Streamate Issues- Seven Weeks Strong, Going On 8:

On June the 9th the traffic (viewers) on Streamate was almost nonexistent. I thought it was just a slow day and hoped for a better tomorrow. Three days later I thought it was just a bad week, but started to troubleshoot my equipment, trying to make certain it wasn’t something that needed to be addressed.

Testing Computers:

I was using a new Apple Computer and thought maybe my settings were wrong, so to test that theory I switched to a Window’s computer. There was no change.

I used a new Apple, an old Windows and a new Windows. NO CHANGE!

Testing ISP Connections:

I have two internet providers, which gives me the ability to have a backup ISP, in the event my main line is down. For three days I used both connections while on Streamate. I would use the  main one for the first three hours, then switch to the backup for the next three hours. I even switched up the times. There was no change, regardless of the time or which provider I was using. NO CHANGE!

To go one step further, I contacted the owner of my main ISP. He spent a week testing all of his equipment going into my house, from his main frame and at the tower I beam off of. He found no faulty equipment. He then spent an afternoon in my living room testing my equipment. There were no issues found.

Trying a Different Location:

I packed up my equipment and drove to someone else’s home to stream, which used an entirely different ISP from the two that I have. NO CHANGE!

Contacting Streamate:

After two weeks of troubleshooting I called the owner of Streamate, who I haven’t spoken to in years. He seemed a bit out of touch with the company, but he always seemed decent enough so I was hoping to give him the benefit of the doubt. He, of course, said there were no issues that he was aware of, but that I should contact Liz and explain to her what is going on. She handles the tech end of the business.

Contacting Liz:

Liz,

For the last 9 days the Round Trip time (data transfer) between my computer and your servers has been extremely poor. I’ve checked all of my in house equipment and my ISP provider has spent a couple hours looking into issues on their end. They’ve found none.

Is there someone that could help me figure out why, all of a sudden, I’m having issues with my data transfer? My video feed is stable and is very clear, but I have absolutely no traffic coming into my room. Granted, it’s the summer so slower days are to be expected, but my traffic is non-existent and I am almost positive it is because of the data transfer time.

Her response:

Let’s start with the trace route…

 

You need to find the c prompt on your machine (I don’t know where they are on Macs, but you can probably search for it). Once there type “tracert streamate.com” and it should give you a bunch of numbers and then say “trace complete” copy and paste that info into an email to us here.

 

As for the beta encoder. I should have a product for you to try for us very soon. Currently the only version available is what we’re calling an alpha release which does not have all the functionality it needs – and is being tested internally. I expect a full version very soon. I will get info on when this week when I get back to the office…. I have meetings on it this week.

 

What is the info you’re getting for the rtt? What exact problems are you running into – is it placement ? performance etc? Let me know

 

Liz

She obviously didn’t read my initial email, or else she wouldn’t ask me what the problem is.

Liz,

For the last 2 weeks the Round Trip time (data transfer) between my computer and your servers has been extremely poor. I’ve checked all of my in house equipment and my ISP provider has spent a couple days looking into issues on their end. They’ve found none.

I’ve also tested it on a window’s computer and two different internet providers. My data transfer time has been poor, no matter what device I’m on. It’s as though something is interfering but it’s a new issue that I’ve never had before..

 My video feed is stable and is very clear, but I have absolutely no traffic coming into my room. Granted, it’s the summer so slower days are to be expected, but my traffic is non-existent and I am almost positive it is because of the data transfer time.

 

tracert streamate.com

Tracing route to streamate.com

over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     2 ms    <1 ms

  2     4 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms

  3    26 ms     3 ms     5 ms

  4     5 ms    12 ms     8 ms

  5     6 ms     3 ms     4 ms

  6    21 ms    15 ms    26 ms

  7    36 ms    17 ms    49 ms  .static.nstci.net

  8    44 ms    35 ms    16 ms

  9    28 ms    27 ms    16 ms  .static.nstci.net

 10    15 ms    20 ms    41 ms  xe-2-0-0.mpr1.dfw1.us.above.net

 11    26 ms    17 ms    15 ms  ae3.cr1.dfw2.us.zip.zayo.com

 12    30 ms    16 ms    17 ms  ae11.er1.dfw2.us.zip.zayo.com

 13  64.124.195.98  reports: Destination net unreachable.

Trace complete.

I have sent all your information off to our tech team and will let you know as soon as I hear back from them.

From tech (this is not the last of it they are going to try one last thing)

 

I am indeed seeing crazy spikes in her RTT, ranging from a few thousand to over 10 seconds. Traceroutes aren’t the most reliable tool for this kind of investigation, but she may potentially be on to something. Unfortunately, if it is indeed that server causing the issue it’s something that is out of our hands. If her ISP identifies that as the source of trouble I’m very surprised they made no effort to get in contact with the owner to notify them of the trouble.

 

We will get back to you with the final comments on your ticket. Maybe they can come up with a solution.

My response:

It’s not a server that my ISP uses. My ISP is local and ran tons of tests and it is not on their end. That server is a local server that I’m being directed through only when I’m on SM.

From Liz:

I’ll let them know but it’s not a server we have any control over

My response to her ignorance:

I’ve worked on two computers (a window’s based and a Mac) and three different internet providers. I’m having the same problem with my data rate transfer. I’m not trying to be a pain, but  this has been a problem for four weeks now and there’s no resolution. Is there someone in the tech department that I can talk to on the phone? This third party email system of having you pass our notes back and forth is taking too long. If I could talk to someone maybe I can start making money again and stop bothering you with this issue.

To my request to cut her out as the middle man:

Tech doesn’t have phone support.

They emailed us last night with the following so they are actively working on it!

