Terrible Netflix performance on Xbox 360

paulr · ‎11-15-2004

I'm tearing out my hair trying to figure out this problem.

Setup:

25/2 profile, with Elite 18 enabled.
RG in the basement, wired into a Netgear gigabit switch.
The rest of the house network joins the same switch. There are a few wireless devices connected to the RG as well.
DVR in the living room, wired with an AT&T-installed Cat6 to the RG.
STB in the bedroom, wired with an AT&T-installed Cat6 to the RG.
Xbox 360 in the living room, connected to another Netgear gigabit switch.

When I start a Netflix stream on the 360, it almost always starts with 4 bars of video quality. The initial stream buffering varies from very fast (maybe 5% of the time) to extremely slow (50% of the time), with the remainder somewhere in between. Most commonly, the stream will start and then after a few seconds stop and rebuffer, often with the NXE message saying that my Internet connection speed has changed. Frequently the restart will drop the connection quality down to 2 bars, with a resulting drop in video quality. Every once in a while, playback will stay flawless and smooth. However, my family is bitterly complaining that AT&T stinks because they can't reliably watch Adam-12 and various chick flicks in our Netflix instant-watch queue

Here's what I have tried to troubleshoot this problem so far:

unplugged everything from the switch except the cable running to the Xbox's switch
replaced the Xbox switch with a brand-new Netgear gigabit switch
paused the Netflix playback immediately after it starts to allow for more buffering (a suggestion from the Xbox team at MS)
rebooted the RG immediately before starting playback

As I mentioned in this thread, I don't have a significant number of errors on the DSL, wireless, or LAN. My connection seems solid overall, but Netflix playback quality and timing just suck. What other tests should I be trying? I really don't want to go through the exercise of trying to explain this to a tier 1 tech unless I have something more solid; I suspect they'll just say "oh, it's Netflix' fault". Maybe it is, but somehow I doubt it.

jimfitzgerald · ‎05-19-2008

Can you unplug everything exept your DVR and tv and plug your X-Box directly into the RG and see what happens. I got a Ruko last week and it's connected wirelessly. I've watched several movies including a couple HD movies and have had absolutely no problems. That's with 6.0 Mbps internet. My system is totally coax. Edit: That's with a DVR, two STB's, and two wireless laptops.

Message Edited by jimfitzgerald on 02-08-2009 09:02 PM

Message Edited by jimfitzgerald on 02-08-2009 09:04 PM

twentw · ‎11-10-2008

My setup is somewhat similar, except I've got a PS3 that streams Netflix. I only have 6 Mbps. I have no trouble. Occasionally I get glitches when first starting, but pausing for about 10 second lets it catch up and I have no other issues.

The only problem I've had with UVerse was a bad wire. I put in all the Cat5e wiring myself years ago, so I checked the line and discovered a bad pair. That may be your problem, but unless you have the equipment to check it you would need to call AT&T out.

Computer-Joe · ‎09-19-2008

paulr wrote:
I'm tearing out my hair trying to figure out this problem.

Setup:

25/2 profile, with Elite 18 enabled.
RG in the basement, wired into a Netgear gigabit switch.
The rest of the house network joins the same switch. There are a few wireless devices connected to the RG as well.
DVR in the living room, wired with an AT&T-installed Cat6 to the RG.
STB in the bedroom, wired with an AT&T-installed Cat6 to the RG.
Xbox 360 in the living room, connected to another Netgear gigabit switch.
When I start a Netflix stream on the 360, it almost always starts with 4 bars of video quality. The initial stream buffering varies from very fast (maybe 5% of the time) to extremely slow (50% of the time), with the remainder somewhere in between. Most commonly, the stream will start and then after a few seconds stop and rebuffer, often with the NXE message saying that my Internet connection speed has changed. Frequently the restart will drop the connection quality down to 2 bars, with a resulting drop in video quality. Every once in a while, playback will stay flawless and smooth. However, my family is bitterly complaining that AT&T stinks because they can't reliably watch Adam-12 and various chick flicks in our Netflix instant-watch queue
Here's what I have tried to troubleshoot this problem so far:
unplugged everything from the switch except the cable running to the Xbox's switch
replaced the Xbox switch with a brand-new Netgear gigabit switch
paused the Netflix playback immediately after it starts to allow for more buffering (a suggestion from the Xbox team at MS)
rebooted the RG immediately before starting playback
As I mentioned in this thread, I don't have a significant number of errors on the DSL, wireless, or LAN. My connection seems solid overall, but Netflix playback quality and timing just suck. What other tests should I be trying? I really don't want to go through the exercise of trying to explain this to a tier 1 tech unless I have something more solid; I suspect they'll just say "oh, it's Netflix' fault". Maybe it is, but somehow I doubt it.

