What's the current status of firmware 2.32e?

[gatekeeper]

As of today, 12th Aug 2015, what's the status of firmware 2.32e for the 8800NL? Is it reliable?

I've been running v.2.32d.d14 ever since I first got my 8800NL about 10 months ago, and over the last few months I've contemplated upgrading the firmware to the latest version. However, I've been somewhat put off by a number of postings in this forum where some users have said that v.2.32e malfunctions in certain aspects and they've been forced to revert to an earlier version.

I'm running my 8800NL at present as a straighforward ADSL router (G.Dmt) and am using wired Ethernet rather than wireless. I'm on a long, noisy line but with appropriate tweaking of the router, sync'ing remains stable.

Although my 8800NL has worked okay from Day One for the kind of usage to which I put it, in the last week or so I've experienced high latency when accessing regularly-visited and well-vetted websites. Testing, I've been getting ping times of between 200 and 400 milliseconds to host sites such as the BBC and Google. To me, these are excessive numbers, considering that the pinged hosts aren't exactly on the other side of the world. Indeed, one set of pings yesterday returned a 25% loss. Traceroutes have given similar figures between all hops, although the path between computer and the router has always returned a figure of less than 1 millisecond. A week ago my ISP told me that several other subscribers from different parts of the country were also experiencing erratic responses and after I supplied my test figures to them they got BT on the job, apparently. But they're now saying that the latency's been fixed. It's still much the same for me, though.

I've run tests from both a Mac and a Windows machine on my home network, and they both exhibit the self same problem. Given that I've cleared out browser caches and don't run any browser extensions or peculiar plug-ins, the only other possible explanation is that it's down to the router itself. Hence my wanting to upgrade its firmware. But is the 2.32e firmware reliable at present? Has it been only very few users of it who've had issues with it?

Incidentally, can anyone suggest some other host sites that are ping-able?

[evansnp]

I'm running 2.32e on an 8800AXL, PTM mode, and these are my results to the Beeb:

Code: Select all

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> ping bbc.co.uk

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.103] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.246.103: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=50
Reply from 212.58.246.103: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=50
Reply from 212.58.246.103: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=50
Reply from 212.58.246.103: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=50

Ping statistics for 212.58.246.103:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 17ms, Average = 17ms
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32>

My router has been up for 39 days, and I have no issues.

Hope this helps.

[billion_fan]

As of today, 12th Aug 2015, what's the status of firmware 2.32e for the 8800NL? Is it reliable?

I've been running v.2.32d.d14 ever since I first got my 8800NL about 10 months ago, and over the last few months I've contemplated upgrading the firmware to the latest version. However, I've been somewhat put off by a number of postings in this forum where some users have said that v.2.32e malfunctions in certain aspects and they've been forced to revert to an earlier version.

I'm running my 8800NL at present as a straighforward ADSL router (G.Dmt) and am using wired Ethernet rather than wireless. I'm on a long, noisy line but with appropriate tweaking of the router, sync'ing remains stable.

Although my 8800NL has worked okay from Day One for the kind of usage to which I put it, in the last week or so I've experienced high latency when accessing regularly-visited and well-vetted websites. Testing, I've been getting ping times of between 200 and 400 milliseconds to host sites such as the BBC and Google. To me, these are excessive numbers, considering that the pinged hosts aren't exactly on the other side of the world. Indeed, one set of pings yesterday returned a 25% loss. Traceroutes have given similar figures between all hops, although the path between computer and the router has always returned a figure of less than 1 millisecond. A week ago my ISP told me that several other subscribers from different parts of the country were also experiencing erratic responses and after I supplied my test figures to them they got BT on the job, apparently. But they're now saying that the latency's been fixed. It's still much the same for me, though.

I've run tests from both a Mac and a Windows machine on my home network, and they both exhibit the self same problem. Given that I've cleared out browser caches and don't run any browser extensions or peculiar plug-ins, the only other possible explanation is that it's down to the router itself. Hence my wanting to upgrade its firmware. But is the 2.32e firmware reliable at present? Has it been only very few users of it who've had issues with it?

Incidentally, can anyone suggest some other host sites that are ping-able?

Only a small number of users have had issues with 2.32e, but the DMT code is the same, so I don't think you will see a improvement (but it might be worth a try if you have the time)

The only other time I have seen high ping times if the upload bandwidth is used up, setting up a QOS rule to 90% will resolve this (upload>> limited >> 90%) might also be worth a try (screen shot example attached)

I am personally using 2.32e at home on a Bipac 7800DXL and haven't experience any issues so far. (see attached screen shot of my device)

[gatekeeper]

Evansnp,

That's an especially good ping result you got. 17msecs is very low. As I say, I'm getting quite varying results of anything between about 190 msecs and 400 msecs.

Way back, I used to have a 7800 and, on the self same line to the exchange, at the same sync speed, I never had a problem. So this is why I'm wondering if it's my 8800 that's recently decided to misbehave and is somehow now responsible for my exceedingly long latency times. I think that what I should be getting is in the region of 20 - 30 msecs.

I am, of course, relying entirely on what my ISP has said in respect of BT having apparently 'fixed the problem'. I've asked my ISP to tell me where exactly the problem was found, ie. the IP of the offending server, but have had no response from my ISP at all since I posed that question.

I'll do some more pings and traceroutes in a few minutes time and post them here for you to peruse.

