Youtube Download Slowing Down Causing Buffer possible CDN issue

[roofed]

So For the Past Few Days I have Noticed Youtube Is not watchable i did some testing and nothing points to my connection having a problem this all points to youtube/rogers CDN servers failing as some "Stream Host" seem to be working but almost all of them dont. This problem is on browsers as for trying this on mobile android youtube app 720p60 seems to hold a stable 13mbps while on pc 1080p60 seems to start @ 50000kbps to a min 1000kbps. My internet speed is fine line quality is good while doing the test i had twitch.tv streams running on source no drops nothing in bandwidth flow same for downloading tested on multiple browsers Firefox| Chrome

Below is a gif showing what happens Notice how the "stream host" changes and bandwidth begins to drop

https://gfycat.com/GrimyGiddyKagu

***Edited Labels***

[User87778]

I've walked through troubleshooting steps with the CSRs on the phone.

But to anyone that has a minimal amount of networking knowledge its obvious to see there's some sort of an issue within Roger's network stack.

You can reproduce this issue yourself by running a traceroute to YouTube video CDNs serving your 4K video.

I can demonstrably show a slow down of 4K video playing back on YouTube when not using a VPN on Roger's Network vs. when using a VPN.

As soon as you use a VPN the throttling or buffering goes away. I'm sure this is happening because some part of the network is being overwhelmed during peak times causing slow downs or something similar.

When you're using a VPN the "hops" in a traceroute increase but the latency decreases and the throughput to YouTube dramatically increases, when you're not using a VPN the "hops" decrease but the throughput dramatically drops and the latency increases.

I'd be happy to share this with your technical team/networking team but based on the length of time this issue has been up on this forum I wouldn't be surprised if this won't be responded to.

Surprisingly this issue only occurs for YouTube. Netflix/Prime Video 4K are not an issue.

[SB41]

Oh hey I came here expressly to complain about this. Im paying $100 a month for gigabit internet but for some reason Rogers cant stream 1080p youtube to me without constant interruptions and freezes?

. ?

[SB41]

fyi I just connected to a VPN and just like magic, youtube stopped with the constant buffering and interruptions at all quality levels.

funny how that works 🤔

[forcefed]

Its clearly being throttled, the solution is in post #185.

[AccordXTC]

This is something for the past couple months I've struggled to figure out till finding this thread. I too watch a lot of YouTube content and originally thought this was because of my previous TV having an issue. I even replaced this TV with a brand new 2020 model and same issue again with buffering on YouTube with HD or 4K.

I also have no issues with any other speeds, wired I'm over 900mbps and WiFi I see speeds of around 400-500mbps. 4K streaming on Netflix or other apps no issue. Always YouTube. I agree that the only thing at this point would be to submit a CCTS complaint to have them see that they can't keep hiding that the YouTube service is being effected.

[theoc198]

I'm also having YouTube issues. No other streaming service runs into issues. 4k YouTube is constantly buffering on all devices even though speed test are showing that I'm receiving gigabit speeds.

[User87778]

run a traceroute to the CDN that's serving your 4K YouTube session - if you know how to do that

then try the same over a VPN. I would bet you don't have any issues running the same traceroute or watching the video while running a VPN.

I mentioned this on page 19.

Also file a CCTS report. The fact that this thread has been here since 2018 should show this won't be looked at until more people make some noise.

[MadFerIt]

@RogersCorey 

Please look at this thread, specifically the past few pages.

You have a set of very technical people who have given you plenty of information, have done their own diagnosis of the issue and there is ample evidence this is an issue on Rogers end. You can add my last post into this camp as well.

This has nothing to do with what app is being used, wired / wireless, etc.

I would ask for the benefit of the community you help us in escalating this issue. This has been going on for far too long, and has not been addressed by your company appropriately.  It is unacceptable that multi-hundred megabit and gigabit connections cannot even stream youtube at 1080p consistently, when we can stream 4k HDR content with ease from any other service. Something is very wrong with Rogers routing / CDN to youtube.

[RogersCorey]

Hello Community! 

I do understand that this has been an ongoing issue, but we can only offer limited troubleshooting in public. In order to dive in and escalate an issue like this, we need to bring you into private to gather your account information and create a ticket.

I haven't noticed this issue impacting my Ignite Internet connection at home so it doesn't seem to be a completely network wide issue that's affecting all of our customers. It's possible there's a routing/peering issue but we would need to submit tickets to have this investigated.

If you'd like to work with us towards a solution, please PM us @CommunityHelps. If you're not familiar with our PMing process, you can find instructions here.

Regards,

RogersCorey

[AccordXTC]

@RogersCorey I apricate the normal "Rogers" response. Understand just like you were given the opportunity to be a moderator because of your knowledge that we too as customer have the same or even more on troubleshooting a problem. 

