Extremely Slow Xbox Live Download Speeds


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When i got my Xbox One i was impressed with the download speeds on the launch weekend, i managed to download all 30gb+ of Forza 5 in less than an hour, great! especially considering i thought the servers would be getting hammered that weekend.
 
However since then i have noticed download speeds have got gradually worse as the months have progressed, this has become more of a problem with games having mandatory 2-7gb+ patches. The other day it took me a good 2 hours to download a mandatory 2gb update...
 
Tonight my console has been downloading a game, the average speed has been around 8mbps... that's been generous to Xbox Live as i'm taking that average from the total of all internet traffic going through my router:
 
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I'm pretty confident its not my internet connection at fault here, given i can pretty much max the connection out on speedtest.net, downloading from Steam or from downloading backups from my webserver:
 
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I'm wondering if its just me, or are downloads from Xbox Live generally slow for everyone?

 

I always found downloads on the Xbox 360 to be quite slow too, however as your average game patch would almost fit on a floppy disk and were not the size of a dual layer DVD (Wolfenstein, cough) it was never really much of an issue most of the time.

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I've noticed the speed drop too, specifically downloading the preview updates. Was much faster at the start of the year, so maybe it's just the increase of activity caused by recent buyers.

 

Hopefully they're aware and working on it before the next huge influx in Q3/4.

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It's not you Insane, if other applications are fine, then it's most likely XBL/MS. It comes and goes, sometimes downloads are crazy fast, sometimes slow...freebie Max which is like 3GB downloaded in under ten minutes, but Nutsjitsu took 30 minutes if i remember correctly, and that's just 300MB. And Dead Rising 3 was an overnighter, probably took 3-4 hours, i don't know cause didn't stick around to wait.

 

So it really fluctuates, not your connection or even console, for sure.

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I have no idea what speed my downloads actually go at, all i know is anything involving Xbox Live is slow! Call of Duty Ghosts took all day and half the night to download, then a random 2gb patch released later for it took a good two hours of my evening to download too. This is on a 60mbps connection

 

I've noticed uploading to OneDrive from the GameDVR is very slow too, for me the speed on screen averages about 2mbps, yet i know full well i have a 15mbps upload and can easily max that out uploading just about anywhere else.

 

Same with copying the clip out of my OneDrive to edit, download speeds are 1-2mbps, really do wish I could just access the console in network places and copy clips off it!

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I have no idea what speed my downloads actually go at, all i know is anything involving Xbox Live is slow! Call of Duty Ghosts took all day and half the night to download, then a random 2gb patch released later for it took a good two hours of my evening to download too. This is on a 60mbps connection

 

I've noticed uploading to OneDrive from the GameDVR is very slow too, for me the speed on screen averages about 2mbps, yet i know full well i have a 15mbps upload and can easily max that out uploading just about anywhere else.

 

Same with copying the clip out of my OneDrive to edit, download speeds are 1-2mbps, really do wish I could just access the console in network places and copy clips off it!

 

This is wireless I assume? Most likely times XBL was congested, unless you're always getting these speeds. No way your 60Mbps connection will get 2Mbps on an Xbox, should be at least 25Mbps via Wi-Fi. It says you have open NAT, right?

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What DNS server are you using? XBL uses geolocation to select a CDN so if the DNS server is in the wrong location you'll get put onto the wrong CDN.

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I haven't noticed slower speeds, but then again, my speeds are not as fast as most of you guys posting here. I know when I upload a game clip it maxes out my upload speed.

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I had issues downloading the June update a few days ago. The first gigabyte or so looked like it was maxing out my connection but then when it had around 400mb left it dropped significantly and was downloading around a megabyte ever 30/40 secs. Haven't downloaded anything since so not sure if it was a one off.

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These speeds really are a joke. Updating to June's dashboard and it's only half way in 20mins. For whatever reason it nose dived and got stuck in the mid-50% area.

 

All for 200 MB+ :no:

 

Edit:

 

It took 10% almost 15 minutes to progress, and the next 10% mere seconds. Sort it out MS

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These are all due to server-side issues, nothing on your consoles or ISP side. MS Azure is overloaded, this has to be the explanation. ITunes downloads a 6GB movie in 20-30 minutes and averages 30Mbps for me on Wi-Fi, XBL varies much more based on file type. I think they are still quite prone to congestion/load, though speeds overall are vastly improved over what we got with 360. Generally stuff downloads quickly, and the standby mode is very effective.

 

These speeds really are a joke. Updating to June's dashboard and it's only half way in 20mins. For whatever reason it nose dived and got stuck in the mid-50% area.

 

All for 200 MB+ :no:

 

Edit:

 

It took 10% almost 15 minutes to progress, and the next 10% mere seconds. Sort it out MS

 

Next time just put her in standby and go do something else, or let it get done overnight. Don't stress over it by sitting there watching the progress bar.

