4+ years later, STILL unable to stream to Twitch.... hello?

[jadonprez]

I no longer have the patience for any of this. I've been paying for, what SHOULD be more than good enough internet for 4-5 years now, in order to live stream to Twitch.tv and yet STILL the same issue is alive and well.

Yes, I've called about the issue, literally dozens of times over the years. I've had at LEAST half a dozen different technicians (including a "senior" technician) come to the house to evaluate the issue, some of which have even been here more than once. The last few times I've had someone come here, I've been told: "everything has already been checked multiple times and everything is basically brand new & there are no issues on your end. I will pass the issue on", etc. Yet, nothing ever happens from there. Wonderful, right?

I've gone through over a dozen modems, as the technicians insist on replacing the already brand new one that I had.... every single time they come here. So CLEARLY there is not an issue on my end whatsoever. I've been told that I might need to "upgrade" my plan multiple times, which I actually ended up doing (went from the 75/7.5 package to 150/15 package) just to see if MAYBE it someway somehow would actually help. Boy was I ever wrong. It only takes about 2.5 to 3.0 mbps upload to stream to Twitch with the settings that I use.... yet my bitrate never fails to randomly plummet to literally 0 whenever it likes, and for as long as it likes.

Over the last 4 to 5 years, I HAVE gone short periods (a few weeks at a time AT MOST) with no issues whatsoever. But also have gone several months straight with my upload speed apparently plummeting each and every day without fail. I don't think it's even the speed that's dropping, because speed tests are ALWAYS perfectly fine. It's just when I actually try to stream to twitch that it completely fails to do it's job.

Streaming to Twitch has been a major part of my income over the year of 2018, yet over the last two months I literally cannot even stream for 30 seconds without my bitrate absolutely plummeting. Completely unacceptable.

I've seen MANY posts about this over the years on these forums, and it looks like it's an issue that just isn't being resolved. What is the problem here, Shaw? I'm just being completely ripped off at this point. Clearly there is some sort of issue with Shaw reaching the servers to Twitch or SOMETHING. This has been a known issue for years, and yet still it still hasn't gotten any better.

Highly considering switching to the other ISP in my city asap, as they are currently rolling out their Fibre internet as we speak. So this is the last chance that I am willing to give Shaw. I'm beyond tired of dealing with this. I need to hear something different for once. I've tried everything a hundred times over. ANY sort of answers would be lovely.

[#2]

You Are Not Alone, I believe this is a problem with twitch. I've had the same issue for a long time and it can be Touch and Go, I feel this is due in part to the source of the Stream. Most which servers are located in the United States, and it can be tricky to get a consistent connection. Your best bet is to watch the Stream as a replay video, I also find this more convenient as I can do it on my own time. Hope that helps

[jadonprez]

Honestly, I have absolutely no idea what this is supposed to mean.... but thank you anyways.

Again, this is a problem that I've been having for 4 to 5 YEARS now, and have been desperately trying to get answers from Shaw about the issue. When I try to stream (only using about 20% or less of what my apparent upload speed is....) my bitrate completely drops and plummets to basically ZERO, then spikes back up. This happens randomly, at any time, for a random extended amount of time. Something is seriously wrong here and I'm extremely disappointed and frustrated here. Streaming is supposed to be a big part of my income, yet I've been completely unable to do so for almost two months now because it's been that bad. TWO MONTHS.

7-8 modems and 6+ technicians later, I'm still left with absolutely nothing. I'm tired of this. This is CLEARLY an issue that isn't on my end. Whether it can be fixed or not, I have no idea. But some sort of answers would be nice.

Shaw?? any sort of help here would be much appreciated.... thank you.

[matt]

Does this happen with other streaming sites or just Twitch?

[jadonprez]

I mean, I don't really use any other streaming sites. Stuff like YouTube seems perfectly fine though.... it seems like it's just an issue with Twitch. Possibly a networking issue? I have no idea at this point.

[shaw-tony]

Hey jadonprez,

Thank you for reaching out! I am sorry for the delay in response and the frustrations you've experienced. The forums aren't monitored as closely as our other support channels. I understand that your speed tests have come through perfectly and based on the technician visits everything checks out right. Are you only noticing the issues with Twitch.tv only or are the same issues with other streaming sites as well? Have you reached out to Twitch support to see if they have any tips on resolving the issue?

Cheers,

Tony | Community Mod.

[jadonprez]

I mean, liked I said, I don't really use or watch any other streaming services other than Twitch. Watching YouTube videos and whatnot seems to be no problem, but yeah. Streaming to Twitch is awful for me and has been for years.

I have not personally contacted Twitch Support as they happen to have a page with many different steps/ways to troubleshoot frame drop/bandwidth problems to Twitch. I've done them all several times over the years, and the last step that they have is to contact my ISP. Which of course, I've done so dozens of times.

