What follows is some hilariousness from Time Warner Cable/Road Runner’s tech support. Long story short, anything that requires a solid data connection lags out. Hit the jump for the entire transcript if you’re in the mood for pain or watch a tech blame Google’s servers for being slow.


User Chris_ has entered room

Analyst Mattew has entered room

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:34:34 EDT 2011)>Hello! Thank you for choosing Road Runner Internet Technical Chat Support. My

name is Mattew, how may I assist you?

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:35:00 EDT 2011)>Hi Mattew, I’m having some issues with latency and ping times

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:35:15 EDT 2011)>Okay.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:35:32 EDT 2011)>Can you be more specific with the issue?

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:35:37 EDT 2011)>About once every 2 or 3 seconds, one packet takes an abnormally long time to get to the destination

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:35:44 EDT 2011)>For instance:

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:36:02 EDT 2011)>If I were to run ping -t google.com from my command prompt

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:36:28 EDT 2011)>The ping times hang around 39-45ms for about 8 pings, then the next one would be 994ms

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:36:33 EDT 2011)>then it’s fine again.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:37:22 EDT 2011)>I will help you with that.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:37:45 EDT 2011)>For normal browsing, this is fine, but it’s cauing large issues with online gaming, to the point of unplayability. The games run fine single player, but the moment I take any game to multiplayer, every 2 or 3 seconds the packet gets that hitch and I lag out, sometimes to the point of getting booted by the server

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:38:05 EDT 2011)>To assist in troubleshooting, here’s what I’ve done thus far:

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:38:11 EDT 2011)>Okay.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:38:21 EDT 2011)>Please give me a moment.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:38:25 EDT 2011)>Went from wireless to wired connection to the router

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:38:40 EDT 2011)>Changed to a different computer, also trying wired and wireless

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:38:53 EDT 2011)>Tried plugging directly in to the cable modem from both computers

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:39:10 EDT 2011)>Okay.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:39:24 EDT 2011)>All cases exhibited the issue

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:39:46 EDT 2011)>Please give me moment.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:39:54 EDT 2011)>Sure thing. Take your time

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:40:15 EDT 2011)>Thank you.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:42:25 EDT 2011)>Can I know which browser are you using to surf internet?

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:42:45 EDT 2011)>Chrome

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:43:24 EDT 2011)>However, the issue isn’t with web browsing – the problem is exhibited when simply pinging other servers.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:43:45 EDT 2011)>Okay.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:43:58 EDT 2011)>I will check with that.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:46:41 EDT 2011)>Please give me some more time.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:46:58 EDT 2011)>No worries Mattew, take your time. Thanks for your help

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:47:23 EDT 2011)>Thank you.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:50:52 EDT 2011)>Please perform the trace route and let me know the results.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:51:24 EDT 2011)>Sure

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:51:44 EDT 2011)>All hops are looking clean, except one.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:51:48 EDT 2011)>Let me know the result once you have done with that.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:52:23 EDT 2011)>Please send me the results.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:52:32 EDT 2011)>490ms tge4-0-0.tr00.clmkohpe.mwrtn.rr.com

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:53:00 EDT 2011)>I’ve also got another hop at 216.239.47.34 that’s at 747ms

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:53:53 EDT 2011)>that tracert was to google.com

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:54:33 EDT 2011)>OKay.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:55:55 EDT 2011)>Please perform the trace route in the cmd and let me know all the results.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:56:53 EDT 2011)>sure, I’ll copy and paste the whole thing. One moment while I run another one

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:57:19 EDT 2011)>Okay.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:57:29 EDT 2011)>Take your time.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:57:50 EDT 2011)>There’s actually a lot more timeouts on this one. Might be a bit more useful.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:57:51 EDT 2011)>tracert google.com

Tracing route to google.com [74.125.91.147]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms DD-WRT [192.168.1.1]
2 8 ms 7 ms 7 ms xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
3 9 ms * 710 ms network-024-095-086-145.columbus.rr.com [24.95.86.145]
4 8 ms 10 ms 9 ms tge1-1.clmboh1-rtr2.columbus.rr.com [65.25.129.139]
5 9 ms 11 ms 20 ms tge3-0-0.tr00.clmkohpe.mwrtn.rr.com [65.25.137.45]
6 19 ms 22 ms 18 ms ae-4-0.cr0.chi30.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.68]
7 20 ms 20 ms * ae-1-0.pr0.chi10.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.155]
8 * 50 ms 44 ms 74.125.48.109
9 19 ms 19 ms 21 ms 72.14.236.178
10 59 ms * 39 ms 72.14.239.90
11 240 ms * 40 ms 209.85.254.46
12 38 ms 43 ms 41 ms 209.85.254.235
13 44 ms 59 ms 1037 ms 209.85.240.25
14 44 ms 48 ms 40 ms qy-in-f147.1e100.net [74.125.91.147]

Trace complete.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:58:18 EDT 2011)>Thank you.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 12:58:31 EDT 2011)>Thanks for your help!

