Site and download very slow

[Paul McCluskey]

Got 900mb broadband, getting 112kb's 40 mins for a download that should take seconds lol

 

[Neilski]

Sorry ive meant 140/kbs

Ah OK well that's considerably worse than you should ever experience on this site (even at peak times) so I guess it's either an issue with connectivity between your ISP and ours (likely) or your PC is playing up (not very likely).
You can check it isn't the latter by using a phone or other device on your home broadband for a test download. If that leaves only the former as the culprit then I recommend you ask your ISP for input about the speed issue.

 

[Neilski]

getting 60kbs/s

See below.

staff here refuse to admit fault, and instead continually blame some random ISP for thier incredibly slow speeds on their site

Umm, what? Please show me the posts where staff are blaming users or a random ISP.
You might instead find posts where we point out that some ISPs have connectivity issues to our ISP and ask some people to contact their ISP to see if they can address it.

1gb/s internet, yet RD only gives me 40kb/s

See below.

apparently the people who run it has been blaming the problems on their users for years instead of taking responsibility for it and fixing it

Disingenuous in the extreme. Shame on you.

Got 900mb broadband, getting 112kb's 40 mins for a download that should take seconds lol

OK, I recommend taking a quick look at this post for background info.

In short: there are two main reasons for slow downloads:
#1 when our site server's bandwidth is overloaded
#2 when the links between your ISP and our site's ISP are congested.

(NB: bandwidth is a case-sensitive world, using "b" for bits and "B" for bytes - it doesn't help that various bits of ordinary PC software will show you speeds in different units, and since there's a factor of 8 between MB/s and Mb/s it's rather important to check if the b was uppercase or lowercase )

Working out which reason is likely to be active for you:

If your download speeds are getting down to the region of 1 Megabit/s (1 Mb/s) which is around 120 kilobytes/second (120 kB/s), at European peak times (weekday afternoons from maybe 16:00 UTC, weekends from more like 10:00 UTC, until maybe 23:00 UTC typically), then the load on our server is probably to blame. We are working on long-term fixes for that, but in the short term we do now have prioritisation for downloads by Premium members.

If however your download speeds are dramatically lower still - say 200 kb/s (around 25 kB/s) or less - or your speeds are bad at other times of day, then it's almost certainly not our server limiting your speeds. For these users we can do nothing more than alert our ISP (we are in touch with them regularly) and advise the users to ask their ISPs to investigate the speed problem. A small number of ISPs in both Germany and the US have been cropping up repeatedly for our users in this respect. Taking the example of Deutsche Telekom: they and i3D (our ISP) are in agreement that there's a connectivity issue between them but it appears that neither of them own the problem link and neither of them believe it's their responsibility to sort it out (which leaves both you and us in the lurch). It's not unheard of though for an ISP to find and sort out an issue after being contacted by their customer so... what have you got to lose?

 

[aphidgod]

This was yesterday during the hours Neilski identified as peak server load hours. I'm in the USA. Doesn't prove much... does suggest it's probably not unilaterally RaceDepartment's fault. (It peaked at over 2.4MB/s mid-stream but settled down to about 1.2 over the whole file, so this is representative.)

I won't bother to tell you my internet speed, how much I pay for it, or even how long it's been since I had dialup, because those details are irrelevant and condescending.

 

[Please Stop This]

No matter how you blame isp's or something. There is a CDN behind. Its ridiculous not having at least 500kB/s for non-payed subscribers, but seems like tickling users into that is the way. I dont blame rd. Users already switching to other sources. Peak rd.

edit: was premium last year, now ye, you see...
edit2: and its the update, NOT dl'ing same file again!, not wasting bandwidth, altough i know not much has changed, so then ye blame on me)
edit:3: this took 30 mins

 

[Neilski]

There is a CDN behind.

Nope.

It peaked at over 2.4MB/s mid-stream but settled down to about 1.2 over the whole file, so this is representative.

Mmm, that should have been a lot quicker for you, given that you're Premium.