 

we’ll be taking a closer look at it tomorrow to see if we can come up with a potential plan of action

Eight days later… making this a three week conversation:

From our tech team…

I’ve looked into this extensively and at this point I just don’t think I’ve got anywhere else to go. I’ve gone over her connection logs and have seen that she’s been having wildly swinging RTTs, even when she tries different ISPs. I can also verify that she has tried two different computers, both of which are showing the same results.

I’ve checked performers all around the major population centers of Texas and have not found anything indicating that we have a problem connecting to our users out there. I’ve also ran traceroutes on the performer’s IP address and some of the various addresses that we hit on the way to her and I’ve not had any issues or high RTTs appear during those tests. Her encoder settings should not be an issue in this case as I’ve seen them from another ticket she had put in.

In terms of something “interfering” with her account on our end – that’s just not how our system works on this end. There’s no variables that could be set on her account to affect her network connection in this manner. The servers work in a round-robin manner to distribute performer streams and it’s not a case of bad hardware that she’s getting stuck on or anything. If something is interfering, that something has got to be either on the performer’s side or somewhere between her and us. Unfortunately this means, again, that these factors are out of our control and not something that my group has the capability or resources to address.

I’ve brought it up to our networking group and if we had seen that performers in that are were having consistent connection issues this would have been a red flag but, again, this seems to be localized to this performer.

In terms of advice I’ve only got broad suggestions. There’s got to be some commonality that’s resulting in this – it could be something like an issue with the performer’s home network, a strange hardware configuration or some other kind of link that ties these problems together. I’d simply suggest the performer try different things- use a different webcam, try a different ISP, try different computers and then try different permutations of all of those things. I know she has done this to a degree but at this point the best approach is to simply try and eliminate variables so the root of the problem can be uncovered.

I know this is frustrating to the performer and I do sympathize but we’ve covered all the bases on our end and we just don’t see the source of the trouble here. It’s got to be something on the other side of the connection or somewhere mid-way and we are unable to act as personal IT support for issues that lay outside of the company.

Thanks!

That was a long winded explanation of how fucking ignorant they are. Thanks. That deserved no response from me.

Another eight days go by before I received this random email from Liz, considering they don’t have any issues:

From our tech team…

I looked at the performers settings used since May 29th, and her RTT’s definitely shifted.

Starting June 9th it started getting worse, and by June 12th her RTTs were twice as slow and 5 times more erratic and continue at that level.

Since she is still using the same camera and had tried different settings over that time, it looks like something changed with her ISP starting in June.

Did she change her ISP, or did her ISP update the service she is receiving starting in June?

Or did she purchase her new Mac in or around June 6th?

I am so livid that I finally responded in anger:

​I feel like the tech team is not reading my previous emails, so I’m going to try to explain again, what I have done on my end to troubleshoot the Streamate issues that are ongoing.

I have not changed my ISP provider. You guys need to understand what I mean when I say I have two ISP providers. That means I pay for two different internet companies to provide service so I can make money on cam, no matter what.

So, let’s discuss my main ISP provider. I personally know the owner of this company and he has provided me with service for over six years now. He has run tests at his main radio tower and even come out to my home to test my equipment. He found no issues, but that didn’t stop him from spending another week troubleshooting for me. For two weeks we tried to find the problem before I contacted you asking for help. That was over a month ago.

Because I have a backup ISP, I was able to switch providers and test it on an entirely different internet company. What that means is it is a different entity from the main line, giving me the ability to know for certain it is not my damn ISP!

In case that is not enough reason to know it is not my ISP provider(s) I packed up my computer, camera and light and got into my vehicle and drove  20 minutes from my house to do more testing.  That house was on a completely different ISP provider, giving me a third ISP to test…. with no change in my RTT’s.

Okay, now let’s talk about my computers. Yes, I did buy a new Apple computer on June 9th, and when I had three bad days on Streamate, I thought maybe it was the cause for the sudden lack of traffic. I unplugged the Apple from my camera and went back to a Window’s based computer. I tried an older window’s computer and a brand new window’s based computer…. with NO CHANGE! So, since I have been doing this long enough to know how to deduce from troubleshooting, I feel my time is being blatantly wasted.

The two pieces of equipment that I have not changed would be my cam and light… since I am 100% positive that it is not my light, I’m sure your tech team will suggest I try a new cam…. the web cam I use is the Logitech Conference Cam that is top of the line. I have been using it for a couple of years and I seriously doubt that is effecting the RTT’s….

I find it curious that SM models on Twitter have been complaining of the same problem and that is lack of traffic, meaning they are no longer making money to pay bills. I also find it curious that the Streamate Recruiting (@streamatemodels) handle on twitter posted this yesterday:

---

Hey everyone! Thank you all so much for voicing your concerns regarding the recent issues on Streamate. Our teams are aware, and are actively and diligently working towards a solution. What we do know is that there are/have been intermittent issues that are affecting a small population on the site: if you believe that you have been affected by these issues, it is paramount that you immediately contact Streamate Model Support at smsupport@streamatemodels.com with the following information: date/time of the incident, details of what you are experiencing (be as specific as possible), whether this is a “new” issue or if it has been ongoing, and all details that are relevant to your set-up (i.e. whether you are using a wireless Internet connection or are hardwired, specifics about your equipment, whether you are using the Encoder and which settings you are using therein, and speedtest results via speedtest.net ). If you have screenshots, that would be extremely helpful to our team as well. Just do your best with the information requested above, and if you are uncertain, that’s okay too… keep in mind that the more specific you are, the more helpful it will be for our team to find a solution. 🙂 We thank you so much for your patience and for being so amazing throughout this process.