Again, it seems like it's either some sort of networking issue to Twitch, or somehow it's some sort of frequency issue that no one has picked up on yet. I honestly have NO idea. All I know is that I've tried absolutely everything that I could possibly do. Including testing things on a different PC.

[#8]

I made an account specifically to comment on this issue, as I see it is receiving very little attention from Shaw.

I signed up for Shaw 150 in June for the specific purpose of streaming, and I've been having the exact same problems as you. Sometimes streaming works fine and upload speeds are great, causing no dropped frames. Other times, my upload speed will drop so low that my stream is unwatchable. Having some background in networking and general IT work, I ran through all the troubleshooting steps in an attempt to isolate a cause of this on my end: Wired connection, router in bridge mode connected to my Netgear R7000, traceroutes to Twitch servers, testing each twitch server for latency issues, etc. (Which by the way, a traceroute/ping test of twitch servers is a useless metric to test for this issue, as ping tests check for latency between nodes hops and NOT bandwidth issues. Your upload speed could be 150mbps or 1.5 mbps, but the packets sent by the ping test will travel to the server with the same time because the size of the packets are well below your upload speed.)

After months of head scratching, the one thing I’ve been able to isolate, is that EVERY TIME, I have this issue of slow upload speeds, is during peak hours; weekends, and weekday evenings. I’ve come to conclude that the issue is Shaw’s infrastructure in my area (and it sounds like many other people’s area) simply cannot handle the amount of traffic received during peak hours. My upload speeds during peak hours consistently drop to below 5mbps, most of the time to speeds of less than 1mbps.

I get that Shaw advertises speeds of up to 15mbps, but since I signed up for the specific purpose of streaming (as they market in their advertisements), I don’t think I’m getting what I paid for. What’s more, the fact that the maximum upload speed is only 15mbps (well below what speeds in some large urban centers and most American ISPs offer) leads be to believe they simply don’t have the infrastructure in place to deliver consistent high bandwidth during peak hours, otherwise they would be offering much higher upload speeds.

Once again, this is not a router issue, its not a connection issue (wired vs wifi), its not a twitch server issue, it’s a Shaw issue. Their lack of resolution on this issue that seems to be affecting so many people for so long leads me to believe that it is an infrastructure issue. Otherwise, this would have been solved long ago. There have been many instances of Shaw promising speeds they can’t match on the outdated infrastructure they are using (if you’re from Medicine Hat, Alberta, you may know what I’m talking about).  Of course, these are my deductions based on my experience, so take it with a grain of salt. But I have a feeling I’m at least partially correct.

[jadonprez]

Yeah, at this point I'm actually mind blown by the amount of attention that this isn't receiving, considering the amount of complaints that not only I have made over the years (literally...), but by tons of other people on these forums as well.

Fortunately, over the last few weeks, I've started to finally narrow down the possibilities more and more, and it's pretty much down to one or two things.

It's either: some sort of physical issue on my end that is out of my control (which I absolutely cannot see it being, considering the fact that I've had over half a dozen technicians come here over the last couple of years and they have looked at everything COUNTLESS times in total, finding absolutely no issues whatsoever, even replacing a bunch of things just to be sure, etc.), OR it's an issue with the ISP simply being unable to deliver consistent speeds of any kind due to something in regards to their infrastructure.

I noticed that when doing a "bandwidth test" on my Xbox One, I was getting absolutely insane results that were all over the place as well. The test takes about 30 seconds to perform and show the results, and lets just say that every single time that I did a test, the numbers that I was getting in regards to mainly upload speed was simply shocking.

It would look like something along of the lines of this:

Test 1: Upload = 1.80 mbps

Test 2: Upload = 3.40 mbps

Test 3: Upload = 1.20 mbps

Test 4: Upload = 9.80 mbps

Test 5: Upload = 4.70 mbps

Test 6: Upload = 0.40 mbps

Test 7: Upload = 12.20 mbps

Test 8: Upload = 3.90 mbps

Keep in mind, these results are all within about 30 seconds of each other. Yeah.

I know that I'm paying for a package that advertises speeds "up to 15 mbps" but this is RIDICULOUS. Like I've said before, live streaming is supposed to be a way of income for me and it's practically become impossible to continue to do so with this kind of service being provided. Hell, even if I was dropping as low as 5 mbps, things would still be OKAY for me. But when it drops below 1 mbps every couple of minutes, at any time of the day for any random duration of time? I legitimately refuse to deal with this anymore. Never mind having to pay $120 a month for this.

Whether it be an actual issue with their infrastructure, or it just being completely outdated as the issue, I do not know. But it's honestly safe to say at this point that the problem is definitely one of the few things that I've narrowed it down to. 

Is there ANYTHING that anyone can do to help me out here? If this isn't fixed by the end of the month, I'm cancelling my services once and for all. I genuinely refuse to pay $120 for this so called "internet".

[cdx304]

I don't see a problem here i can with 7Mbs up so i don't see its a shaw problem more of  a hardware problem router network card