Something that might shed light on this (for you and others) is to visit https://www.speedtest.net/ and hit the "Change Server" button after it autoselects a server - then select the i3D server in Rotterdam and see how it looks at a time when the RD download speeds aren't great. There are also some non-i3D servers in Rotterdam (you could probably choose any Dutch city in fact) which can easily be used for a pretty straightforward comparison, to see if your bandwidth to i3D is compromised or just your bandwidth to RD.

 

[Please Stop This]

i3d.net does oc advertise CDN's, and its active for prems, so why that big of a brake hint for non subscribers? the outcry would be far less if it at least would be, and i repeat, 0.5MB/s. Is that really that much higher in cost? edit: typos

 

[Neilski]

i3d.net does oc advertise CDN's, and its active for prems, so why that big of a brake hint for non subscribers? the outcry would be far less if it at least would be, and i repeat, 0.5MB/s. Is that really that much higher in cost? edit: typos

Can't fully work out what you're saying there. However, I repeat: "nope" we're not using a CDN at present, not even for Premium users. Offering a guaranteed per-user download speed is not possible when total bandwidth has an upper limit.

 

[Please Stop This]

no CDN and total bandwidth limit, i shrug

 

[xNimus]

Nope.

Mmm, that should have been a lot quicker for you, given that you're Premium.

Something that might shed light on this (for you and others) is to visit https://www.speedtest.net/ and hit the "Change Server" button after it autoselects a server - then select the i3D server in Rotterdam and see how it looks at a time when the RD download speeds aren't great. There are also some non-i3D servers in Rotterdam (you could probably choose any Dutch city in fact) which can easily be used for a pretty straightforward comparison, to see if your bandwidth to i3D is compromised or just your bandwidth to RD.

Bro, i live in NL, i have KPN as my provider... Does KPN have errors with it? if yes then aight i wont complain again, if no, then fix ur damn servers lmao. i did the speedtest thing and its still around 1gb download and around 900mb upload....

 

[aphidgod]

Mmm, that should have been a lot quicker for you, given that you're Premium.

This is what I get during off-peak hours. I'd be inclined to blame server load for the other one - like I said, that was definitely peak hours.

 

[Sascha Guenther]

Speechless guys, not even 1 kB/s d/l speed.
It´s a shame where your website currently is hovering to. Sorry.

 

[RasmusP]

Around 1.7 Megabyte per second isn't super fast, but good enough for 22:45 CEST.

Ofc I'm premium, but that doesn't seem to change the speed for many...

EDIT: Just downloaded another track and got 6-7 Megabyte per second! That was a quick download... So it varies very drastically within a few minutes!

 

[Neilski]

This is what I get during off-peak hours. I'd be inclined to blame server load for the other one - like I said, that was definitely peak hours.

The server certainly tries to give you way more than you got at peak time, but the congestion in between the two ends is probably playing a role (even if much less dramatically than for some users).

Around 1.7 Megabyte per second isn't super fast, but good enough for 22:45 CEST.

Ofc I'm premium, but that doesn't seem to change the speed for many...

I guess you're in the same boat as @aphidgod then - Premium is boosting your speed but then the bandwidth is getting constrained by something else instead.
I will try to come up with other tests that shed light on this, but in the meantime it would be awesome if you could test speedtest.net's i3D Rotterdam server and see if it's worse than the non-i3D servers in that vicinity.

Speechless guys, not even 1 kB/s d/l speed.
It´s a shame where your website currently is hovering to. Sorry.

Sadly you appear to still be suffering from the Deutsche Telekom <-> i3D connectivity issues, and we are powerless to fix them. The only workaround is to choose off-peak times

 

[RasmusP]

I will try to come up with other tests that shed light on this, but in the meantime it would be awesome if you could test speedtest.net's i3D Rotterdam server and see if it's worse than the non-i3D servers in that vicinity.

Sure thing
Maximum I get to my own provider is 246.27 right now. Paying for a 250 connection, so everything is perfect here and to Rotterdam.