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I second the DNS question.

I'm fully saturating my 120mbps line whenever I download anything from the live service.

Sounds like there is something specific to your region/area/ISP.

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These are all due to server-side issues, nothing on your consoles or ISP side. MS Azure is overloaded, this has to be the explanation. ITunes downloads a 6GB movie in 20-30 minutes and averages 30Mbps for me on Wi-Fi, XBL varies much more based on file type. I think they are still quite prone to congestion/load, though speeds overall are vastly improved over what we got with 360. Generally stuff downloads quickly, and the standby mode is very effective.

 

 

Next time just put her in standby and go do something else, or let it get done overnight. Don't stress over it by sitting there watching the progress bar.

 

I don't use standby mode (nor want to).

 

 

I second the DNS question.

I'm fully saturating my 120mbps line whenever I download anything from the live service.

Sounds like there is something specific to your region/area/ISP.

 

Not in my case.

 

After I updated my X1 I updated my Wii U and PS4 without issue.

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The June update went through very quickly for me, so at least so far I have not be hit by the slow bug.

Either its a region specific issue, or the Azure servers are heavily loaded and the load balancing system is causing some regions/users to experience slow downs.

Someone needs to do an extended study of this. I would hazard a guess that if you repeated say the June update at a later time, it would go much quicker for those having issues now.

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Not in my case.

 

After I updated my X1 I updated my Wii U and PS4 without issue.

As someone else posted earlier, the Xbox Live services servers use Geo-location to decide where to get your data from. This obviously has no effect on Nintendo and PlayStation servers and thus could explain the issue you are facing.

I'm not saying that this is definitely the issue you are facing, merely that you should look into it..

Set your Xbox's DNS settings to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and run a test. This will likely put your accessed servers further away from you, but will definitely run them across a different route.

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Why would they do that?

 

The same reason they throttle netflix in the states. They have the legal ability to be able to now..

 

No slow downs in Australia on my box.

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May I ask why? The power consumption?

I personally only use my Xbox One on weekends, it's very rare I get chance to play on it during the week so i disabled the always on features. I think sitting there drawing over 15w of energy doing absolutely nothing most of the time is a bit extreme. Although you are right in saying this wouldn't even be an issue if i did use it. Getting a bit off topic, however you might find this an interesting read, it certainly surprised me: 40 percent of PS4, Wii U, Xbox One power usage comes in standby mode.

 

As someone else posted earlier, the Xbox Live services servers use Geo-location to decide where to get your data from. This obviously has no effect on Nintendo and PlayStation servers and thus could explain the issue you are facing.

I'm not saying that this is definitely the issue you are facing, merely that you should look into it..

Set your Xbox's DNS settings to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and run a test. This will likely put your accessed servers further away from you, but will definitely run them across a different route.

Google's DNS servers are set-up up on my router so the Xbox One will be using them, i might try manually setting my ISP's DNS servers on the console to see if it makes any difference. Do we actually know for use its based on the DNS servers location? i would have thought the users public IP would have been more accurate as it could usually track the person down to the town / city they live in.

 

These speeds really are a joke. Updating to June's dashboard and it's only half way in 20mins. For whatever reason it nose dived and got stuck in the mid-50% area.

 

All for 200 MB+ :no:

Out of curiosity as your in the UK who is your ISP? I'm with Virgin Media.

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...

Google's DNS servers are set-up up on my router so the Xbox One will be using them, i might try manually setting my ISP's DNS servers on the console to see if it makes any difference. Do we actually know for use its based on the DNS servers location? i would have thought the users public IP would have been more accurate as it could usually track the person down to the town / city they live in.

...

DNS based geolocation is more efficient, instead of contacting a single server and it bouncing you off, your local DNS server sends you to the local CDN, meaning you never have to contact a server you don't download from.

And yeah, using US DNS servers from the UK is going to break stuff like that, I had the same issues when using Google DNS (Although I had to since my ISP at the time simply didn't have a working DNS server) Running your own resolver is also an option (In that case it will use your IP address for geolocation).

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I personally only use my Xbox One on weekends, it's very rare I get chance to play on it during the week so i disabled the always on features. I think sitting there drawing over 15w of energy doing absolutely nothing most of the time is a bit extreme. Although you are right in saying this wouldn't even be an issue if i did use it. Getting a bit off topic, however you might find this an interesting read, it certainly surprised me: 40 percent of PS4, Wii U, Xbox One power usage comes in standby mode.

 

 

This makes sense, if you only turn it on a couple times a week. The power consumption is actually not a surprise to me, it's been well documented. Definitely something to consider, though i'm not sure it reflects in my power bills, which seem to fluctuate on their own and haven't changed much since last fall.

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