High Packet Loss Contributing to Party Connection Errors?

HI5-O · Dec 23, 2021

Thanks in advance for all the help!

My wife and I recently moved and I now have issues staying connected to Xbox parties on my Xbox Series X. My friends and I will be playing, then all of a sudden (without warning or notification), it goes quiet. They get notified that I left the party, but I receive no notification. When I go to check the party, it says that I have a connection error. I have to manually rejoin the party, which also fails about 10% of the time I try to rejoin. Would really appreciate any help in getting this solved since it's super annoying to have to rejoin.

I have been experimenting with various settings, and can't seem to find an answer. The only odd piece of information from the Network Settings tests is that I am showing a 50% packet loss. Even when I connect directly to the ISP modem (bypassing all my networking gear), it still remains around 50%. No other information is suspicious in the settings. What's even stranger is that the xbox is the only device I've tested on my network that has anything above 1% packet loss (everything else is usually 0).

I've tried a lot of different things:

-Made sure NAT is "open." I have all ports forwarded correctly on my Unifi router. Like I mentioned before, it's not my networking gear because I still have high packet loss when I bypass the system and connect directly to the modem.

-Tried wired (multiple Cat 5e &6 tested), tried wireless.

-Resetting network. I also have a good fiber connection (750/300).

-Tried resetting Xbox, going offline/resetting/online, clearing MAC address.

-I have DNS set to Google, but it has high packet loss at any DNS I try.

-When it's connected to the network (instead of directly), I use a static IP for the port forwarding.

Nothing has helped so far, and it's so weird since it's only happening with my Xbox and not on any of my other devices. Maybe someone could also point me in the direction of a good packet loss tester, so I know I'm getting good results from my computer too.

Thanks again, hope to get some good information!

:)

HI5-O

Hi Christopher, thanks for the welcome and advice. As I stated before, all the recommended ports you listed are forwarded with one caveat. 4500 and 500 are in use by IPSec on my router, so I can't forward those. Doesn't seem to affect the NAT type though as it shows "Open" without those two ports forwarded.

HI5-O

Yes, full and soft reset was performed.

Update for anyone in perpetuity. Spoke to Microsoft and they agreed that it sounded like an ISP problem, since I wasn't able to replicate the high packet loss on my iPhone tether.

I tried speaking to my ISP again, but they again told me that it wasn't something they could solve since I couldn't replicate the problem on my computer tests.

Microsoft couldn't help because they can't isolate my box and internet connection. Hawaiian Telcom couldn't help becuase they couldn't isolate my xbox and internet connection. It's left up to me and (hopefully) this forum to try other ideas.

I wish I could ping the Xbox servers from my computer to see if it happens from other devices on my network besides my Xbox. Unfortunately, I only have Mac computers, so I can't use the built-in Windows utility I see online. If someone knows the IP address of the chat servers or the xbox live servers for me to ping from Terminal, I can try and see if I get the same packet loss on that test. That would tell me it's not just isolated to one device.

HI5-O

Update before I log off for the night.

I was able to get 0% packet loss when I connected my xbox to my iPhone AT&T tether via WiFi, so I tried calling my ISP (Hawaiian Telcom). Granted, it is late at night but they were no help just and recommended I call Microsoft. Even after restating the anomaly when I connect to the tether, the rep insisted it was something with the Xbox. I guess my next step is to go through the Microsoft robot tomorrow and see what I can come up with.

As a side note, Hawaiian Telcom only runs IPv4 but I had the service before we moved and didn't have this problem. I couldn't tell you whether I had IPv6 at the old place or not though, so I can't compare.

Christopher Revoredo

I see, it seems you have tried every troubleshooting step there is for this issue! Did you try the soft reset or the full reset?

Christopher Revoredo

Hi there HI5-O welcome to the community forum! Christopher here, an Xbox fan just like you and has been on Xbox for years already. I would really love to make your day by helping you out. Reading all the troubleshooting you have done there's something else you should try! Another thing that should help is opening ports! Ever since I opened them my games download and run faster! Give it a try!

Port 53 (UDP and TCP)

Port 80 (TCP)

Port 88 (UDP)

Port 500 (UDP)

Port 3074 (UDP and TCP)

Port 3544 (UDP)

Port 4500 (UDP)

High Packet Loss Contributing to Party Connection Errors?