Given the timeline I see of this thread I do see that nothing has been done or will be done. What I can confirm is that any CCTS complaint issued to Rogers will result in issues being fixed faster then I'm typing out this reply. 

Thank you @RogersCorey for offering to help and understand there is only so much you can do. I will share my results from CCTS and suggest anyone else submit their complaint as well to get the results they are looking for.

[User87778]

still waiting for a rogers tech to call me back about this by the way

so I've tried to go through the normal channels with no response back.

[RogersMoin]

Hello, @User87778.

Thank you for your patience; do you have a ticket submitted for this issue? Please send us a private message at @CommunityHelps so we can follow-up for you. Please check our blog if you require assistance with private messaging.

Cheers,

RogersMoin

[Amdfantoronto]

Hi team I have an open ticket under my name. Please help. I have had ongoing issues watching 4K YouTube and google play movie rentals since August 2020. I keep getting voicemails stating Rogers is looking in to my issue. That ticket was opened months ago. I do not experience issues using any other service

[forcefed]

Unfortunately nothing will happen, been there done that. Look how old this thread is, do you really think rogers is going to fix this?

Do whats said in post #185 and #199 thats the best thing you can do.

[AccordXTC]

I've not escalated this with a complaint in to the CRTC. It seems CCTS is advising this does not fall under their mandate to help customers. Anyone else have the same response with CCTS? The funny thing is that were all on lockdown and I for one have lots and lots and lots of time to invest into this issue. 

[MadFerIt]

I didn't think this issue could get worse, but it HAS!

I'm now struggling to get even 480p youtube streams to work, whether it's ethernet on my computer or wifi on my smart TV. Regularly anything I'm watching (when it's set to auto) turns into a pixelated mess, and even then it stops and buffers!

All the while everything else I use works perfectly, including 4K HDR from Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and Apple. Not to mention general download speeds.

I'm very close to switching to Bell, even though that's the last thing I want. But this is beyond ridiculous.

[Joxer]

I just filled out a CCTS complaint.  The mods here are just giving us the runaround and we all know the score.  I did this at my cottage where my poor ISP Teksavvy did the very best they could with many followups to improve my DSL connection there, but unfortunately Bell was the real villain there and I continued to get no more than 1.5Mbps from my 5Mbps DSL making it impossible to work from there.  Note that along the process Bell, through Teksavvy, set up no fewer than 5 appointments to come to my cottage with 12 hour windows for which I had to be at the cottage 250 km from my house, and failed to come there even once.  They are the devil.  Rogers is more like 668, the Neighbour of the Beast.

[Joxer]

Installed a VPN. YouTube has been flawless for 2 days.

Pretty early to say definitively but so far 4k and 1080p videos on YouTube are finally playing fine on my OLED.  The VPN is installed on my laptop, on which I then enabled internet sharing and plugged the ethernet into the TV.   I don't know why I should have to do an end run around my ISP and pay yet more money (potentially buying a router which can run the VPN itself) just to get what I'm already paying for.

[Joxer]

@RogersMoin do you guys ever have any intention of escalating this issue to the networking team?  All that happens here is that people that have fully functional and fast connections to the internet from Rogers cannot use Youtube reliably even at 1080p, and that has been demonstrated to not be a YouTube issue multiple times by many of us connecting a VPN which instantly 'solves' the problem.  Except that paying for a VPN just to get YouTube to work, adding an extra cost router to run it for the full home, putting our modems in bridge mode etc (which won't be supported if we have any other service issues) is ridiculous.

Fix the issue.  Stop trying to peel people off of a community forum into private DMs to waste our time and attempt to diffuse the discussion.

[MadFerIt]

Unfortunately the response so far seems to be the demand / use of Youtube is high from Rogers customers, and they'll escalate to the appropriate team. 

Seems like the hands are tied from moderators on this forum.  

What I think needs to happen is Roger and Youtube need to co-operatively work on resolving this issue. Whether that means Rogers need to fix any potential routing congestion to Youtube, or Youtube needs to be provide additional resources to Rogers customers.

Yes connecting to a VPN resolves it, but most of us do not have an easy way of providing VPN access to all of our youtube watching devices, and we shouldn't need to buy new hardware just to make Youtube usable.

The issue is only getting worse, and I feel like this is being ignored because "congestion will decrease when there's a return to normalcy".

[Datalink]

This has been an ongoing issue for at least four or five years, long before Covid 19 arrived.  It never seems to get any attention other than constant complaints from the users.  Personal opinion, affected users are complaining to the wrong company.  Complaints should be directed to Google (Youtube).  If Google (Youtube) is interested, they'll take Rogers to task for poor CDN service and perhaps suspend Rogers licence to run a Youtube CDN if Rogers shows no interest in resolving the issue.  

The question at hand is, "who's responsible for the data rates out of the CDN, Google or Rogers, or is there some form of mangled responsibility doc?"