Video/Media Slowdown Issues

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dalkantrell
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2014 1:12 pm

Video/Media Slowdown Issues

Post by dalkantrell »

I am having an issue with slowdown with streaming videos (Netflix, Hulu, Youtube), and imbedded videos, Gifs, thumbnails etc.
When I attempt to view this content wirelessly or through a wired connection it is either slow and buffers or won’t even load. Webpage text loads normally without issue. Imbedded content may be blank or show it is loading.

My router is a Linksys WRT1900AC V1 and I am running Gargoyle firmware 1.10
I set the router up with two Wi-Fi channels 2.5ghz and 5.0ghz with the same password.
I am using MAC address filtering and I have setup static IPs for all devices.
For some of the devices I have grouped together and assigned bandwidth quotas to reset once monthly.
I am not using QOS settings.
If I run a speed test on my PS4 when I notice the video streaming issue it will show a download speed as low as 4mbps download and 6mbps upload.
On other devices where I notice media streaming issues I can run a speed test (on my android phone or tablet for example) and it will show my download speed is 70+mbps and upload around 6+mbps
Resetting the router doesn’t usually improve the issue for more than 10 minutes.
Backing up my settings, resetting to factory and then restoring the backup doesn’t seem to improve the issue either. If I reset the router to default settings it works without issue.
Can anyone advise me how to fix this issue and still use the features of this software? I need to use this software to prevent our household from constantly exceeding our data caps.
I have tried to use Gargoyle over the years on different compatible routers and after using it for a short while I notice this same issue. I end up abandoning the software for a few years and come back to it later to see if it’s improved. Now it’s a bigger issue for me because my ISP now charges for exceeding our data cap.
Any help is appreciated.

Lantis
Moderator
Posts: 6735
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:33 am
Location: Australia

Re: Video/Media Slowdown Issues

Post by Lantis »

Please share your quota settings.

Please conduct all speed tests on wired devices to rule out wireless issues.
Are there any patterns? Is it always wireless devices suffering? Is it always devices in or out of quota groups? Always devices of the same type?
http://lantisproject.com/downloads/gargoyle_ispyisail.php for the latest releases
Please be respectful when posting. I do this in my free time on a volunteer basis.

dalkantrell
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2014 1:12 pm

Re: Video/Media Slowdown Issues

Post by dalkantrell »

I am not sure what details you need about the quotas I have setup. Below is a screenshot of my bandwidth quota usage that shows IPs and limits for each group. I am not sure if I can embed the image so I provided a link as well to the screenshot.

Image

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AneNP4R-3uBglFDDWWWjUCF4vRaY


I have conducted speedtests on wired devices and get different results. My PS4 is wired and will show very low download speeds, as low as 3mbps. When I am not experiencing this issue it will show download speeds of 80+ mbps.

Currently I have almost all devices on a quota except for my WI-FI cameras. I don't view them constantly but when I do they seem fine.

The devices that are connected and are affected by the issue are all similar devices and other than my PS4, which is wired in to the router, are all connected wirelessly such as laptops, smartphones, android tablets and another PS4.

I also noticed that with the devices connected wirelessly if I turn off the devices WI-FI, like my android smartphone, and turn it back on videos, gifs etc. will all instantly load. But the issue usually returns fairly quickly.

Lantis
Moderator
Posts: 6735
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:33 am
Location: Australia

Re: Video/Media Slowdown Issues

Post by Lantis »

I would like to see your settings for at least some of the actual quotas, so we can see what happens when limits are reached.

It sounds like this is not the issue though.
I can only suggest upgrading to the latest 1.10.x so get the best wireless drivers you can for that device and seeing if that alleviates the issue.
http://lantisproject.com/downloads/gargoyle_ispyisail.php for the latest releases
Please be respectful when posting. I do this in my free time on a volunteer basis.

dalkantrell
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2014 1:12 pm

Re: Video/Media Slowdown Issues

Post by dalkantrell »

I am not sure why my images don't work in this post so I have provided a link again to show an example of one of my quotas.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AneNP4R-3uBglFGn-ytpDQRKiqRJ

The version of gargoyle I am using is 1.10.0

So I am not sure if there is any thing else I can do to improve the issue. When you say get the best driver is that in the firmware or do you mean a driver from Linksys?

I am not sure what to do to fix this. I looked over the forum and it looks like I had reached out about this same issue back in 2016.