OK, this might sound like a dumb question (I don't use Netflix), but can you stream the movies to a computer without any problems? That should tell you if it's the xbox or AT&T. Is there a setting in netflix or the xbox interface where you can manually set your connection speed? If so try setting it to 5 or 6 Mbps (which should be sufficient for stream a movie) and see if that helps.

__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I realy want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.

Message Edited by Computer-Joe on 02-08-2009 09:51 PM

whatnoob · ‎05-23-2010

I see that this post is pretty old so I dont know if you solved your problem, but I am having the same issues? I am directly connecting my XBOX to the Uverse router and it keeps dropping the signal. It is driving me nuts. I read somewhere before that maybe I would need to setup a MTU setting? Could anyone verify this?

@twentw how did you check the line?

agredon · ‎05-26-2010

I've heard some people complain that Netflix on the XBox 360 was pretty bad. I always got 1 bar with Bellsouth DSL...but, I haven't tried it again since switching. I let my Live Gold subscription lapse...and since I can stream to PC or Wii, I'm not sure if its really worth it to renew it as I don't play alot of online games.

bsdsmb · ‎09-29-2008

I use XBox / Netflix all the time and get great results. I would NOT suggest that there is a fundamental problem with the Netflix service on XBox's.

If the RG isn't indicating many line problems, then the most probable soure of trouble is some sort of network contention between the XBox and other network devices trying to get out on the broadband link.

Things like is the XBox conected via wired ethernet, or via the coax HPNA network. I cannot recall, but I think the 25/2 profile is the lower of the profiles. That might indicate that the broadband is occassionally (frequently?) getting cut back if other higher priority traffic is trying to get through. Like if you have say 3 or 4 set top boxes, and leave them on (meaning they are all chewing up high priority IPTV traffic) and someone is on the phone, and say a PC in the house is running a torrent... I don't believe the 2wire RG will discriminate when dropping traffic on the broadband side between a PC running bit torrent and NetFlix streaming ... so if it drops the Netflix, you will get squirrely behavior.

I hope his helps.

opposer1 · ‎11-15-2010

I'm having a similar problem. I recently signed up for U-verse and I connect the modem directly to my Xbox 360. Why do I only get 1 or 2 bars? Is there something I can change to improve this?

Computer-Joe · ‎09-19-2008

opposer1 wrote:
I'm having a similar problem. I recently signed up for U-verse and I connect the modem directly to my Xbox 360. Why do I only get 1 or 2 bars? Is there something I can change to improve this?

This kind of problem has been going on for a while with U-verse. Sounds like a job for a traffic shaping monitoring tool because, frankly, I would not put it past AT&T to be messing with those streams.

__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.

bsdsmb · ‎09-29-2008

While I understand your cynicism Joe, I doubt it is AT&T shaping away Netflix traffic. I am on the 12 mb internet, and I consistently get full 4-5 bars (whatever all of them is) on my xbox/netflix.

If a person has the 3 meg data - or they have enough other traffic on the data side of their network, I suspect they will have reduced bars when trying to stream netflix. I think an HD neflix stream gobbles up somewhere in the the 4 - 6 mbs range. I'll try to stream one and measure how much the xbox is really consuming. That is a great ... question.

