@BruceMc I suspect this will boil down to either an external cable issue that is dropping your data rates, or, possibly that the combination of wifi Band Steering and Auto Channel selection isn't doing you any favours.
Do you happen to have an ethernet connected desktop/laptop available and if so, what do you see for a download/upload rate using the www.speedtest.net Toronto / Montreal / Ottawa Rogers servers, whichever is closer to your location.
Are both Xi6-A or Xi6-T set top receivers running via wifi?
@BruceMc wrote:
Some time in the last few weeks we have a new problem. Im watching play off hockey so my wife wants to watch something else on the other tv on its own Ignite connection. As soon as both are on we have all kinds of issues. The connetion lags, freezes, audio disappears and resolution drops too. Really frustrating!!!
I presume that both of your set-top boxes are connected by WiFi. Do you see the freezes/audio drop-outs on only one set-top box or both?
If only one set-top box is affected, could you please try swapping the set-top boxes between the two TVs that you mentioned and test again with both TVs turned on? Does the problem follow the box or is it location-specific?
The video freezes and audio drop-outs occur because the video decoder on the set-top box needs to process the next video segment in the stream but that segment was not received in time, either due to a lack of available bandwidth on the WiFi connection or due to severe latency and/or packet loss on the network, or possibly due to a problem with the set-top box itself. The set-top box (in "Settings / Device Settings / Network") can tell you whether the signal strength is excellent, good, weak or poor... but neither the modem nor the set-top box can tell you what the Data Rate on the WiFi connection is, which is VERY important, although this stat may be available to Rogers Tech Support.
Is it possible to watch Youtube on the Xi6? If so, can one see the Stats for nerds data, which would show the connection rate?
Here's an example off of a pc:
Video ID / sCPN YQHsXMglC9A / YXMM BG02 KMGQ
Viewport / Frames 1920x1080 / 0 dropped of 729
Current / Optimal Res 1920x1080@24 / 1920x1080@24
Volume / Normalized 100% / 45% (content loudness 6.9dB)
Codecs av01.0.08M.08 (399) / opus (251)
Color bt709 / bt709
Connection Speed 58571 Kbps
Network Activity 0 KB
Buffer Health 120.77 s
Mystery Text
}
@Datalink That's a great idea. Yes, the Ignite set-top box does have a YouTube client, and you can enable "Stats for nerds" as follows: When playing a YouTube video, click the i (Info) button on the remote, select More (three vertical dots) on the Info bar, then select the "bug" (Stats for nerds) icon.
"Stats for nerds" will show if you have adverse network/streaming conditions but having access to the actual WiFi data rate is also important.
FYI, I had a glitchy set-top box and the problem became worse when there was other network activity and other set-top boxes active. I didn't know what was going on... then I upgraded the WiFi gear in my home. All of my set-top boxes showed that they had "excellent" WiFi signal strength. However, when I logged into my WiFi management tools, I could see (from the WiFi Access Point's perspective) that the two good STBs had a data rate of 866 Mb/s. The data rate on the problematic STB was dancing around all over, sometimes dropping all the way down to 6 Mb/s... and at that point, it could not sustain a 10 Mb/s stream and I started to get audio and video dropouts. (I suspect that the STB was erroneously detecting noise and constantly switching to a different modulation to compensate.) When I moved that STB to another TV, the problem followed the box. Rogers replaced the STB and the problem went away.
I'm not saying that @BruceMc is necessarily experiencing the same problem. It could also be that the WiFi network is not as stable as it should be for whatever reason. Unfortunately, most consumer WiFi gear does not provide the tools that are needed to troubleshoot weird WiFi issues. I don't know how far Rogers can go to assist remotely either.
