Community Fiber -issue with connections to OVH servers

Hello to all forum users!

This is my first post.

I have been a Community Fiber customer for about 2 years.
The internet works stably and the internet speed is as declared by them, i.e. about 920Mbps download and upload.

Unfortunately, for some time now I have had a problem connecting to OVH servers where the Mikrotik CHR virtual machine is located.
Through this virtual router I am provided with additional IP addresses with DDoS protection. This service is provided by my friend who has purchased the service in path.net

The MT CHR virtual machine has been checked and everything is ok on the side of this VM.
Several of my friends also have a tunnel to this MT CHR and they have no problems with the connection. Each of them has a different internet provider than CF.

Unfortunately, the connection from my home CF internet to this MT CHR is disconnected on average twice an hour.
I talked to CF support, but they told me that everything is fine on their end. They also said that they can't help me anymore because I use my own router (Unifi UDM SE).

I started monitoring a few more addresses from the same subnet as VM MT CHR.

I noticed that each of these addresses has connection problems and also ping packets are dropped on average once or twice an hour.

I also started monitoring the same IP addresses OVH on my VPS in IONOS.

I don't have any dropped ping packets between VPS IONOS and OVH IPs.

I also monitor (from CF internet) a few other hosts like 1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8 or friends' VPS servers (mainly IONOS) and I don't have any dropped packets.

It looks like a problem on the CF side with connections to OVH subnet 57.128.159.0/24 servers

I called CF support again, explained the whole situation and again heard that everything is fine on their side and they can't help me any more because I use my own router.

I'm starting to get fed up with this situation. I host a few game servers for my friends and I care about the stability of this connection. I also host a few websites, but these 1-3 second connection breaks don't cause a big problem for now.

Do you know how to contact someone competent at CF or what to do to make CF check it more deeply on their side?

Have you tried messaging them on X?

Sadly need more information, monitor again with MTR, when the packet loss occurs, make a note of which hop it starts on, then you start to have an idea of the cause.

Here is the MTR result from yesterday when the ping stopped responding for a few seconds.

On the left is the mtr from my vps in IONOS, and on the right is the mtr from my home internet

MTR screenshot

Yes, I wrote on the X a moment ago.

Edited by osalj (Fri 27-Dec-24 19:28:44)

In reply to a post by osalj:

Yes, I wrote on the X a moment ago.

Hopefully get a meaningful response from them, outside of the holiday period.

In reply to a post by osalj:

The MT CHR virtual machine has been checked and everything is ok on the side of this VM.
Several of my friends also have a tunnel to this MT CHR and they have no problems with the connection. Each of them has a different internet provider than CF.

In the meantime - have you compared the MTR output routing / hops from your other friends (working fine) connections to see where there is commonality along the path?

Looks like the issue is beyond the point from Level 3 and Colt in the above MTR. Your friends ISPs may have quite different peering arrangements.

Edited by Pheasant (Fri 27-Dec-24 22:16:56)

In reply to a post by osalj:

Here is the MTR result from yesterday when the ping stopped responding for a few seconds.

On the left is the mtr from my vps in IONOS, and on the right is the mtr from my home internet

MTR screenshot

Thanks, this one doesnt seem as obvious as I hoped it would be.

Ignore the hop with circa 70% loss, as I think thats just rate limiting responses.

I would say the most likely culprit is the first neo.colt.net, possibly level 3 issue, or colt.net issue.

If I am right either OVH or CF can do a routing change to bypass the issue. ISPs can be stubborn though they dont like changing routes.

Looks like the hop from Colt and Level 3 going over to France that’s the culprit. It would be very odd for both Colt and Level 3 to have an issue.

Thank you all for your answers and your time!

I add another screenshot from my Mikrotik router.
https://ibb.co/31R0S79

On hop 11 (213.186.32.253) you can see that there are 75% lost packets, but they do not affect the tunnel disconnection.

Hop 7 (54.36.50.237 - OVH France) - when lost packets appear here, my tunnel disconnects immediately.

Since this is an IP from OVH, I wrote to them and explained the whole situation and I am waiting for a response.

Yesterday I called the Community Fiber technical department and asked if they can change the routes. They said that everything is fine on their side and they cannot change the routes.

“Hop 7 (54.36.50.237 - OVH France) - when lost packets appear here, my tunnel disconnects immediately.

Since this is an IP from OVH, I wrote to them and explained the whole situation and I am waiting for a response.”

Looks like that’s where your problem lies.

I'm curious what OVH will write. I hope they change the routes and my connection will be stable again.

I sent an email to: peering (at) ovh.net

I didn't get any confirmation that they received the email, so for now I have to wait

Possibly an interface is failing, flapping or out of balance. Your friends connections may be coming in via another path and avoiding that problematic interface etc.

That's right!

My friends' MTR looks a bit different and doesn't have the IP that causes this problem.

I wonder why this connection is via France

Colt and Level 3 (now Lumen) share the same backbone. They were the same company until earlier this year when Lumen divested their EMEA network to Colt (effectively spinning it off) so them having the same issues is not as strange as you may think!

Fair enough Jon. Hadn’t realised Colt had bought Level 3 (Lumen).

I still haven't received a reply from OVH. I hope they will reply tomorrow or Tuesday...

In reply to a post by osalj:

That's right!

My friends' MTR looks a bit different and doesn't have the IP that causes this problem.

I wonder why this connection is via France

It may be their own routing. Worth checking when you speak with them. Presume your kit is hosted in their UK Erith DC then?

The machine is at OVH UK

Edited by osalj (Sun 29-Dec-24 18:38:51)

In reply to a post by osalj:

I still haven't received a reply from OVH. I hope they will reply tomorrow or Tuesday...

There's a possibility they may not respond to you as you're neither a network operator nor a customer. If you don't hear back consider asking your friend who leases the service from OVH to look at it (assuming they do so directly) - There's a lot of e-mails in network operations mailboxes at times and having random users e-mail when they have issues is a bit challenging.

seb

In reply to a post by seb:

There's a possibility they may not respond to you as you're neither a network operator nor a customer.

Fully agree. As an OVH customer (on a basic service) there is no email support, you have to raise tickets on their website.

In reply to a post by osalj:

The machine is at OVH UK

Any updates from OVH / did you get your mate to open a ticket with them, as suggested above?

Yes, I received a response from OVH.

They want me to run some tests on the server I'm connecting to.

I replied that I'm not its owner and I can't run those tests.

Today they replied that without those tests they can't help me because their monitoring system doesn't show any problems.

That’s positive. Not an unreasonable request. I think you’re going to have to find a way if you want this resolved.

The problem is that my friend is not responding and I do not have access to this server... Only he can provide this information.