Right now:

And it doesn't matter which download in case they would be prioritised regarding popularity or something.
That Okayama Spring Skin downloaded before I could click on "Show all" to see the speed

2 weeks ago I had to quickly download a different track version for a club race and that did cost me the practice session and most of qualy. About 0.2 Megabytes per second back then. 21:00 CEST though!

 

[Neilski]

Sure thing
Maximum I get to my own provider is 246.27 right now. Paying for a 250 connection, so everything is perfect here and to Rotterdam.
View attachment 582455
View attachment 582456
View attachment 582458

Right now:
View attachment 582460

And it doesn't matter which download in case they would be prioritised regarding popularity or something.
That Okayama Spring Skin downloaded before I could click on "Show all" to see the speed

2 weeks ago I had to quickly download a different track version for a club race and that did cost me the practice session and most of qualy. About 0.2 Megabytes per second back then. 21:00 CEST though!

That's great, thanks!

Firstly, it's clear that you were seeing high speed to the i3D Speedtest server in Rotterdam, but since the RD d/l speed was actually good at the time, this isn't the smoking gun it would otherwise be (in terms of blowing a hole in my hypothesis below).

(Disappointed to hear though that you got low RD download speed just 2 weeks ago, since that was after the server settings were adjusted to prioritise Premium - a move I was especially hoping would prevent Racing Club folk from getting shafted by slow downloads when they are trying to join a race... )

If you (or any of our Premium users reading this) experience lowish speeds (<5 MB/s, say) again, that would be the optimum time to re-run the i3D Rotterdam Speedtest check. My hypothesis is that if you find yourself getting a speed like you got earlier this evening from the RD server (2 ish MB/s), then you would also see poor speeds from the i3D Speedtest. If that's not how it turns out then I will need to revisit the server config as it might indicate it's not doing what I expect...

 

[RasmusP]

That's great, thanks!

Firstly, it's clear that you were seeing high speed to the i3D Speedtest server in Rotterdam, but since the RD d/l speed was actually good at the time, this isn't the smoking gun it would otherwise be (in terms of blowing a hole in my hypothesis below).

(Disappointed to hear though that you got low RD download speed just 2 weeks ago, since that was after the server settings were adjusted to prioritise Premium - a move I was especially hoping would prevent Racing Club folk from getting shafted by slow downloads when they are trying to join a race... )

If you (or any of our Premium users reading this) experience lowish speeds (<5 MB/s, say) again, that would be the optimum time to re-run the i3D Rotterdam Speedtest check. My hypothesis is that if you find yourself getting a speed like you got earlier this evening from the RD server (2 ish MB/s), then you would also see poor speeds from the i3D Speedtest. If that's not how it turns out then I will need to revisit the server config as it might indicate it's not doing what I expect...

Yeah always fun when you try to replicate something and it changes, eh?

I'll try to download some bigger tracks over the next weeks at "peak times" and try to get a slow download and then instantly do the speedtest to i3D Rotterdam again.

I'll login with a friend's account that's inactive to check premium vs non-premium too

 

[Tofu888]

Lol what a joke.

Signed up today - and its taking me an ETA of 1 hour to download a 200mb file.

Seems like you've been blaming your customer's ISPs since 2016 and you're still doing that some 6 years later.

Have cancelled my subscription quick smart.

 

[Neilski]

Seems like you've been blaming your customer's ISPs since 2016 and you're still doing that some 6 years later.

Please point out one or two posts which you find objectionable, eh?

Edit: right at this moment, the site is busy but a 200 MB download should still take no more than 10 minutes for non-Premium users (and much less than that for Premium) unless there is another issue at play (like the problem many of the DT customers are having).

 

[GeekyDeaks]

Just downloaded the thompson road update fat alfie posted. 150MB in 5 seconds, which is about 30MB/s. Can peeps do what @Neilski suggested when experiencing poor throughput and check what a speedtest against i3D at Rotterdam gives them? That way it might actually start to help figure out where the problem lies as I'm not convinced it's the server per-se

@Neilski - are you able to generate a link that tests against the i3D server?