Here is a link to that post if you are interested. It looks like you replied back then. viewtopic.php?t=9012

I went ahead and disabled all the quotas I had set up on the router and now I have no issues with bandwidth or video streaming or anything of the sort. So how can I correct this so I can actually use these bandwidth quotas? the quotas are causing this weird slow down even when the quota hasn't actually been exceeded for that group of devices so I don't understand what is wrong.

Lantis
Moderator
Posts: 6735
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:33 am
Location: Australia

Re: Video/Media Slowdown Issues

Post by Lantis »

I'll continue to look into it, but i cannot recreate the issue on my hardware.

The driver is in the latest builds.
Your build is the latest "official" build, but out of date by a long time as far as development goes.
Development betas are posted in this forum.

That being said, it doesn't particularly sound like a wireless issue.

Without access to your particular setup, i doubt there is much i am able to do to explore the issue. I'm sorry that it doesn't work for you.
No one else has complained of similar issues.
http://lantisproject.com/downloads/gargoyle_ispyisail.php for the latest releases
Please be respectful when posting. I do this in my free time on a volunteer basis.

dalkantrell
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2014 1:12 pm

Re: Video/Media Slowdown Issues

Post by dalkantrell »

Lantis, thank you for looking into this. I wish there was a way for me to resolve this. When I first install gargoyle and set up the router the way I need it to work it's fine for about a week and then that's when I notice the slow down.

When I set up the MAC address filtering, the static IPs, and the IP ranges for the quotas, I am copying and pasting the information out of a spreadsheet into the router. Would you expect that to cause any issues?

I am not sure if there are other routers with firmware that support per device bandwidth quotas out of the box or if there are other open source firmware that do that I may be able to try.

I have several kids in the house who blow through our bandwidth and cause me to pay fees for going over our cap. Being able to use Gargoyle to assign individual limits is nice because I can make it more fair for everyone in the household. If you have any further suggestions that I may try on my end I will give it a shot.

ektus
Posts: 241
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2013 2:26 am
Location: Germany

Re: Video/Media Slowdown Issues

Post by ektus »

dalkantrell wrote: When I set up the MAC address filtering, the static IPs, and the IP ranges for the quotas, I am copying and pasting the information out of a spreadsheet into the router. Would you expect that to cause any issues?
It shouldn't, but you never know. Would it help to save the (know-working) settings when they are fresh, and restore them once the slowdown occurs? Or is this what you have tried already?

I'd suspect some file growing over time, or getting corrupt somehow. My reasoning is that for quotas to work, the router has to keep track of the data volume used by each device, and maybe there's something going wonky there.

Perhaps ssh into the router and check with df and top if there is high CPU usage or missing space in memory or file systems?

Just guessing here, though, as I don't need nor use quotas.

Regards
Ektus.

dalkantrell
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2014 1:12 pm

Re: Video/Media Slowdown Issues

Post by dalkantrell »

I'm not sure how to
ssh into the router and check with df and top if there is high CPU usage or missing space in memory or file systems
.

I guess I can try to look that up?

I do have a backup I made before creating quotas that I restore to and it corrects the error until I add the quotas back in.

Could a hardware defect contribute to the quota file becoming corrupt do you think?

ektus
Posts: 241
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2013 2:26 am
Location: Germany

Re: Video/Media Slowdown Issues

Post by ektus »

dalkantrell wrote:I'm not sure how to
ssh into the router and check with df and top if there is high CPU usage or missing space in memory or file systems
.

I guess I can try to look that up?
Easy. On a computer running Linux (and perhaps a Mac, too), open a shell and issue the command "ssh" with the IP of your router. Enter "root" as username and the password you've set to protect the GUI.

On a computer running windows, install Putty and proceed as above.

Once you're connected, issue the command "df" to show disc usage and the command "top" for a list of running tasks.
dalkantrell wrote: I do have a backup I made before creating quotas that I restore to and it corrects the error until I add the quotas back in.
Do you have quotas working without slowdowns at all? If so, make a backup of that state and restore same once the error occurs. But I don't know if the usage data survive a restore, so if thy don't your quota settings become somewhat pointless.
dalkantrell wrote: Could a hardware defect contribute to the quota file becoming corrupt do you think?
Nothing is impossible, but I doubt it. To be sure, you'd have to get another router and see if that solves the problem.

Regards
Ektus.

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