Bandwith too Low Warning with 400Mb/sec connection

[TacomaSailor 191]

I keep getting a message about the bandwidth being too low - OOKLA says it is more than 400Mb/sec 

Why does this message occur?

Why does the message stall Flight Sim for 10 to 30-seconds when the mouse icon disappears from the screen and clicking on the message or anywhere else does nothing?  During that time CPU & GPU usage drops below 10%.

Problem started today, August 13.  Does it have anything to do with Microsoft Windows Update 21H, which I installed this morning?

Edited August 13, 2021 by TacomaSailor

[Bob Scott 7,715]

The OOKLA test demonstrates that your computer and household internet connection are not the bottleneck.  The bandwidth available to the game is limited to the lowest bandwidth node on the path between the server and your PC, including limitations due to saturation at the server itself.  Nothing you can do about that...it's one of the pitfalls of dependence on streaming real-time data.

[TacomaSailor 191]

Thanks for the reply!

The wording in the message: "Your current bandwith..." led me to think it was MY problem, thus the "Your" in the message.   If it is a bottleneck at the server why not say "Our current bandwith...?"

My entire career was making computers and online systems run more efficiently, use fewer resources, and be more responsive.  I guess I am too sensitive to nuances/implied faults in user messaging. 

So I will just have to wait out the loss of  the mouse pointer and any ability to click while the message is there?  Clicking "ignore" does no good. 

[ADamiani 470]

6 minutes ago, TacomaSailor said:

Thanks for the reply!

The wording in the message: "Your current bandwith..." led me to think it was MY problem, thus the "Your" in the message.   If it is a bottleneck at the server why not say "Our current bandwith...?"

Yeah, funny, isn't it?

1) Customer is always wrong.

2) In the rare circumstances when he is not wrong, customer is too demanding.

That's it, unfortunately.

A.

Edited August 13, 2021 by ADamiani

[pmb 5,137]

I saw this once when I was experimenting with extremely high settings, I think of LOD. The simulator tried to load that far away that my connection (100 MBit/s) was unable to keep pace with data transmission.

Never had it during normal usage so far.

Kind regards, Michael

[edpatino 1,960]

That’s happening more frequently now, after the Xbox release. It’s a saturation of the MS servers that don’t go well with the increased streaming demand. Something that can only be solved my MS itself.

We have to cry louder!

Edited August 13, 2021 by edpatino

[BrianW 124]

You may want to try a different datacenter too.  If you're using US East, try US East 2, or even South Central US.  Even if the ping times are higher you may get better throughput through one of the other sites, and that's what really matters when downloading.  

[Reader 2,009]

1 hour ago, TacomaSailor said:

The wording in the message: "Your current bandwith..." led me to think it was MY problem, thus the "Your" in the message.   If it is a bottleneck at the server why not say "Our current bandwith...?"

The current bandwidth would be a neutral way to describe the problem. As it has to be a generic message, perhaps there was not much consideration given to the various interpretations that could be conferred upon such a simple message. As pointed out, the bottleneck can be anywhere between the server and the PC. It might be a server overload but equally, there are so many connections in between that it also might not be. It should be common knowledge by now that a given high broadband download speed is no guarantee of that speed being universally achieved.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Reader

[Sigwolf 222]

4 hours ago, Reader said:

The current bandwidth would be a neutral way to describe the problem. As it has to be a generic message, perhaps there was not much consideration given to the various interpretations that could be conferred upon such a simple message. As pointed out, the bottleneck can be anywhere between the server and the PC. It might be a server overload but equally, there are so many connections in between that it also might not be. It should be common knowledge by now that a given high broadband download speed is no guarantee of that speed being universally achieved.

Not to mention there has been an obvious native language difference from day 1.  As a native english speaker, the "Welcome, set your experience" page drove me nuts, as it didn't let you set a darn thing.  It wasn't really a failure of the program, it was a failure of my brain to process it.  Now that it says "Installation manger, checking for updates" it actually makes sense, and isn't bothersome.  It's the same screen, really, and takes roughly the same amount of time, but now that it's easy for my brain to rationalize, I don't even think about it.  It's a matter of perspective, and an illustration of the vagarities of languages and translations.

[ZKOKQ 984]

I use to get that all the time on a 100mbs connection, now I am on a 900mbs I don't get the bandwidth message anymore.

[cj-ibbotson 77]

I am on an 550 Mbps connection and have had this 3x in the past 24 hours.  An immediate speed test shows my connection is fine.  Its quite worrying that it is a MS server issue and that they cannot keep up with the ever increasing demand from a wider userbase.   I see mention of chosing a different data server but I do not see any options in MSFS.  I am based in the UK.

Chris

[Bobsk8 12,542]

On 8/13/2021 at 4:18 PM, edpatino said:

That’s happening more frequently now, after the Xbox release. It’s a saturation of the MS servers that don’t go well with the increased streaming demand. Something that can only be solved my MS itself.

We have to cry louder!

Well the issue is the way the internet works. Data is streamed from one place to another, to another.   If the bandwidth at any one of these nodes, drops, the result is you get the message insufficient bandwidth, Think of water going through a piping system, you have a 10 inch main ( asobo) , then a 9 inch main, and so on, and somewhere in the middle it goes through a 1/4" water pipe. That one piece of 1/4" pipe chokes the entire system. Doesn't matter if Asobo has a 10 foot water main, it will still get choked by the 1/2" piece of pipe. 

[DylanM 1,069]

30 minutes ago, cj-ibbotson said:

 I see mention of chosing a different data server but I do not see any options in MSFS.  I am based in the UK.

If you click on your xbox username / avatar in the main sim menu, there is a dropdown to change servers (it also shows the average ping).

Couple of other things to try:

- Disable ipv6 on your computer's network adapter

- Switch to a different DNS server like google or Cloudflare

All versions - Slow download speed – Microsoft Flight Simulator Support (zendesk.com) 

[DescendDescend 25]

Had this for the first ever time this afternoon. Also in UK.

[bean_sprout 1,201]

Also consider the number of hops required to the MS datacenter.

Sometimes if I obfuscate my location with a tool like Fake GPS it seems to help if my physical location is bad.

My last 2 locations have not had this issue with 100 and 20 mbs respectively.

Being closer to LA seems to make the matter worse so I  suspect saturation in that case.

ns

Edited April 17, 2022 by bean_sprout