Twitch.tv Unwatchable Due to Extreme Lag

[IronM@sk]

Recently I have experienced a degradation of service quality while trying to watch streams on Twitch.tv. It has only been the last month or so (since The International 2 Dota 2 tournament). While watching the Dota 2 International 2 I was able to have all four 1080p+ streams open concurrently; the main stream, both player booth cams and the main hall crowd cam. During that tournament all four streams ran flawlessly at the same time. That was the last week of August - first 2 weeks of October.

Now, however, I can't even watch a single stream at any resolution without getting video freezing, or both audio and video freezing/glitching. Sometimes the video will freeze for up to 10 seconds while audio runs fine in the background. I've tried Firefox and Chrome. All my browsers and plugins are kept rigorously up to date. HDD defragmented with 50% free space. Flushed DNS. Cleared cookies and browsing history on both browsers multiple times. Rebooted router many times. Power cycled router many times. Even reset router to factory settings once.

I live directly across the street from my telephone exchange and until now, have never had a problem with download speeds or latency. Every SpeedTest result I have ever done has not deviated much at all from the most recent result, posted below, apart from the fact my ping varying slightly between different test servers 35-50ms down to 15ms. My SpeedTest.net results to servers within Australia are extremely consistent.


Traceroute to http://www.twitch.tv surprised me somewhat, ending at the local akamai cdn at 4 hops. I was expecting it to go to the twitch servers in the USA.

Code: Select all

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>tracert www.twitch.tv

Tracing route to a1694.w7.akamai.net [220.233.2.202]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  www.routerlogin.com [192.168.0.1]
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3    28 ms    29 ms    29 ms  18.3.96.58.static.exetel.com.au [58.96.3.18]
  4    38 ms    28 ms    29 ms  202.2.233.220.static.exetel.com.au [220.233.2.202]

Trace complete.

C:\Windows\system32>

Router sync speed is very good. My advertised plan speed is 18000kbps/900kbps. I have a NetGear DG834Gv3

Code: Select all

 Modem
ADSL Firmware Version 	7.03.01.66
Modem Status 	Connected
DownStream Connection Speed 	19535 kbps
UpStream Connection Speed 	812 kbps
VPI 	8
VCI 	35

P.S. As a side note, I was able to watch the same stream that was lagging badly on my PC, on my HTC Desire HD via the Twitch app for Android over the Vodafone data network, albeit at 226p (the only video option on that stream). The same stream on the PC was lagging out at 480p.

My PC is a Windows 7 Pro 64-bit // Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz // 6GB DDR3 RAM // 1TB WD Caviar Black HDD // GeForce GTS 240 2GB

[ShaminG]

Every SpeedTest result I have ever done has not deviated much at all from the most recent result, posted below, apart from the fact my ping varying slightly between different test servers 35-50ms down to 15ms. My SpeedTest.net results to servers within Australia are extremely consistent.

It could be due to the traffic in overseas link. Seems Twitch.tv is based in US. Could you please conduct a speed test via US based server and update me with the results.

[IronM@sk]

Both taken yesterday during a period where I was experiencing extreme lag.

:EDIT: It's worth noting that the actual download graph on my SpeedTest results within Aus are fairly flat and consistent over the test time, but both the tests to the US (Los Angeles and Seattle), while reaching 7.8Mb and 10.5Mb, showed a fairly erratic down speed over the course of the test.

[ShaminG]

Both taken yesterday during a period where I was experiencing extreme lag.

I will get this investigated and provide you an update ASAP.

[ShaminG]

I will get this investigated and provide you an update ASAP.

Seems twitch.tv has several akamai servers and I tested the latency during different times yesterday. Your trace appears to be completing at one of the local akamai servers.

I can not see any significant issue with the results. Could you please check and let me know whether you are still experiencing any latency with this site.

[IronM@sk]

I can not see any significant issue with the results. Could you please check and let me know whether you are still experiencing any latency with this site.