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 12:58:51 EDT 2011)>Please give me moment.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:01:09 EDT 2011)>Have you removed any timed out messages?

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:01:40 EDT 2011)>No. That was the whole command output

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:01:52 EDT 2011)>Okay.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:04:31 EDT 2011)>I find that there is some issue with the google servers.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:05:01 EDT 2011)>Do you have another server you’d like me to ping instead?

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:05:02 EDT 2011)>So please kindly check after some more time.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:05:11 EDT 2011)>No.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:05:24 EDT 2011)>This has been going on for a week.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:05:29 EDT 2011)>Actually the problem is with the servers.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:05:37 EDT 2011)>Yes.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:06:42 EDT 2011)>I see that there is no problem with Time warner servers so please contact google support team.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:06:48 EDT 2011)>Just tried Yahoo, and I’m getting more of the same

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:07:04 EDT 2011)>tracert yahoo.com

Tracing route to yahoo.com [209.191.122.70]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms DD-WRT [192.168.1.1]
2 8 ms 9 ms 8 ms xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
3 598 ms 17 ms 7 ms gig3-10.uparoh1-swt401.columbus.rr.com [24.95.86.177]
4 8 ms 8 ms 9 ms tge1-1.clmboh1-rtr2.columbus.rr.com [65.25.129.139]
5 8 ms 7 ms 8 ms tge4-0-0.tr00.clmkohpe.mwrtn.rr.com [65.25.137.21]
6 19 ms 27 ms 28 ms ae-4-0.cr0.chi30.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.68]
7 41 ms 39 ms 39 ms ae-2-0.cr0.dfw10.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.22]
8 40 ms 43 ms 42 ms ae-3-0.pr0.dfw10.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.209]
9 40 ms 38 ms 40 ms 66.109.9.101
10 115 ms 40 ms 47 ms ae-2-d100.msr1.mud.yahoo.com [216.115.104.105]
11 41 ms 41 ms 41 ms te-6-2.fab1-a-gdc.mud.yahoo.com [209.191.78.145]
12 42 ms 42 ms 40 ms te-8-1.bas-c2.mud.yahoo.com [68.142.193.7]
13 758 ms 40 ms 42 ms ir1.fp.vip.mud.yahoo.com [209.191.122.70]

Trace complete.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:07:05 EDT 2011)>Yes.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:07:20 EDT 2011)>Jump 3 – 598ms

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:08:40 EDT 2011)>I fount there is no packet loss for yahoo.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:09:19 EDT 2011)>It’s not packet loss that’s the issue – it’s lag for those packets. They eventually get to where they need to go, just a lot slower than they should.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:09:48 EDT 2011)>There is some problem with the servers so please kindly contact them.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:10:04 EDT 2011)>So, essentially what I’m gathering from you is that the problem doesn’t sit with the road runner service, but every other server out there.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:10:21 EDT 2011)>I will send you some refresh signals to your modem.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:10:53 EDT 2011)>Please check after 1hour and get back to us.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:10:57 EDT 2011)>Appreciated.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:11:08 EDT 2011)>I have understand your consent.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:11:38 EDT 2011)>But I see there is no outage in your area.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:12:29 EDT 2011)>If you face the same issue after 1hour please get back to us.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:14:52 EDT 2011)>Just to know what steps you took on your side so that I can relay that to the next tech I speak to in an hour.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:15:08 EDT 2011)>Okay.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:15:13 EDT 2011)>For more information about the products and services offered by Road Runner, you can visit this link anytime to get more help and knowledge : http://help.rr.com and check for online tutorials, FAQs and more details about Road Runner features.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:15:26 EDT 2011)>Thank you for contacting Road Runner Technical Chat Support, again my name is Mattew, we value you as a customer. Have a nice day!

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:16:20 EDT 2011)>That didn’t answer my question.

Mattew(Sun Jul 10 13:17:55 EDT 2011)>I have checked all the servers I did not found any outage.

Chris_(Sun Jul 10 13:18:25 EDT 2011)>OK… thanks.

Be Sociable, Share!