Low Connection Speeds on Tests

justsomedude101

roarofjaguar Nice! Glad you were able to get it sorted.

Rakly3

Hi roarofjaguar May I ask which country/state you are in?

imratore

justsomedude101
Using a VPN didn't help my speeds. I was wondering if the VPN helping was just anecdotal but looks like it's helped more than one person. Maybe I can try a different VPN. Did you use the same VPN as roarofjaguar ?

What was streaming like before using a VPN? My speeds are inconsistent, sometimes very low, sometimes higher but not more than about half of what I get at other speedtest. Wondering if it's an ISP throttling issue or the VPN encapsulation is optimizing something like the MTU or MSS Window size that's getting better streaming results.

justsomedude101

imratore I'm guessing you already have, but if not- be sure to take a look at this post on getting the best possible speed for SLR.

Is it a Quest 2 you're using and having speed issues with? Secondly- where are you located? Just the general area (country/state) can be helpful.

And the VPN you used- was it a paid VPN or a free version? I only ask because I know many VPN's offer a free version that is usually limited to a single server and heavily throttled (they just want to give users a "sample" of the service).

ibins

Using a VPN didn't help my speeds. I was wondering if the VPN helping was just anecdotal but looks like it's helped more than one person. Maybe I can try a different VPN. Did you use the same VPN as

A VPN also should not help. A VPN is just another (or more) hops for the network traffic to go from the server to you, which should slow down things and not speed them up.

There may be some edge cases where the resulting route to the server may be worse with a "direct" connection compared to a VPN, but this should be very rarely the case.

Most likely the CDN is not picking the ideal server for you, I have seen this many times on different CDN providers, and also here on SLR. A year ago or so the CDN would often connect me with servers in the US (I am located in Europe) which of course leads to garbage latencies and bandwidth. For me it is working fine now for quite some time, but I can still see that others still might have problems.

And this is also a situations where VPNs might help, because the bigger of them have very large private connections between the continents so you do not rely on the slower public internet to cover large distances, and the VPN endpoint may be closer to the server then you.

But the VPN is just a bandaid in this situation, when the real problem is a wrong configuration of the CDN.

If you expect your ISP throttling your speed you should reach out for their support. Most western countries have more or less quite strict rules for network neutrality, which does not allow throttling of random services.

My speeds are inconsistent, sometimes very low, sometimes higher but not more than about half of what I get at other speedtest.

Which indicates a problem on the CDN site, and not throttling from your ISP. If your ISP throttles a certain service, there is no reason to assume it only does that at certain times. An overload of network traffic from your ISP might also be the reason, but in that case at the same time when SLR is slow everything else should be slow as well.
More likely the CDN is choosing a close/fast server when it runs fast, but a slow/far away server when it does not work well, for whatever reason.

Rakly3

ibins A VPN also should not help. A VPN is just another (or more) hops for the network traffic to go from the server to you, which should slow down things and not speed them up.

It's the most common fix with our users. One user even sideloaded a VPN on his Quest 2 and it fixed it.

ibins Most likely the CDN is not picking the ideal server for you,

Is possible, but not common any more. It mostly affected users in the UK probably because there is a direct cable connection from London to the US. (Yes, in the ocean.). Some people also think they are connected to a certain server but are not, ie our CA is Canada, not California.

ibins If you expect your ISP throttling your speed you should reach out for their support.

Something we see a lot too is the user first has good speeds, after using our service for a while, their ISP throttles our CDN.

ibins Which indicates a problem on the CDN site

There is a lot more then the ISP and CDN. We see an increase in cases where Windows is mismanaging the system resources. A small change network settings fixes this.

ibins More likely the CDN is choosing a close/fast server when it runs fast, but a slow/far away server when it does not work well, for whatever reason.

Rarely happens any more. Also don't confuse the connection to the website with the CDN. That one is in the US. The CDN can be different from one device to the next on the same internet connection.

For cams, that's not our CDN. You can contact our support for it however!

justsomedude101

imratore I was a user and just joined the team within the last few weeks haha, but when I first started having speed issues at some point last year- VPN did indeed solve that issue for me personally, and I haven't had speed issues since.

I can't say whether it was the VPN itself that directly solved it, or whether just it indirectly helped, but I know that there have been quite a few others who were able to resolve their speed issues in large part by utilizing a VPN. That's why I generally suggest it as something to consider testing, since so many of the larger services offer a money back guarantee, so it is usually no/low-risk.

But if you already reached out to support@sexlikereal.com, that would have been my next suggestion for you. What sort of speeds are you seeing when using the SLR speedtest?

imratore

justsomedude101 Nice. Hope you like your new team.

On a good day I get about 25M in the speed test. That is about half of my Internet connection which is a good 50M. That is usually sufficient for streaming but at a reduced res 2880 down to 1920.

On a bad day I get 7-15 which is totally unusable and I have to go somewhere else.

imratore

Last night after I updated the app my speed jumped in the speed test even without a VPN. Are you noticing anything similar?

Rakly3

I see your VPN is making random connections. Can you set it to Los Angeles, Beauharnois or Miami? Whichever is closest to you. I'm guessing Miami?
Alternatively, a server closest to your own location.

imratore

Rakly3 No it's not randomly making connections. I was testing different servers to see any were better.

But last night I got a speedy connection after updating the app, without any VPN, and was wondering if @justsomedude101 experienced something similar. ie maybe the app update fixed something?

This is on a Quest2.

Rakly3

imratore It could have forced a DNS update.
Like the continuous 3 spinning dots bug we had a while ago. Clearing the stored network data would solve it until next time.

I'm just speculating here. A VPN should have had a similar effect. So it's also probably not that 😃

BTW, something that can benifit every one is getting a wifi scanner app on your phone that shows you which channel you are on and how congested it is by neigbours. It also shows which channels have least traffic which you can switch to in your router settings.
Note that not all devices can access all channels, changing this could have connection loss for certain devices. - This is not the same as 2.4Ghz/5Ghz. There are channels within the bandwidths too!

ie, these are 2.4Ghz channels.

Here's a very easy to understand explanation how the channels work, with pictures!
https://support.zen.co.uk/kb/Knowledgebase/Broadband-Understanding-Wireless-Channels

Wrongly connecting devices to the WAN port / Port 1 on routers and switches can also cause a lot of issues. This of-course will also depend on the specific router or switch. But as a rule of thumb, avoid it when possible.

You would use the Router WAN port for example to connect the modem to if they are two separate devices.

Miff90

I submitted a support request 6 weeks ago, other than the "request received " email I've had no response.
I've since started using a paid vpn sideloaded onto my quest 2 but still experiencing speeds of just 5mbps. Your content remains unwatchable unless I download it in advance on my laptop and transfer it over to my Quest 2 which is far from ideal.