Can't figure out latency spikes - like a 5 second lag heartbeat

[Blacklisted]

TL;DR - I'm experiencing odd spikes in latency that make IHS unplayable. Everything will be smooth smooth smooth for 5-6 seconds, then a 1-2 second jump in outgoing bitrate, high frame drop rates, then repeat. This recently started, everything used to be fine.

Host:
Win 8.1 64bit
Intel Core i7-5820; 3.30Ghz
16.0 GB RAM
GeForce GTX 980 latest drivers
1000 Kbps wired connection to router
IHS Hardware Encoding, Prioritize Network Traffic

Client:
Apple Macbook air laptop running OSX Yosemite 10.10.2
Intel core i7 2Ghz
8GB RAM
Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB
300 Mbps wifi connection to router
Network Adapter is a/b/g/n
IHS Hardware Decoding, Fast, Limit to Desktop Resolution

Router:
Apple Airport Extreme ac Router v7.7.3
5Ghz wifi network
Encrypted
Not Hidden

-----

A few months ago when I set up in-home-streaming for the first time it worked brilliantly. No frame rate drop for twitch games. I was running Call of Duty MW2, Shadow of Mordor, Gauntlet, Trine 2, etc, and was using an xbox 360 wired controller for most of them. It was a beautiful thing and saved me MUCH spouse aggro (spouse watches TV, I game quietly on the laptop, cuddle time, all is well with the world)

Without changing any settings that I'm aware of, or any hardware setup, I've lost that ability in the last 3 weeks. I now get frequent "slow decode" and "slow network" messages. The framework skipping is too poor to play any twitch games (Call of Duty) or games where imminent death is always looming (Shadow of Mordor, Gauntlet). Trine is playable, but only because it's a safe puzzle game and latency doesn't kill you. I digress.

Here is the nature of the behavior specifically:
I will have smooth perfect frame rates for about 5-8 seconds, and then 1-2 seconds of total chaos, followed by another 5-8 seconds of smooth rates. Repeat. See screenshot below

Latency Graph from client:
http://i.imgur.com/TuWYkEn.jpg

What would cause these weird chaotic bursts? My outgoing bitrate spikes by 4 times or so.

I can't figure out if it's the router, or software, or ... hopefully not hardware.

IHS is an amazing tool, kudos to valve! I just don't know why it stopped working, and furthermore, I don't know what I can do about it! There are only so many settings!

Things I've tried to no effect:
Replacing the network cable between host and router.
Rebooting router, checking firmware, using wifi laptop from 5 feet away
Disconnecting all other devices (wired and wifi) from router
Uninstalling and reinstalling steam on laptop
Limiting client IHS resolution to 480p
Disabling hardware encoding on both machines
Enabling IHS logging and trying to figure out that mess
Reading threads on this forum looking for peformance hacks and tweaks
Googling this problem
Turning off wifi encryption on the home network
Hard factory reset of router and new network setup

There are only so many settings to play with on the host and client in steam. After that, I'm boggled. I know IHS works, and I know my hardware can support it, but I don't know what control I have over tweaks to get it working again.

Does anyone share my frustration, or can you offer any advice / suggestions?

Thanks in advance - I will continue to research and fiddle as well.

[clink]

This conversation is old, but I wanted to echo thePeopleMover. The Last.FM Scrobbler was causing latency spikes and closing the program immediately fixed the problem.

[Karin]

I found a different style of lag, occurring on macOS 10.14.1 Mojave, which I know I've seen for a few macOS generations now. I would see 3-5 second drops in streaming, every few minutes. I found out it was caused by macOS's Location Services trying to check on my physical location by doing a wifi scan. It's the same lag you get when you click on the wifi in the menu bar while using Steam In-Home Streaming.

Location Services is great because it can tell where you're located on the planet, and thus give you personalized news, weather, etc. However, when it does the scan it is unable to receive data on your current wifi connection for a few seconds.

To fix this, I went into System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Location Services and then turned off anything that has the arrow icon beside it, since those are the services that have recently kicked off a wifi scan to check on my location. After doing that, I no longer see these annoying streaming lag dropouts/spikes every few minutes.

[End0fDayz]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Karin:

I found a different style of lag, occurring on macOS 10.14.1 Mojave, which I know I've seen for a few macOS generations now. I would see 3-5 second drops in streaming, every few minutes. I found out it was caused by macOS's Location Services trying to check on my physical location by doing a wifi scan. It's the same lag you get when you click on the wifi in the menu bar while using Steam In-Home Streaming.

Location Services is great because it can tell where you're located on the planet, and thus give you personalized news, weather, etc. However, when it does the scan it is unable to receive data on your current wifi connection for a few seconds.

To fix this, I went into System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Location Services and then turned off anything that has the arrow icon beside it, since those are the services that have recently kicked off a wifi scan to check on my location. After doing that, I no longer see these annoying streaming lag dropouts/spikes every few minutes.

I was having the same issue and this fixed it. I turned off most of the system service location ones and left the others on and I haven't seen a lag spike since. I tested by turning them back on and it started again so this is definitely a fix for macos currently. Nice find!

[Atrip3]

Disabling WLAN Autoconfig fixes heartbeat for me

[Lauri]

Was playing World of Tanks Blitz on Bluestacks, Location Services caused the packet loss spikes.

[ChillyPenguin]

Location Services was the culprit on my Mac too.

I was convinced that it was a network problem on my router or wifi until I tried Remote Play on my iPad and it worked just fine on the same wifi.

It had been working fine the day before too, and I hadn't made any changes to Location Services myself - not knowingly, anway.



Update
Okay, so that wasn't it. That did improve performance briefly, but it's back to being unusable again.

I've not only turned off Location Services now, but also Wifi itself. But even through an Ethernet cable, it's unusable. I have a Steam Link and an iPad running Steam Streaming off the same router, so it must be something on the Mac itself.

[clink]

Opprinnelig skrevet av ChillyPenguin:

Location Services was the culprit on my Mac too.

I was convinced that it was a network problem on my router or wifi until I tried Remote Play on my iPad and it worked just fine on the same wifi.

It had been working fine the day before too, and I hadn't made any changes to Location Services myself - not knowingly, anway.



Update
Okay, so that wasn't it. That did improve performance briefly, but it's back to being unusable again.

I've not only turned off Location Services now, but also Wifi itself. But even through an Ethernet cable, it's unusable. I have a Steam Link and an iPad running Steam Streaming off the same router, so it must be something on the Mac itself.

My Last.FM fix worked for a while, but running on Catalina, the issue has come back. I've troubleshooted everything and still cannot get it to run without spikes and, like you, it works perfectly streaming to iPad or Apple TV.

[Holair]

Turning off System Location Services totally fixed the lag spikes problem. Thanks.

[clink]

Here's my last contribution to this forum. When I upgraded to Catalina, the lag spikes came back with a vengeance, making most games unplayable. The only thing that solved this was to do a fresh install of Catalina (saving no settings). Not an ideal solution, but the computer overall is much more stable now.

[sturtus]

On my 2017 i7 13" MacBook Pro, I had the same symptoms. I could eliminate the problem by turn off Location Services in Security and Privacy in System Preferences. Switching the service off and on fixes the issue for a while.

[sturtus]

Conversely, turning off Location Services seems to stop it altogether.