Sky Q v3 Q160 SSDP Packet Flooding

[Mel+and+Gary]

Having suffered from the excessive SSDP packet flooding issue with our Sky Q v3 box that was installed last year and which was only resolved by isolating the Q box into a separate VLAN I have some updated stats as shown below.

After the Q160 software update the Sky Q unit no longer suffers from an exponential increase in SSDP packets over time which eventually ends up at over 200 per second (millions over 1 day) that then causes severe disruption of the network (especially on the 2.4GHz WiFi band).

The Sky Q does still emit an order of magnitude more SSDP packets than any other device on my LAN and I don't therefore consider this issue as closed. In the stats below the "P1" wired ethernet port is configured as a VLAN containing only the Sky Q box. As can be seen the Multicast (SSDP) and Broadcast packets sent to this port by Sky Q far exceeds those generated by all other devices on the network. For comparison "P3" is a homeplug network that includes a desktop PC, laptop, Raspberry Pi and a NAS all of which are usually up. The level of multicast and broadcast packets is only a fraction of those generated by the Sky Q unit.

Sky need to continue to look at this issue especially in the edge case like mine where we have no Sky minis on the network as the main Sky Q is still crying out for company. Until then I intend to leave the Sky Q in solitary confinement so it cannot degrade the perform of the LAN for the rest of our devices.

[rscott]

What time period are those stats for? 

[PeteRG41]

Interesting.

This might explain some other posts I've seen regarding internet dropouts and poor connectivity.

[Mel+and+Gary]

@rscott  Around 12 hours

[tarbat]

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@Mel+and+Gary wrote:

The Sky Q does still emit an order of magnitude more SSDP packets than any other device on my LAN and I don't therefore consider this issue as closed.

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I guess it depends on what you mean by "an order of magnitude". On my network (measured using WireShark):

• All SSDP packets : 350 ppm (packets per minute)
• Main Sky Q box : 125 ppm (36%)
• Each Sky Q mini box : 55 ppm (16%)
• Yamaha Soundbar : 47 ppm (13%)
• Media PC : 15 ppm (4%)

Slightly excessive maybe, but on my network only 36% of the total SSDP packets, so not an order of magnitude.  What problem does 125 SSDP packets per minute cause?

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@Mel+and+Gary wrote:

Sky need to continue to look at this issue especially in the edge case like mine where we have no Sky minis on the network as the main Sky Q is still crying out for company.

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But how can the main Sky Q box know that there are no minboxes, or iPads, or Android phones, etc. looking to connect?

[qwerty22]

@tarbat 

Well, your own network stats show that all your Sky devices emit 52% of SSDP packets into your network.

This rate affects the time it takes a new network client to discover the IP address of the Sky box. Worst case is 0.48 seconds (60 seconds / 125 ppm), half of that on average.

E.g. on your smart phone you open a DLNA streaming app to play something through Sky box and it takes 0.48 seconds in the worst case to discover the Sky box address in your network and display that streaming destination in your DLNA streaming app. I do not think that's a reasonable use case. 125 ppm is unreasonably high, 60 ppm is a reasonable upper limit, IMO.

Now, I do not ever stream anything through Sky box because my TV can do so directly, so I would like to turn off those incessant and unnecessary Sky box SSDP announcements.

All devices in your network do receive these SSDP multi-cast datagrams and filter the out. But it takes energy to do so, so that those incessant and unnecessary Sky box SSDP announcements drain batteries of all your battery powered devices connected to the same network. I had to jail my Sky box into isolated guest WiFi network to prevent that SSDP flood from affecting all battery powered devices in my home network.

There should be a configuration option in the Sky box to control SSDP announcement delay or turn it off completely.

But considering how Sky treats customers' bug reports that have been outstanding for 18+ months (this one, horrible subtitles which cannot be customized, unusable Sky Go app), I am thinking of leaving Sky for good. Even this very forum is barely usable.

Maxim

[Invisiblename]

@qwerty22 
.But considering how Sky treats customers' bug reports that have been outstanding for 18+ months (this one, horrible subtitles which cannot be customized, unusable Sky Go app), I am thinking of leaving Sky for good. Even this very forum is barely usable.

Maxim

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What's your problem with this forum???

[tarbat]

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@qwerty22 wrote:

@tarbat 

Well, your own network stats show that all your Sky devices emit 52% of SSDP packets into your network.

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Not surprising when my 1x Main Sky Q Box and 3x Sky Mini Boxes account for 67% of the devices on my network that regularly broadcast SSDP packets.

[tarbat]

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@Invisiblename wrote:

@qwerty22 
.But considering how Sky treats customers' bug reports that have been outstanding for 18+ months (this one, horrible subtitles which cannot be customized, unusable Sky Go app), I am thinking of leaving Sky for good. Even this very forum is barely usable.

Maxim

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Amazing coincidence that you both have the same name Maxim

[qwerty22]

@Invisiblename Your own reply demonstrates that quoting other people's posts is an unsolved problem.

[qwerty22]

@tarbat There are so few names and so many people, relatively. I am surprised you are amazed. I would rather you revealed the secret of quoting other people's posts.

[rscott]

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@qwerty22 wrote:

@Invisiblename Your own reply demonstrates that quoting other people's posts is an unsolved problem.

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No problems with quoting here. 

The forum is powered by Khoros, as used by one or two other companies - Adobe, Three, SAP, Intuit, Intel, Danone, Airbnb, etc.  So is a fairly well established platform.

[tarbat]

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@qwerty22 wrote:

I would rather you revealed the secret of quoting other people's posts.

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Press the 3 dots ... on the edit bar, then select the " symbol.

[qwerty22]

@tarbat @rscott 

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@tarbat wrote:

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@qwerty22 wrote:

I would rather you revealed the secret of quoting other people's posts.

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Press the 3 dots ... on the edit bar, then select the " symbol.

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That worked, than you.

But cannot quote @rscott in here. The fact that Adobe, Three, SAP, Intuit, Intel, Danone, Airbnb use this forum code means little - they minimize costs. In Stackoverflow or Reddit I can quote multiple anybody in my posts. See my post examples in https://stackoverflow.com/users/412080/maxim-egorushkin

[rscott]

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@qwerty22 wrote:

@tarbat @rscott 

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@tarbat wrote:

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@qwerty22 wrote:

I would rather you revealed the secret of quoting other people's posts.

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Press the 3 dots ... on the edit bar, then select the " symbol.

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That worked, than you.

But cannot quote @rscott in here. The fact that Adobe, Three, SAP, Intuit, Intel, Danone, Airbnb use this forum code means little - they minimize costs. In Stackoverflow or Reddit I can quote multiple anybody in my posts. See my post examples in https://stackoverflow.com/users/412080/maxim-egorushkin

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Well they're completely different tools, for one thing. Khoros can deeply integrate into CRM systems, for example.

This is also a much friendly platform for the average user than Reddit