals )for a couple of seconds.

Have 2 pcs' and drop out happens simultaneously. Have XP pro sp3 with netgear WGR314v7 router.

Have cleaned pc up, checked router settings but problem(s) still persist.

Sorry if I've been a bit long winded in explaing problem(s) but this oldie cannot seem to get rationale anywhere.

Thanks John

PS. on 10meg and seem to get 9.5 when I've tested and have updated router software

[xocemp]

Welcome Silver Hair, John.
And thats by no means long winded, the more info the better :)

They have indeed informed you correctly, the sync and ready lights are the key, if they are both lit then its all good.

When your radio drops do you still have an Internet connection, are you able to surf the web?
How long had this been happening, and have you ever had a trouble free broadcast?
Are you using you router as a wireless connection. And if so have you tried with a wired connection?

[Silver Hair]

Thanks xocemp.

When radio drops out still have internet connection and can surf though drop out is onlt for a couple of seconds. Sometimes might lose internet connection altogether ( not as frequently as before ); page cannot be displayed but sync and ready lights are on permanently.

Been happening for quite a while now but just been getting to me lately and decided to try and do something about it.

Router is used as wired connection to both my wife's and my pc. However, my son came round last week ,after the vm engineer had installed the new modem, with his laptop and connected wirelessly to us. When radio dropped out on my pc it did'nt on his laptop.

This led me to think it's my pc but when mine drops out the wife's also drops out which confuses me if my sons laptop was ok. To me this might indicate the router but if so how could that be?

Replaced cable from modem to router and from router to my pc just in case.

Thanks John

PS. thank you for clarifying sync and ready lights but why have send and receive lights ( sorry if that's a silly question )

---------- Post added at 17:19 ---------- Previous post was at 17:10 ----------

Listening to BBC Radio 2 at the moment ( sad I know for a sunday afternoon) but audio is jumping, similar to needle jumping on old fashioned vynil records.

---------- Post added at 17:29 ---------- Previous post was at 17:19 ----------

Just lost it. Reckon the jumping was the signal going. Kept repeatedly rebuffering with no connection. Came out of the real player link and re-entered and now ok, for the time being. The same thing will hapenn regardless of whther or not access the station via real player

[xocemp]

Thanks for the concise form in which you post the steps you have taken and observations made during problem(s).

The sync and ready indicate downstream lock & upstream lock, if one were to be flashing you would simply lose connection to all Internet activities. The send and receive would be used to indicate traffic passing to and from the modem to the network.

Your son's laptop staying connected poses the question of how can it be a router issue.
To be 100% of knowing that it were a problem with the router or not I would test the theory by trying a direct connection to the modem, perhaps when your good lady wife has listened to her favorite broadcast.

xocemp-edit

You beat me to the post with your edit John :)

Would you click the link below and copy back the contents of the ping in your reply.
It may take a second to load the page.
http://tools.virginmedia.com/cgi-bin/ping.pl?bbc.co.uk

And then with the below link.
http://tools.virginmedia.com/cgi-bin/traceroute.pl?www.google.co.uk

[Silver Hair]

Will try a direct modem connection to my pc later this evening and to my wife's tomorrow morning when she's out ( and not using pc!)

Will respond further tomorrow and once again grateful for your efforts.

---------- Post added at 17:55 ---------- Previous post was at 17:33 ----------

link 1.


General Internet Tools


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Link 2.

General Internet Tools


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Input Query: www.google.co.uk

Started at: 17:53:36
Stopped at: 17:53:36


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

traceroute to www.google.co.uk (209.85.227.104), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 194.117.133.226 (194.117.133.226) 0.348 ms
2 194.117.136.178 (194.117.136.178) 27.913 ms
3 tele1-know-rab.telewest.net (194.117.136.158) 8.101 ms
4 195.50.113.29 (195.50.113.29) 14.205 ms
5 195.50.118.214 (195.50.118.214) 13.883 ms
6 209.85.255.78 (209.85.255.78) 8.425 ms
7 66.249.95.170 (66.249.95.170) 21.249 ms
8 216.239.49.45 (216.239.49.45) 21.243 ms
9 209.85.243.89 (209.85.243.89) 29.211 ms
10 209.85.227.104 (209.85.227.104) 21.199 ms





Input Query: bbc.co.uk

Started at: 17:52:04
Stopped at: 17:52:08


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PING bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.138) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.138): icmp_seq=1 ttl=122 time=8.23 ms
64 bytes from virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.138): icmp_seq=2 ttl=122 time=8.18 ms
64 bytes from virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.138): icmp_seq=3 ttl=122 time=8.08 ms
64 bytes from virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.138): icmp_seq=4 ttl=122 time=8.07 ms
64 bytes from virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.138): icmp_seq=5 ttl=122 time=8.08 ms

--- bbc.co.uk ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4000ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 8.076/8.134/8.239/0.086 ms


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Having to go out now but will reply tomorrow having done the direct connection tests.

Once again, thank you.

[fedupstill]

help with internet radio dropping out and loss of connection.
Problem seems to have deteriorated since the new year

welcome to the club mate :( funny enough i got a bad line for christmas off virgin media aswell and only lately been slightly better ...

[Silver Hair]

Forgot to mention,

Lost complete internet connection at ca. 17.43 which resumed at 17.45 without the need to reboot modem.

