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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • Sometimes, less is more.

    I would recommend trimming all your custom configuration from your router/firewall, one change at a time, until you can no longer reproduce the issue.

    Or go the other way around: set up a barebones configuration, confirm the issue is resolved, and begin adding one customization at a time until it breaks.

    How do your bufferbloat tests look?

    https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat

    It sounds like you have a lot of stateful inspection configured. YouTube’s heavy usage of QUIC (i.e. UDP transport) may not play well with your config.

    And, incidentally, what does your hardware look like?

    Frankly, even the most barebones router should be able to handle YouTube. I am running pfSense in an ESXi VM, with passthru Intel gigabit NICs, 2 GB reserved RAM, and 2 vCPU (shared, but with higher priority than other VMs) on a Dell desktop with a second-gen i7 that was shipped from the factory in 2012.

    Yes, I am routing on decade-old hardware. And I have never seen anything like what you are describing.

    YouTube should “just work.”

    I am going to assume that if you’re running OpenWRT, then you are probably using a typical consumer router? Please correct me if I am wrong.

    Have you by any chance tried backing up your OpenWRT config and going back to stock firmware?

    I know, I know, OpenWRT is great. I have a consumer router that I flashed with it to use strictly as a wireless AP.

    But consumer devices flashed with vanilla OpenWRT tend to have very, very little resources left over to handle fun configurations.

    And I have a feeling some of the fun configuration might be contributing to your issues.







  • I also pay for YouTube. I just don’t normally bring it up because it usually results in a lot of rather unpleasant replies.

    It’s fascinating, really.

    Google gets a lot of hate for being a data collection behemoth. The whole “if you aren’t paying, you are the product” thing. And rightfully so.

    And pirates love to say that if companies would just charge a reasonable rate for an easy-to-use service, then they would just pay instead of pirating.

    But when it comes to YouTube, a lot of people seem to want to have it both ways.