new +Stream network issues - Bytesized Hosting

Hey guys,

The last few days a network issue has become apparent on our new +Stream plan. At random intervals the network to the servers stops responding for anywhere from 5 up to 20 seconds. This causes intermittent issues like with Plex direct-streams of high bitrate content (streams will often stop the playback completely instead of buffering). If you have seen this the last few days this network issue was most likely the cause of it.

When starting to diagnose this issue we went through our software stack to see if we could find the problem. We upgraded various components (some of you saw server reboots) but it quickly turned out to be an issue with our upstream network provider. I've been in close contact with them the last few days and our upstream provider confirmed they are seeing the same issues we are seeing. As for a resolution the best they could come up with so far is "in the coming weeks".

I understand that these issues are very annoying especially for apps that require an 'always on' stream such as Mumble and Plex. The best work around we found so far Plex is to bypass direct-streaming and transcode instead so enough buffer can be created to 'survive' the random interruptions. We have also yet to find evidence of the problem existing through all routes so it might be worth it to try and see if rerouting alleviates any of the annoyances.

We will keep you updated on the situation using this news post.

Update 1: We are driving down to the datacenter tonight to diagnose the situations together with our upstream provider, hopefully we will know more after tonight. Some interruptions might happen as we diagnose things further.