Thank you, John

[xocemp]

John could you have this link ready to click when your radio stream drops.
http://tools.virginmedia.com/cgi-bin/ping.pl?bbc.co.uk

Either with or without the router attached. The reason I ask and I should have mentioned in my above post, so apologies. Is that you were informed of "ping loss", however, a loss of packets "ping loss" are not apparent in the results you have posted back.
So if we can capture any packet loss when you lose connection to the radio broadcast then we can point the finger at a VirginMedia network issue.

[Silver Hair]

John could you have this link ready to click when your radio stream drops.
http://tools.virginmedia.com/cgi-bin/ping.pl?bbc.co.uk

Either with or without the router attached. The reason I ask and I should have mentioned in my above post, so apologies. Is that you were informed of "ping loss", however, a loss of packets "ping loss" are not apparent in the results you have posted back.
So if we can capture any packet loss when you lose connection to the radio broadcast then we can point the finger at a VirginMedia network issue.

Tried it later this evening ( post 21.15) and lost radio about half a dozen times, in each instance there was no packet loss.

However, at one point the reception was very erratic ( no packet loss ) but noticed the BBC download (?) speed was 44.1kbps. Had no audio but had green signal on iplayer screen monitor indicating signal still present. Came out and went back in again and the speed was 65.1 kbps.

If I listen to www.kickradio.nl I seem to experience no problems at all and think their download (?) speed is 128 kbps.

Currently listening to Capital Gold with no problem and it's as if the lack of radio drop out is linked perhaps to a quiet sunday evening implying less people on the net perhaps.

Also checked my ssid and that's disabled.

As we discussed previously, will recheck with both pcs' via router and both linked separately direct to modem.

Thanks & regards, John

[Stabhappy]

If some services are coming in at a larger bitrate but without erratic buffering and disconnection, the source must be ruled as the problem. As it's a fairly large and established source, the next step would be to report this issue as a specific problem with VM routing to the BBC servers

[Turkey Machine]

I have the same issue with BBC radio streaming, and just put it down to RealPlayer being a bit crap for streaming. Was listening to Radio Le Mans last night without any problems.

[chickendippers]

Each time you connect your modem to a different device (PC, router etc) you will need to give it a restart.

[Graham M]

Thanks for the concise form in which you post the steps you have taken and observations made during problem(s).

The sync and ready indicate downstream lock & upstream lock, if one were to be flashing you would simply lose connection to all Internet activities. The send and receive would be used to indicate traffic passing to and from the modem to the network.

Your son's laptop staying connected poses the question of how can it be a router issue.
To be 100% of knowing that it were a problem with the router or not I would test the theory by trying a direct connection to the modem, perhaps when your good lady wife has listened to her favorite broadcast.

xocemp-edit

You beat me to the post with your edit John :)

Would you click the link below and copy back the contents of the ping in your reply.
It may take a second to load the page.
http://tools.virginmedia.com/cgi-bin/ping.pl?bbc.co.uk

And then with the below link.
http://tools.virginmedia.com/cgi-bin/traceroute.pl?www.google.co.uk

Xocemp, those links are performing the ping from the server, not from your connection so wouldn't be of any use?

[Silver Hair]

Each time you connect your modem to a different device (PC, router etc) you will need to give it a restart.

Thank you for that timely reminder. I had in fact overlooked thatwhen previously messing around!

Thanks John

---------- Post added at 10:38 ---------- Previous post was at 10:17 ----------

If some services are coming in at a larger bitrate but without erratic buffering and disconnection, the source must be ruled as the problem. As it's a fairly large and established source, the next step would be to report this issue as a specific problem with VM routing to the BBC servers

Thank you but how do I persuade customer services to accept this a potential routing issue when my recent dialogue with them seems to be that as long as the sync/rdy lights are on and I can access a website no problem exists?

Appreciate your advice. Thanks John

---------- Post added at 10:54 ---------- Previous post was at 10:38 ----------

[QUOTE=xocemp;34759681]John could you have this link ready to click when your radio stream drops.
http://tools.virginmedia.com/cgi-bin/ping.pl?bbc.co.uk

Either with or without the router attached. The reason I ask and I should have mentioned in my above post, so apologies. Is that you were informed of "ping loss", however, a loss of packets "ping loss" are not apparent in the results you have posted back.
So if we can capture any packet loss when you lose connection to the radio broadcast then we can point the finger at a VirginMedia network issue.[/QUOTE

Can see no packet loss at all regardless although on occasion the page does time out but radio returns.

Connected pc direct to modem, rebooted modem. Radio still dropping out about every 4-5 minutes or so.

Going to retry tomorrow morning ( as I'm off to work shortly ) with my wife's pc connected directly to modem.

Am I correct in assuming that if the same problem occurs then it has to be a vm issue as Stabhappy indicates?

However, just to throw a spannner in the works so to speak, I did try my son's laptop connecting wirelessly and whilst my pc dropped out the laptop did'nt??!! Going to retry this.

Thanks John

---------- Post added at 12:32 ---------- Previous post was at 10:54 ----------

Spoke again to VM this orning and luckily got through to the Uk which made it easier for me to explain the issue.

Did a speed test using fuller/zen.co.uk which was a constant 1.14 mb/sec and as far as they were ( seemingly ) was ok. Fair enough but don't think it's a speed issue as I'd also be losing my internet connection at the same time.

They said my server was due an upgrade and it's probably a combined issue of traffic volume and their server issues which they don't know when will be resolved.

That might well be the case but what does confuse me and I need to do a retry, was mys son using his laptop and connecting wirelessly to the router. My radio drops out, his did'nt! As said, doing a retry.

Grateful for all your response and any further input very much appreciated as I hate ( kind of ) intangible situations.

Thanks, John