topic Re: Slow access to BBC News site in Archive

Slow access to BBC News site

SkyRider17 — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:15:40 GMT

I have Business Infinity. For the past 2 weeks or so I have been suffering with slow, effectively no, access to BBC News site. If I visit the home page it takes *ages* to load the vast majority of times. The page is just blank, although sometimes the BBC page banner appears. Nothing further happens - I give up waiting normally.

Infrequently I get lucky and the homepage renders normally, but then I click a link and that just hangs.

This happens with IE, FFox, Chrome. I have flushed caches etc. All other websites I visit behave normally.

I think this is BT-related problem because when I switch to use my (slow) Sky broadband link then BBC is back to normal. Switching back to BT fails again - and all this happens without changing my browser instance.

There is a similar thread in the BT Residential forum. http://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity/BBC-website-slow-today/td-p/429927/page/2 Is anyone else seeing this? (I'm in Basingstoke, Hampshire).

Is it worth logging this as a fault with BT? Will it be investigated or will my PCs be blamed since all other sites work OK?

Thanks.

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

Buff3r — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:31:34 GMT

Be/O2 are having same problems, might be BBC side

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

kuerten — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 17:24:26 GMT

Hi Sky. You can also check if there's a hop that has high latency here. Please run a traceroute to the url: www.bbc.co.uk ( Don't know yet if this is the site that you are referring to.)

Paste it here. It would show us which hop has a high latency if this is a network issue.

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

SkyRider17 — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 09:50:04 GMT

Thanks for your interest. It seems any reference to BBC News site is affected, other parts of BBC seem to be OK.

Here's some tracert output from yesterday and today - the timeout at hop 11 is consistent across many tests.

I also did the tracert when connected to Sky (posted below too) and also get timeouts, but the news site works fine. I don't know what to make of this. Who should I report this to? Thanks.

With BT:

C:\>tracert news.bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to newswww.bbc.net.uk [212.58.246.80]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 1 ms 7 ms 6 ms 217.32.147.0
3 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms 217.32.147.30
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 213.120.177.66
5 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 217.41.168.231
6 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 217.41.168.109
7 11 ms 9 ms 9 ms 109.159.249.236
8 22 ms 21 ms 22 ms core2-te0-0-0-2.ealing.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.249.155]
9 12 ms 11 ms 11 ms peer2-xe11-1-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.254.118]
10 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms 194.74.65.42
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 14 ms 13 ms 13 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
13 15 ms 13 ms 16 ms 132.185.255.165
14 14 ms 12 ms 13 ms bbc-vip001.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.80]

Trace complete.

C:\>tracert news.bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to newswww.bbc.net.uk [212.58.246.81]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 2 ms 8 ms 6 ms 217.32.147.0
3 10 ms 8 ms 8 ms 217.32.147.46
4 12 ms 12 ms 10 ms 213.120.177.66
5 12 ms 10 ms 10 ms 217.41.168.231
6 12 ms 9 ms 9 ms 217.41.168.109
7 12 ms 10 ms 10 ms acc2-10GigE-0-1-0-6.l-far.21cn-ipp.bt.net [109.159.249.222]
8 15 ms 21 ms 22 ms core2-te0-0-0-0.ealing.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.249.153]
9 13 ms 11 ms 11 ms peer2-xe9-1-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.254.114]
10 14 ms 12 ms 12 ms 194.74.65.42
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 14 ms 13 ms 12 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
13 14 ms 16 ms 13 ms 132.185.255.165
14 14 ms 13 ms 13 ms bbc-vip002.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.81]

Trace complete.

With Sky:

C:\>tracert news.bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to newswww.bbc.net.uk [212.58.244.56]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 35 ms 33 ms 33 ms cr3.thbz.uk.easynet.net [195.189.159.223]
3 31 ms 30 ms 30 ms 82.111.105.161
4 37 ms 37 ms 37 ms te0-1-0-2.er11.thlon.ov.easynet.net [89.200.135.99]
5 34 ms 34 ms 33 ms 212.58.238.189
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 35 ms 33 ms 34 ms ae0.er01.telhc.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.109]
9 89 ms 37 ms 35 ms 132.185.255.148
10 37 ms 37 ms 38 ms bbc-vip101.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.56]

Trace complete.

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

MHC — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 15:34:47 GMT

The time outs could just be that the nodes are set to not respond to pings ...

With your problem can I suggest you check your MTU and RWIN settings - on both PC and Hub. ADSL - 1500 (max) for MTU and with VDSL (Infinity) 1492.

Incorrect size of MTU can easily result in pages being slow to load. Try taking the PC's MTU down to 1400 ish and trying then gradually increasing it.

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

KarenPole — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 08:54:03 GMT

Am having exactly the same problem when connecting to BBC news via the Infinity service. We have three laptops in the house and all are experiencing the same issues. I can access the website without any problems when using Wi-F elsewhere.

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

MHC — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:43:28 GMT

Totally fine here on Infinity ...

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

SkyRider17 — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:20:04 GMT

MHC - thanks for the suggestion re MTU/RWIN. I tried all sorts of values but no cigar.

