Websites not found and backup fails

[dgolfnut55]

Many websites are taking 2 or 3 tries to resolve and come up.  My cloud backup is failing on average 4 nights out of 7 and asks me to check if I have a bad internet connection.   I have Fios gigabyte internet service and Fios speed test takes about double the time it used to when run but says I have close to 1gig speed up and down.  I have spent over 5 hours with chat support in multiple sessions starting 5 days ago, and almost every time they disconnect the router to work on it, I lose the session and have to start over.   Links they send to my cell phone never arrive so I can't start the chat from there.   They have changed my IP address, flushed my dns cache,  rebooted everything (router, ONT) multiple times.   When I run a trace route,  it gets to philadelphia, then times out twice in their network, then chooses an alternate IP address and it does ultimately get there.   It has timed out every time I've tried it (at least 20 tries) in Philadelphia.  I  suspect the timeout is causing the issues.   Below is a pic of a recent trace.

I suspect this is an error in their network or with their dns server.    Is anyone else in the new castle county Delaware or philadelphia area having this issue or figured out how to resolve it? 

[smith6612]

The traceroute looks fine, and is quite clean. Nice steady latency with no packet loss. Those timeouts are coming from routers on the Internet which are simply choosing not to respond to ICMP and Traceroute requests.

If you're having issues with the Internet dropping out, does your router ever give an indication that the Internet is down? For example, a red status light or log entries saying "WAN is down."

Another possibility could be with IPv6. Try temporarily disabling it on your PC to see if the Internet performance improves. Some network cards in the past were found to have trouble while on the Fios network with IPv6 traffic. See this article on how to turn off (or turn on) IPv6: https://www.itechguides.com/disable-ipv6-windows-10/ . The steps should be the same for Windows 10 and Windows 11.

[dgolfnut55]

Hovering over the internet Icon on my computer says "internet access".    IPV6 was already off.  Another party in this thread has responded they were having similar issues and that pingplotter indicated many lost packets.   I have downloaded and installed pingplotter sidekick and will see what that says.

[kbanks0507]

I live in the Philadelphia area and have been having the same problem for 3 weeks now. I have tried the support line, had a tech come out and replace the ONT, he said it got raised top a level two ticket and I have heard nothing since then. I tried upgrading my plan to see if that solved anything and that also did not help. I'm about to swap ISP's if this does not get resolved soon.  Ping plotter is showing severe packet loss on their servers. I am not experiencing this issue when using a VPN. I also already tried switching my DNS and disabling IPv6.

[dgolfnut55]

I checked my backup logs.  The first failure was Saturday, Arpil 20th.  Prior to that I had successfully backed up every day for at least 2 weeks.   Since then I have only once had 2 successful backup days in a row.   I didn't mention in my original post that we are also having intermittent issues with our phones which are on fios.  Sometimes the call connects, but 1 party cannot hear the other.    I have not had time to spend hours starting over with their tech  support people.   I will have to check out pingplotter.    

[kbanks0507]

When I was using the 300mbs plan I was getting different routes through their alternet servers, so the ping plot looked a bit different but was still experiencing severe packet loss. 

[dgolfnut55]

I signed up for pingplotter sidekick and did not have any packet loss for the last 12 hours.   It says my signal has been strong and healthy.   I am however, unable to confirm my email address on my verizon account.  I receive the email but when I click the link it says "we are sorry, but a problem with your request has occurred."   In addition, my backup failed again last night.   

[Oakeydoke · Accepted solution]

I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing issues with your internet connection and cloud backup service. Here are some suggestions to try and solve the problem:

- Check your internet connection: Even though your speed tests show close to a gigabit speed, it's possible that there are issues with the stability of your connection. Try running a speed test during off-peak hours when you don't usually experience problems. If the speed test results are inconsistent, this could indicate an issue with your connection.

- Contact Verizon support again: It sounds like you have already tried many troubleshooting steps. Since the issue persists and the trace route indicates potential issues within Verizon's network, it may be worth your time to contact them again and explain the details of your situation, including the inconsistent connection, the frequent disconnections during chats, and the trace route results. They may have additional insights or tools to help identify the cause of the problem.

- Consider using a different device: If possible, try connecting your computer directly to the ONT (optical network terminal) with an Ethernet cable instead of relying on your router. This can help eliminate potential issues with your router or wireless connection.

- Explore alternative cloud backup services: If your current cloud backup service is consistently failing, consider trying a different provider that may have better reliability in your area.

- Monitor network activity: Use network monitoring tools to observe the behavior of your internet connection during the periods when you experience issues. This can help you gather data to explain the problem to Verizon support and potentially identify the root cause.

Remember, it's important to maintain a calm and respectful tone when communicating with technical support staff. They are there to help, but they may also be limited in their ability to troubleshoot issues that are beyond their control or that require access to your network equipment.