LeMarchand Posted March 30, 2023 Posted March 30, 2023 Bonus Daughter #2 mainly works from home for a large finance firm, who mandate Cisco AnyConnect. Unfortunately this doesn't play ball with VM. Although it should be their IT getting this sorted, this has been going on for months so I thought I'd see if anyone here had any idea fixes. It seems as if during the working day, things are incredibly slow (4Mbps slow), but it's fine in the evenings. This would suggest something the firm's end if it weren't for the fact that it only seems to affect VM users. BD2 spoke to a VM engineer in the UK(!) who said they use Cisco themselves without problems, which would seem to rule out traffic shaping (though the engineers may get business lines?). I've tried the various internet fixes apart from modem mode/a different router as the (Cisco/Linksys!) router I had to test wouldn't seem to allow connection to the internet when the VM Hub was in modem mode. (Didn't have enough time to fully investigate). Any ideas, peeps?
DavR Posted March 30, 2023 Posted March 30, 2023 Not really a fix, but contributory information. I use Cisco AnyConnect to connect to our VPN here, over a Virgin Media home line. Never had any performance issues to speak of - day or night. If you switch to another Internet provider (eg, hotspot a mobile phone and connect through the 4G) does the problem go away? 1
LeMarchand Posted March 30, 2023 Author Posted March 30, 2023 If you switch to another Internet provider (eg, hotspot a mobile phone and connect through the 4G) does the problem go away? Yes to Hotspot and she just went to her sister (who is on EE) and things were fine there. We're also on VM and when she was here she did have slowdowns, but we're on some ridiculously high speed and so it was a bit better. Mme LeMarchand is also on wfh but via Citrix(?) and rarely has problems.
DavR Posted March 30, 2023 Posted March 30, 2023 I wonder if anyone else reading has successfully used Virgin and Cisco together without error, or if there's any discussion online about the interaction between the two. You'd think if such a popular product was having trouble with a major provider, there'd be some chatter about it. If not, I'd be inclined to wonder if it isn't something in how her firm has configured the Cisco VPN, that's throttling connections coming in off the Virgin network.
LeMarchand Posted March 30, 2023 Author Posted March 30, 2023 I wonder if anyone else reading has successfully used Virgin and Cisco together without error, or if there's any discussion online about the interaction between the two. You'd think if such a popular product was having trouble with a major provider, there'd be some chatter about it. If not, I'd be inclined to wonder if it isn't something in how her firm has configured the Cisco VPN, that's throttling connections coming in off the Virgin network. There are a few discussions, but I've tried all the "fixes" discussed (apart from "modem mode"). It's one of those annoying searches that throw up a reasonable amount of chatter, but not really any solutions. I do wonder if some of the problem is that, while most of the workforce are wfh, IT apparently have to be on site* (so probably aren't experiencing the problem). *Sounds familiar
Koldov Posted March 30, 2023 Posted March 30, 2023 Never had any trouble with Cisco AnyConnect and VM, we use it via the LGfL offering. Having said that I'm never really doing much with it (apart from poking stuff around the servers) and mostly doing it in the evenings... Do you know if your BD2 uses pre or post-auth...? Presuming you've tried all the usual like wired vs. Wi-Fi as you are pointing in the direction of VM. What are pings like? What are speed tests like? Both connected to the VPN and not? I've never really got a handle on how VPNs 'really' work... but the OH WFH and has a work laptop, which uses a USB C 'dock' and I wired that via ethernet directly to the hub just to discount any Wi-Fi issues because it used to have very slow times, I think it uses the Windows AOVPN. I wondered then if it is basically like being 'in the office' and any outward comms are then affected by internal processing/congestion as well as the hops to get the data back to the client... 1
DavR Posted March 30, 2023 Posted March 30, 2023 (edited) I do wonder if some of the problem is that, while most of the workforce are wfh, IT apparently have to be on site* (so probably aren't experiencing the problem). *Sounds familiar And as we all know, if IT can't see the problem, it doesn't exist Especially non-specific slowness. That's a pain to diagnose even if it is working. Edited March 30, 2023 by DavR
LeMarchand Posted March 30, 2023 Author Posted March 30, 2023 Do you know if your BD2 uses pre or post-auth...? Presuming you've tried all the usual like wired vs. Wi-Fi as you are pointing in the direction of VM. What are pings like? What are speed tests like? Both connected to the VPN and not? I've never really got a handle on how VPNs 'really' work... but the OH WFH and has a work laptop, which uses a USB C 'dock' and I wired that via ethernet directly to the hub just to discount any Wi-Fi issues because it used to have very slow times, I think it uses the Windows AOVPN. Pass on the auth sitch. Yep, slow on both wired and wireless, with speed tests in single figures. A speed test run on her "home" machine gets the expected speeds. The wired connection is through a USB dock (no Ethernet on laptop) and, to rule that out, I left the USB A adapter I use for imaging but that didn't help. It did seem unlikely that 60-odd users (on Tuesday) would have iffy docks! Yes, you would think that a firm with that widespread a problem would have got it sorted by now. Apparently they are pushing through some sort of update today. I wait with unbated breath.
chaplic Posted March 30, 2023 Posted March 30, 2023 Probably not this, but worth a punt - reduce the MTU size to about 1500. Ideally on the laptop (which I'm guessing you cannot do) but a quick google suggests can be done on router Superhub 5 MTU. - Virgin Media Community - 5040178 1
LeMarchand Posted March 30, 2023 Author Posted March 30, 2023 Cheers, I'll take a look. I think she's got a SH3, but should be do-able. Don't really want to play around too much with another "firm's" work device, but was surprised that Task Scheduler was accessible (a rejected plan) so who knows how open it is? Hopefully not too open as we're talking BIG amounts of money being flung around!
free780 Posted March 30, 2023 Posted March 30, 2023 We encountered an issue with Virgin where it grabbed DNS lookups and you had to opt out of a service. I can’t pasted the link due to App Protection. But you opt out. 1
LeMarchand Posted March 30, 2023 Author Posted March 30, 2023 We encountered an issue with Virgin where it grabbed DNS lookups and you had to opt out of a service. I can’t pasted the link due to App Protection. But you opt out. Thanks; looks promising.
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