Occasionally after a change the homepage would appear and maybe I got 2 or 3 subsequent pages by clicking links but then it would hang on the next click.

I'm using Vista, issued the netsh interface ipv4 ..... command string to change MTU, apparantly RWIN cannot be set on Vista. I tried all values from 1400 to 1500 in increments of 4. (I didn't reboot between changes though, except once which didn't seem to make a difference)

This is soooo... frustrating. Other PCs in the house have the same problem and they too used to be fine with BBC News. But interestingly I have a HP Touchpad tablet (runs proprietary WebOS, based on Linux) which is fine through the BT link. So maybe I can't blame BT or BBC after-all !! (The tablet is wireless, and PCs with problem are both wired and wireless)

I did not change any settings on PCs or hub, so I don't know why this suddenly happened or what else to try. It is just BBC news site references, regular BBC is OK.

Anyone any other bright ideas?

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

roseywhale — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 20:04:18 GMT

Hello SkyRider

I cannot offer any help at the moment but am having identical problems to you down in mid Cornwall.

Our symptoms are exactly the same as you, browsing speeds are very poor although line tests on the whole report a fairly good speed.

The BBC site especially is very very slow. i have just tried to open the bbc sport page it now has the banner(yellow) bit only after about 5 minutes and is now onto one picture below it.

We have free sky broadband on our home phone line showing 1.5mbps download and that is 1000x faster than our 30mbps infinity.

will let you know how we get on

cheers

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

MHC — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 11:13:09 GMT

I have had no problems accessing the BBC website from my office/home network - until now. Yesterday, it was unbeluevably slow trying to access it from my O2 mobile.

This suggests it is not a BT broadband issue but either with the network provider teh BBC uses or their own servers and network.

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

plummet — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 12:21:48 GMT

I have BT infinity for business and have exactly the same problem. I've been noticing it for a while now (weeks, possibly a few months) but it didn't occur when I first got infinity.

Happens on both PCs. Tried tweaking MTU but no effect.

I think the base webpage downloads quickly but all the linked images come very slowly. I think if it was an MTU problem the pages would fail to load at all? Other websites seem to be fine and I don't have any ping or DNS dropouts. Tried Google DNS as well as BT and I can see that DNS lookups and pings work fine whilst the news page download is hanging.

The poster's tablet might have worked as tablets are often redirected to different versions of the webpage.

I suspect a BT problem here

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

viewfile — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:38:00 GMT

I have BT infinity for business installed at home and have exactly the same problem. We also have Sky Broadband and connecting to that from the same PC's works fine. Definitely something to do with the BT Infinity line.

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

plummet — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 10:19:31 GMT

My problem is now solved.

I called the helpline and talked through a few things and they wanted to send me a new hub. I was adamant that the issue had to be in the network and not in the hub, but let them send one anyway.

What do you know...the new hub fixed the problem. I'm really surprised by that - can't see what the old one could have been doing that was so specific to the BBC news site. You'd think maybe I had tweaked a setting in there that caused the problem - but the problem was still there even after a factory reset.

My old hub was a 2701HGV-C (BT infinity business hub) and they sent me a BT business hub 3.

Nice hub too - much smaller and has clearer setup menus. Only downside is that content filtering has been removed (but I think they are taking that out from all hubs anyway).

I recommend others with the same problem request a BT business hub 3.

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

gugaguga — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:08:54 GMT

This is really tricky since BBC is the only site you are having problems but glad to see this working for you already. Cheers!

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

SkyRider17 — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:49:00 GMT

Thanks Plummet,

I finally ran out of patience and call the helpline last week too. They had me try changing router setitngs and a factory reset, all for nothing.

I got a callback as arranged and said their suggestions didn't work - the support person has gone away to think of Plan B. Perhaps I'll cite your experience and ask for a new one...

Odd though - you wouldn't think that only one particular (sub-)site can be affected by a router issue.

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

SkyRider17 — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:54:23 GMT

Gobsmacked! A replacement hub fixed the problem for me too.

And with great service from the BT Business support team throughout.

Thanks for the tip-off Plummet - I'd never have believed it could happen...

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

viewfile — Fri, 04 May 2012 09:53:04 GMT

A replacement hub fixed the problem for me too. I also got great service from the BT Business support team; they arranged for my old hub to be picked up by a courier and they are going to take a detailed look at it in their labs to try and work out what is causing the issue

Re: Slow access to BBC News site

Chocolate — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 16:35:38 GMT

We had all the same issues with the same hub type too. We have had the 2701HG-C hub replaced from a previous call to BT about the slowness. So, after seing the comments on this forum we decided to take the same route & get a replacement newer hub after numerous speed tests which, apart from the upload speed, were all within spec.

Have since received the Hub3, connected up & all the issues have been resolved, including the dreaded slowness on BBC news page, video streaming, B&Q etc.

One thing that may be different, is that we have the new Hub3 conneted through the openreach hub & it has not slowed the new hub3 down at all. Worth wiring this way should the hub3 fail & you at least have the other openreach hub in cases of emergency.

Hopefully, this will now become the standard process to fix this issue that is obviously not a isolated incident.