BT TV Connection

[JMcD69]

Hi 

For years my set up has been with my BT Youview box connected via ethernet to a network switch to a powerline adapter, without any issues at all. At present it's pretty much impossible to connect directly to the hub.

In the last few weeks I've seen issues in watching TNT sports and I'm now seeing issues with other on demand channels that I've never had before. 

Has something changed in the configuration and set up that means using Powerline adapters are no longer viable? 

I have seen notes recommending directly in to the hub. I've also tried bypassing the network switch and gone directly to the powerline adapter as well as changing ethernet cables. None of these have made any difference.

I've also checked the firmware for the box and that is up to date. 

I can't update any apps at present. No error message.

Any suggestions would welcome. 

Many thanks 

[DarrenDev]

No change at our end. Have you tried rebooting the powerline adapters? Also, is there anything new that you've plugged into the mains anywhere in the house, that could be adding interference?

[naylor2006]

Did you say youve connected directly to the router or not? I just saw the bit you said it was recommended.

Ultimately you will need to connect direct to just test it, if you have a PC monitor somewhere with HDMI just use that and do a test with the box next to the router.

The harsh reality is though that PowerLine adapters, as useful as they are can be, are effected by all sorts of interference and from one circuit to the next can give wildly different results and I wouldnt be surprised if one day all of a sudden it went to pap.

From my own monitoring when watching BT TV at my home on normal HD (live) channels there is a constant stream of 20Mbit/s going from the router to the box, I'm not an expert on multicast but thats how the streams are sent and if there is packet loss or loss of throughput for some reason the box will get effect no doubt. TNT Sports Ultimate is running at a constant 40Mbit/s so that channel will certainly suffer more.

I would connect a laptop directly to the powerline adapter and run a speed test from any one of the internet sites, my favorite is Ookla, run a few, if you are seeing speeds drop below these numbers it could explain your issue, given ondemand is also struggling it could be bandwidth related. I expect multicast however is more effected by packet loss given its a constant stream if indeed your bandwidth is fine.

Im with you though, my house is a pain, I tried Powerline adapters to place my NAS somewhere and they quoted 1Gbit network speeds, I barely got 40Mbit on my electrics but also too much packet loss. So I run those BT Wholehome Mesh disks now which piggy back off each other via highspeed WIFI, they indeed do have an ethernet port on the back you can connect a switch to or a device directly, I can get 600Mbps off the back of one of these if it has a strong connection back to the router via the other mesh disks. This would be a fair better investment then powerlines in my opinion.

But yeah, try a speed test connected directly to the powerline with a laptop, in addition you could also try pinging your TV box to see if there is any loss. Connect a laptop directly to the router then open command prompt and run

ping (IPTV IP here) /t

The forward slash t will run a continuous ping otherwise windows will stop after 4 times, you can get the IP off the TV box its self in network settings. If you are seeing timeouts you have an issue, usually a ping across two devices on a LAN (not using powerline, mesh etc) will result in a response of less than 1ms. If the powerline is achieving this then fairplay but I never got such latency and experiences timeouts. You could have TV on at the same time and see if any time outs or high latency are occurring at the same time as TV drop outs.

[gomezz]

Powerline adaptors recently started playing up? I would be looking at what new electrical device are plugged into the same ring or signs of old devices starting to fail.

But of course trying an ethernet cable is always a first step in such cases.

[JMcD69]

Thanks for the reply

So far I've rebooted powerline adapters, switched an adapter and changed ethernet cables.

We have recently plugged in a PS5 through ethernet and have unplugged that from the network as well. I've also switched my PC to Wi-Fi from ethernet.

No joy - still seeing a very blocky picture and disjointed audio

I have opened other apps on my BT box - eg. Amazon and Netflix and they appear to work without issues other than a bit a of delay in responding to the remote

[naylor2006]

Those apps will not be using multicast traffic though, they will be using normal Internet and have the ability to ‘buffer’ smoothing out inconsistencies in the traffic. In addition they can adjust their bitrate to run at a lower image quality to maintain a stream.

Your live TV however is coming via a constant flow of multicast packets which as far as I know will not adjust like unicast (Netflix, amazon, iPlayer etc), any interruption or loss to that data stream for live TV will suffer visibly in the output on screen.

The investigation needs to focus on the live TV part really and by running a ping and some speed tests like in my post will help you discover where the fault is. I am also 99% sure that the issue won’t be there connecting the box directly to the router via Ethernet or WiFi, for the latter proving the signal is strong enough.

[JMcD69]

Thanks for  reply and suggestions

Aside from other tests I've plugged a laptop in directly and completed a ping test.

Minimum response time was 3ms and the maximum was 8ms with an average of 5ms... I'm no expert but would that suggest it's too slow and need to find away of increasing the speed from the router?

[naylor2006]

Depends what the test was.

Laptop plugged directly into router then ping the TV box IP address which is located on the power adapter.

If this is resulting in a maximum of 8ms I would expect this is fine actually, Wi-Fi sometimes isn’t much quicker even if it’s 8ms more than directly connecting to the router.

If you run one for a long period of time do you get any timeouts?

What are speed test results showing from a laptop connected to the power line?

Its possible the issue is actually outside your house specifically with the multicast part but what’s going to happen is that tech support are going to ask you to plug directly into the router at which point it’ll probably work and then that’s it it’s your problem again.

I assume there is no issue with the TV box hooked up directly?

[JMcD69]

Thanks for the follow up

Broadband speed test:

Laptop plugged directly into the router - 61.28Mbps download and 18.63Mbps upload

PC - WIFI in the same room and next to the TV box - 20.55Mbps download and 18.21Mbps upload

At the moment I'm trying a "bodge fix". I've installed a WIFI extender in my office, which has an ethernet port and have connected the box to the extender via the extender. That seems to work for a short while and then get an IPC6023 error, which resets after while and carries on working

Overall I suspect there's a problem with the powerline

[naylor2006]

No problem.

We dont need a speed test directly into the router, we need a speed test run from the powerline end, to see what sort of bandwidth is available there.

However, based on those results at the router you have sufficient speeds for TV at the router, from my own testing the TNT Sports Ultimate HDR channel is pulling at 60Mbps Multicast, luckily I have 900Mbps to play with but the high quality live channels are going to be effected more, Sky Sports HD is pulling at 40Mbps for me. What I mean to say is if that only 61Mbps is there at the router directly then it wont take much to go wrong with WIFI or the powerline to effect the channels.

Anyway, it would be really interesting to see speed tests at the power line end, hook up the laptop there and see what the speed it, I can see that that you are losing 40Mbps just to WIFI and IPC6023 is an error which means a loss in multicast, so if it starts up again after you getting this error you are getting interruptions to this feed, multicast cannot cope well with interruptions.

Your work around would generally work if the WIFI service to the extender was decent but I suspect its struggling to meet the requirements of the box.

If you cannot run ethernet you may be best to switch the WIFI off on the BT router and get something like this: 

BT Whole Home Wi-Fi, Pack of 3 Discs, Mesh Wi-Fi for seamless, speedy (AC2600) connection,

You dont need to buy BT Mesh, any Mesh will do, Mesh gets a bit of slander sometimes but it is very useful for scenarios where you need to boost the WIFI and cannot do it via ethernet access points. Price for that BT kit has gone  a little nuts, I think it was like less than 200 quid when I bought the 3 disk kit yonks ago. Strategically placing these disks in a wifi daisy chain of each other will give you fair better connectivity, in fact given you are only getting 60Mbps at the source, even the final disk will still be able to provide that. Ive managed to get 600Mbps out of mine.

There are other Mesh solutions also.