download speed goes way down when using Jamkazam

[StuartR]

I have had great success with Jamkazam up until recently.

But recently, I have had a serious problem.

Running JamKazam seems to reduce my download speed (as measured by speedtest.net using the centurylink server) which then causes audio from remote musicians to be very choppy and distorted. (This shows up inside JamKazam when I look at a remote musician’s statistics, I can see the Bw Rx (if I remember right) numbers go way down. But the problem is not actually with the remote musician but with my bandwidth. Note that this issue happens with multiple different remote musicians (each in one on one sessions with me).

I have CenturyLink Gigabit Fiber and normally download speeds are between 750 and 950 Mbps (same for upload speeds). Lately, when I am in a JamKazam session, my download speed goes down to as low as 20 Mbps (upload speed is not affected).

Other musicians can hear me just fine (I guess because my upload speed is not affected) but their sound comes in extremely choppy and distorted. Latency is not affected much so I can still play with others but it is about 97% less fun because they sound so bad.

I know it doesn’t seem like JamKazam could cause a reduction in download speed but this is the only time it happens. I wonder if it triggers some kind of throttling by the ISP? 

Does anyone have any explanation for this? Eventually, after I shut down Jamkazam, my download speed returns to normal, sometimes I have to reboot my router, and it may take several hours.

This is on a MacBook pro running Mojave (10.14.6) with several of the most recent versions of Jamkazam, most recently Build 2.00 - "1.0.3733".

If it was not for this problem I would definitely become a paid subscriber, but Jamkazam is not super useful for me because of this issue.

I'd suggest you test your router for congestion (known as bufferbloat). Run a speedtest at dslreports.com/speedtest and look at the grade given for bufferbloat. Most home routers do not process realtime data in a timely manner when they're under load.

Thanks for the suggestion. Bufferbloat grade is A+.
Will try again when I am running JK (though I realize that optimally the tests are supposed to be run when nothing else is hitting the network).

That's a wonderful grade for your router. May we know what Brand and model router you have?

It's the one that came with my CenturyLink gigabit service. Not sure if it is available commercially without getting CenturyLink service. CenturyLink model C4000XG.

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I have had great success with Jamkazam up until recently.

But recently, I have had a serious problem.

Running JamKazam seems to reduce my download speed (as measured by speedtest.net using the centurylink server) which then causes audio from remote musicians to be very choppy and distorted. (This shows up inside JamKazam when I look at a remote musician’s statistics, I can see the Bw Rx (if I remember right) numbers go way down. But the problem is not actually with the remote musician but with my bandwidth. Note that this issue happens with multiple different remote musicians (each in one on one sessions with me).

I have CenturyLink Gigabit Fiber and normally download speeds are between 750 and 950 Mbps (same for upload speeds). Lately, when I am in a JamKazam session, my download speed goes down to as low as 20 Mbps (upload speed is not affected).

Other musicians can hear me just fine (I guess because my upload speed is not affected) but their sound comes in extremely choppy and distorted. Latency is not affected much so I can still play with others but it is about 97% less fun because they sound so bad.

I know it doesn’t seem like JamKazam could cause a reduction in download speed but this is the only time it happens. I wonder if it triggers some kind of throttling by the ISP? 

Does anyone have any explanation for this? Eventually, after I shut down Jamkazam, my download speed returns to normal, sometimes I have to reboot my router, and it may take several hours.

This is on a MacBook pro running Mojave (10.14.6) with several of the most recent versions of Jamkazam, most recently Build 2.00 - "1.0.3733".

If it was not for this problem I would definitely become a paid subscriber, but Jamkazam is not super useful for me because of this issue.

My first thought went to ISP throttling, even before you mentioned it.  Does it happen even when you are in session with only one other musician?  If so, and you want, we can set up a one on one session to try to test some things out.  Let me know...

Yes, it happens in sessions with one other musician. I am going to do a test with a friend and if we can't figure out anything, I may take you up on that. Thanks for offering to help.

That's a great looking router, WIFI 6 and adaptive QOS. If you haven't already, you can set it to prioritize realtime data (they probably show that as Gaming) but it should apply to JK Audio packets.