I have often wondered if having an unmanaged gigabit switch in the middle of a bunch of devices (including an xbox) where the xbox is one of the only 100 mbs devices ... and you then get a bunch of multi-cast traffic which I assume the unmanaged switch will flood to all ports ... so imagine 3 - 4 STB streams flooding, plus then try to stream a Netflix HD stream ... you could bet talking > 25 Mbs of stuff at a fairly high packet per second rate banking on the XBox's NIC ... would that cause the Xbox to drop some packets? I don't know. If it would - then that would explain the Netflix app dropping it's quality and adjusting to try to stop dropping packets.

Perhaps someone more skilled in the art of networking could chime in on this one...

Computer-Joe · ‎09-19-2008

bsdsmb wrote:
While I understand your cynicism Joe, I doubt it is AT&T shaping away Netflix traffic. I am on the 12 mb internet, and I consistently get full 4-5 bars (whatever all of them is) on my xbox/netflix.

If a person has the 3 meg data - or they have enough other traffic on the data side of their network, I suspect they will have reduced bars when trying to stream netflix. I think an HD neflix stream gobbles up somewhere in the the 4 - 6 mbs range. I'll try to stream one and measure how much the xbox is really consuming. That is a great ... question.

I have often wondered if having an unmanaged gigabit switch in the middle of a bunch of devices (including an xbox) where the xbox is one of the only 100 mbs devices ... and you then get a bunch of multi-cast traffic which I assume the unmanaged switch will flood to all ports ... so imagine 3 - 4 STB streams flooding, plus then try to stream a Netflix HD stream ... you could bet talking > 25 Mbs of stuff at a fairly high packet per second rate banking on the XBox's NIC ... would that cause the Xbox to drop some packets? I don't know. If it would - then that would explain the Netflix app dropping it's quality and adjusting to try to stop dropping packets.

Perhaps someone more skilled in the art of networking could chime in on this one...

I don't think the actual streams would be multicast as they should be directed to the individual IPs of the STBs. Now all of the QOS, ACK/NACK, STB authentication and the other extranious traffic of the IPTV system does flood (that's why I used a router behind the RG to isolate my computer traffic from all the U-verse traffic). A good test IMO would be to disable the STB function of the XBOX and then try the netflix because if the RG is treating the XBOX like an STB it would treat anything other than IPTV traffic as secondary.

__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.

SomeJoe7777 · ‎01-30-2008

Computer-Joe wrote:

I don't think the actual streams would be multicast as they should be directed to the individual IPs of the STBs. Now all of the QOS, ACK/NACK, STB authentication and the other extranious traffic of the IPTV system does flood (that's why I used a router behind the RG to isolate my computer traffic from all the U-verse traffic). A good test IMO would be to disable the STB function of the XBOX and then try the netflix because if the RG is treating the XBOX like an STB it would treat anything other than IPTV traffic as secondary.

Live TV streams on U-Verse are indeed multicast. With unmanaged switches, this traffic is broadcast to every port on all switches.

VOD and THDVR streams are unicast.

Computer-Joe · ‎09-19-2008

SomeJoe7777 wrote:

Live TV streams on U-Verse are indeed multicast. With unmanaged switches, this traffic is broadcast to every port on all switches.

VOD and THDVR streams are unicast.

That sure seems like a waste of bandwidth considering the STBs should be able to request a particular stream/channel.

Is the switch in the RG "Managed"?

__________________________________________________________
How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.

SomeJoe7777 · ‎01-30-2008

Multicast places traffic everywhere in your home because typical consumer switches don't isolate it, but it's way more efficient in terms of bandwidth in AT&T's network. Only a single copy of the live stream needs to be sent to each router. The routers then replicate it to different destinations as necessary.

The switch in the RG isn't "managed" per se, but it does implement IGMP v3 snooping, which keeps the multicast isolated to only the ports that need it. This let's you hang all STBs off one port and all computer stuff off a different port and then the IPTV traffic will never be seen by the computers.