Yes. First thing I did when I turned on my computer this morning is go to Twitch.tv and tried to watch several different streams for different games. Every one of them experienced the issue I mentioned in the original post. I still cannot watch a Twitch.tv stream without massive freezing of the stream.

I should also have mentioned that I have problems with buffering HD Youtube videos as well. All stop to buffer multiple times.

Here are 3 more Speedtests taken just now. One local, and two from the US.


As you can see, the tests to the US are terrible. Here are two screenshots of the tests in progress. You will notice the speed graph for the local test is almost perfectly flat while the Seattle test is spikey are erratic (and slow).

[ShaminG]

Yes. First thing I did when I turned on my computer this morning is go to Twitch.tv and tried to watch several different streams for different games. Every one of them experienced the issue I mentioned in the original post. I still cannot watch a Twitch.tv stream without massive freezing of the stream.

As you could see from the speed tests, you are getting good results when the speed is tested locally. This indicates no issues within Exetel or our wholesale supplier's network.

However, when you conducted the speed-tests using overseas servers transfer rates were affected. This could be very likely due to the issues within overseas links. We highly regret any inconvenience caused to you as the matter is beyond our control.

[IronM@sk]

This could be very likely due to the issues within overseas links. We highly regret any inconvenience caused to you as the matter is beyond our control.

Why does my friend on TPG not have this problem, at all? The internet is a global resource and the majority of useful content exists outside of Australia.

Can you at least attempt to find the cause? I'm sure not everyone in Australia has this issue with overseas links...

I cannot simply "accept" that the state of my internet connection to the rest of the world is as good as it's going to get, because it makes the majority of the internet unusable and my only recourse will be to take my custom elsewhere in an attempt to solve the issue.

[Rizza]

I've had the same problem for the last two weeks.

I don't think tracert'ing to twitch.tv tells the whole story. My streams usually come from telegraph1.justin.tv or telegraph2.justin.tv.

Tracing to these go to NZ and then timeouts:
.
.
.
4 26 ms 22 ms 21 ms PE-5017319.sclarinte01.gw.aapt.com.au [203.174.1
85.153]
5 22 ms 27 ms 22 ms te3-3.sclardist02.aapt.net.au [203.131.60.32]
6 22 ms 22 ms 23 ms te4-2.sglebdist01.aapt.net.au [202.10.12.132]
7 21 ms 22 ms 21 ms po6.sglebbrdr01.aapt.net.au [202.10.14.7]
8 26 ms 33 ms 24 ms xe7-0-0-420.sebr2.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.
238.213]
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

Any assistance would be appreciated in resolving this problem.

[Dazzled]

Windows tracert has its limitations. An ever-increasing number of devices won't bother replying to it, and it "times out"; ie it hadn't heard a reply by 4 seconds (it usually won't get one if it waits until doomsday).

If a traceroute uses TCP SYN packets instead, the result is:

traceroute to telegraph1.justin.tv (199.9.252.170), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 Gate.home (192.168.1.1) 1.162 ms 1.543 ms 1.939 ms
2 * * *
3 33.2.233.220.static.exetel.com.au (220.233.2.33) 33.556 ms 35.612 ms 36.777 ms
4 * * *
5 te3-3.sclardist02.aapt.net.au (203.131.60.32) 43.184 ms 45.357 ms 46.823 ms
6 te4-2.sglebdist01.aapt.net.au (202.10.12.132) 49.182 ms 40.452 ms 40.825 ms
7 * * *
8 xe7-0-0-420.sebr2.global-gateway.net.nz (202.50.238.213) 28.826 ms 28.030 ms 28.022 ms
9 * * *
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 telegraph1.justin.tv (199.9.252.170) 187.124 ms 187.384 ms 189.694 ms

telegraph1.justin.tv is in California.

[stickmatrix]

I'm also having extreme lag whenever trying to watch twitch streams, the content server i was getting the stream from was (199.9.254.167) and seems to cap out at like 100kb/s they seem to have a whole set of content servers from 199.9.254.140 to about 200~ though