[gatekeeper]

Here are my results. As you can see, to the self same host, TTL in each case is almost the same as your 50. But the response time (latency) is around 20 times as great. Note that because I've done these on a Mac, the byte sizes are double those in yours. The large times seem to start with server 109.109.190.129 and I've pointed that out to my ISP but they've not commented on it. That server could be, I think, a so-called 'gateway server', and so if it's malfunctioning it could affect all accesses I make to and from the Internet.

I'll repeat what I've just done on my Windows machine and post here again.

PING http://www.bbc.net.uk (212.58.244.26): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 212.58.244.26: icmp_seq=0 ttl=55 time=277.662 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.244.26: icmp_seq=1 ttl=55 time=299.737 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.244.26: icmp_seq=2 ttl=55 time=320.213 ms
64 bytes from 212.58.244.26: icmp_seq=3 ttl=55 time=329.942 ms

--- http://www.bbc.net.uk ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 277.662/306.889/329.942/20.089 ms

Traceroute has started…

traceroute: Warning: http://www.bbc.co.uk has multiple addresses; using 212.58.244.26
traceroute to http://www.bbc.net.uk (212.58.244.26), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
1 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254) 1.378 ms 0.834 ms 0.748 ms
2 109.109.190.129 (109.109.190.129) 314.523 ms 269.438 ms 270.472 ms
3 edge.td.vispa.net.uk (83.217.160.11) 263.951 ms 297.180 ms 327.143 ms
4 te-8-3-203.car2.manchester1.level3.net (195.50.121.233) 335.543 ms 369.642 ms 378.160 ms
5 ae-231-3607.edge4.london1.level3.net (4.69.166.25) 376.505 ms 339.440 ms 322.744 ms
6 bbc-technol.edge4.london1.level3.net (212.113.14.222) 354.101 ms 383.530 ms 373.464 ms
7 * * *
8 ae0.er01.telhc.bbc.co.uk (132.185.254.109) 309.324 ms 339.060 ms 337.189 ms
9 132.185.255.149 (132.185.255.149) 321.213 ms 294.590 ms 302.430 ms
10 bbc-vip145.telhc.bbc.co.uk (212.58.244.26) 308.090 ms 303.415 ms 304.129 ms

[gatekeeper]

Here's the same, but done from my Windows PC.

Any ideas?

From what billion_fan's said, it sounds as though upgrading the router's firmware isn't going to affect these figures.

Notice that, in the traceroute, some of the times are as large as 500 and 600 milliseconds.

C:\>ping http://www.bbc.co.uk

Pinging http://www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.244.66] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.244.66: bytes=32 time=331ms TTL=55
Reply from 212.58.244.66: bytes=32 time=338ms TTL=55
Reply from 212.58.244.66: bytes=32 time=385ms TTL=55
Reply from 212.58.244.66: bytes=32 time=388ms TTL=55

Ping statistics for 212.58.244.66:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 331ms, Maximum = 388ms, Average = 360ms

C:\>tracert http://www.bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to http://www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.244.66]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 432 ms 435 ms 433 ms 109.109.190.129
3 404 ms 395 ms 460 ms edge.td.vispa.net.uk [83.217.160.11]
4 564 ms 463 ms 602 ms te-8-3-203.car2.Manchester1.Level3.net [195.50.1
21.233]
5 462 ms 481 ms 480 ms ae-231-3607.edge4.London1.Level3.net [4.69.166.2
5]
6 464 ms 464 ms 425 ms BBC-TECHNOL.edge4.London1.Level3.net [212.113.14
.222]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 304 ms 288 ms 261 ms ae0.er01.telhc.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.109]
9 280 ms 284 ms 261 ms 132.185.255.149
10 282 ms 266 ms 332 ms bbc-vip111.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.66]

Trace complete.

[evansnp]

I would agree with your hypothesis about the gateway server. I've just tried a tracert to the same BBC IP address as you, and my first hop is 10mS

Code: Select all

Tracing route to bbc-vip145.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.26]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     5 ms     4 ms     6 ms  Billion_Router_8800.home.gateway [192.xxx.xxx.xxx]
  2    11 ms    10 ms    10 ms  217.32.140.65
  3    10 ms     9 ms    10 ms  217.32.140.14
  4    83 ms    12 ms    10 ms  212.140.235.54
  5    11 ms    10 ms    10 ms  213.120.182.65
  6    10 ms    14 ms    11 ms  31.55.164.107
  7    10 ms    11 ms    11 ms  109.159.248.73
  8    15 ms    17 ms    19 ms  core1-te0-13-0-4.ealing.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.248.8]
  9    16 ms    18 ms    15 ms  109.159.252.63
 10    16 ms    14 ms    16 ms  194.74.65.42
 11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 12     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 13    53 ms    17 ms    18 ms  ae0.er01.telhc.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.109]
 14    84 ms    16 ms    18 ms  132.185.255.149
 15    15 ms    18 ms    14 ms  bbc-vip145.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.26]

[gatekeeper]

I thought I'd see what the latency times were at, say, 6am in the morning, and so on Thursday morning tried that. The times were markedly lower, at between 20 and 40 msecs. So my immediate reaction was that this was surely a congestion (contention) issue. My ISP now refutes this, however, and says that they've proven that a fault does exist but that it doesn't lie within their network but instead is a fault between themselves and their LLU provider - not that that means an awful lot to me. They say they're still pursuing it with their LLU providers, and I can only wait therefore and see what eventually transpires.

Clearly, by now what CAN be said is that the dreadful ADSL latency I've been experiencing these last two weeks cannot be down to anything concerned with my 8800 router. It therefore looks as though I'll not need to post here any longer. My thanks to you both for trying to assist me in this.