IVP6 format for internet connection with FE80

Hi,

Even though I am a MVP and Community Moderator I do not speak for nor represent Microsoft
or the Microsoft Community Forum Management.

Instead of a ploy I would chalk that up to some not understanding how the new IPV6 allocations
are assigned. Trust me it won't be the last time someone with a professional computer company
makes this mistake. And that includes Comcast themselves. :)

Very good that you pursued it yourself though.

Rob - SpiritX

An IPv6 story ....

Several months ago, I started noticing that many sites were taking a long time to display (minutes). The problem was intermittent .... some times the sites would display immediately, at other times it could take minutes.

At first I attributed it to heavy Internet traffic, busy sites, etc. But the problem persisted, and remained intermittent. When it was happening, many major and well-known sites took minutes to start loading (i.e., when it happened, the delay was not limited to one site).

The problem occurred on Firefox, IE, and Chrome, and on several computers on my home network. Using speed testing sites, I verified that (once connected) I was getting the proper upload/download speeds. Using the network monitor in Firefox, I determined that the delay was not caused by DNS lookup, but was happening after DNS lookup and when a request for connection was sent to the website I was opening. That request was taking minutes for a reply.

I finally read an article about IPv6 rollout, and how many companies were supporting IPv6 in their network, but did not yet have all of their workload balancing and performance enhancing infrastructure configured on their IPv6 enabled routers. The article (sorry, I have lost track of its source) went on to say that the symptom could be poor performance when accessing a site via IPv6.

I also found this Microsoft article on how to disable IPv6 (or its components) in Windows:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929852/en-us
I used the "Prefer IPv4 over IPv6" Fixit (50410).


I use Firefox as my browser and (using "about:config") I set the network.dns.disableIPv6 parameter to TRUE


After making the above changes, the "delay" problem went away and (after about a month) has not returned.

I mention all of this in case anyone reading this thread is experiencing a similar intermittent "delay" when opening web sites. Both of the above changes are easily reversed:  the Microsoft page also has a "Prefer IPv6 over IPv6" Fixit (50441) and Firefox's network.dns.disableIPv6 parameter can easily be set back to FALSE.

CAVEAT:  by making the above changes, you will not be able to view a web page from a site that is IPv6 only. This has not been a problem for me (most commercial sites that support IPv6 also still support IPv4 ... and will likely continue to do so for years). There are many IPv6 only sites being used for testing ... if you make the above changes and access one of those sites, you will get "server not found" message. To try it, search on "IPv6 only sites" to find URLs of sites that only support IPv6. When (years from now) the Internet drops support for IPv4, then the above changes will have to be backed off.

Hi Lanqware,

Be sure to check for updated network drivers. Also check any 3rd party antivirus/security
programs or other programs which can affect network performance.

You want to be able to enable IPV6 if possible.

Rob - SpiritX

Thanks Rob.

The "delay" problem manifested itself as follows:  periodically (at least 5 to 10 times per day, sometimes more) every attempt to open a new web site resulted in the connection attempt just waiting. I could open a new tab in my browser, try a different web site and its connection attempt would wait. I could open several tabs (for different sites) and each would do the same. I could try another browser ... same results. I could try another computer ... same results. After awhile (one to 5 minutes) the connections on all tabs would complete. Then the problem would go away and all would be fine (immediate connections) ... until the next random occurrence.

When I was troubleshooting the "delay" problem, I did make sure my drivers (and other system software) were up to date. I ran my browsers in "safe" mode (i.e., all add-ons disabled). I have the same ISP as the OP, and thought that perhaps my ISP was doing something to precipitate the problem. I checked the signal levels in my cable modem when the problem was occurring ... all levels within spec. ISP came and checked my wiring, all ok. I changed my default DNS lookup servers to use Google's DNS servers (not my ISP's servers) ... problem remained. I also temporarily disabled my AV software (and its firewall) ... problem remained. I tried doing a tracert to the web sites that were not responding .... no conclusive results (what I did notice is that when the "delay" problem was underway, and most web sites were not responding in my browsers, a tracert to the corresponding sites would also not respond).

I tried everything I could think of, and the problem remained .... until I finally made the changes mentioned above ....  then the problem stopped occurring.

I have several computers on my home network. After making changes on the first computer (setting it to prefer IPv4 over IPv6) the problem ceased on that computer .... but the other computer (that still preferred IPv6) continued to have the problem ... until I made the changes on it.

It's been over a month since I made the changes .... the "delay" problem has not returned, and I have not noticed any negative effects (i.e., not gotten any "server not found" messages when trying to access a web site ... at this point in the IPv6 rollout, I doubt if there are many IPv6 only sites that are other than for testing purposes.).

I agree ... at some point in the future, when IPv6 is ubiquitous and support for IPv4 is about to be dropped, I will have to undo the changes I made. I think we are many years away from that point. I probably won't wait that long .... I'll probably wait several months, undo the changes, and see if the "delay" problem returns.

I suspect the problem is caused by a combination of some backbone routers not being properly configured and/or properly converted to dual IPv4/IPv6 mode, along with some companies not having their performance and load balancing infrastructure completely set up on their IPv6 capable routers. The result being that a request for connection using an IPv6 address takes a sub-optimal path, may not be properly routed across all load balanced servers, and/or possibly times out before the client (my PC) makes an equivalent IPv4 DNS lookup and tries another connection attempt with IPv4 (waiting for an IPv6 connection attempt to time out and retrying with IPv4 may take 1 to 5 minutes .... accounting for the delay I was seeing).



   

Hi,

Well the delay could be a combination of issues however I would look first to your network
drivers where the translation takes place and also to your local router firmware. It would not
surprise me if drivers and firmware are not updated as quickly as they should be as long as
they work yet produce delays.

Yes it will be a long long long time before IPV4 goes away.

Rob - SpiritX

It would not
surprise me if drivers and firmware are not updated as quickly as they should be as long as
they work yet produce delays.

Agreed.

My network drivers and router's firmware are both up to date.

The "delay" problem I was seeing started around last October. At that time, neither drivers nor firmware had been changed. I could not associate the "delay" problem with any change that took place in my environment .... and (to make matters worse) ... the delay problem would come and go randomly (as if some factor external to my environment were the root cause ... I was never able to correlate the problem with anything happening on my PCs).

Making the changes I mentioned above had an immediate result ... in that once the changes were made on a given PC, the problem did not re-occur on that PC (but did re-ocur on other PCs at home until they too were subject to the changes).

A search on "IPv6 performance problems" makes for some interesting reading. I think we both agree, IPv4 will be around for awhile.