Is there anything that can be done about the last two hops shown in the trace route below?

I've been keeping an eye on the route to my site lately. The results have been the same as below for the past week. The weird thing is that when I trace it through a site like http://www.samspade.org/ there are not any problems. Am I correct in thinking something is messed up with either my location or my ISP?

Compared to the other pop email addresses and sites I have had, this is really slow. It's like pulling teeth waiting for my email to D/L.

Can I do anything besides change hosts?

Thank you,
mikeh80




Tracing route to themike.com [209.51.134.122]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 26 ms 20 ms 21 ms *************** [********]
3 27 ms 20 ms 23 ms fe-5-0.pittock.spiritone.com [216.99.222.1]
4 26 ms 21 ms 22 ms 500.Serial3-1.GW3.POR2.ALTER.NET [157.130.182.229]
5 27 ms 23 ms 21 ms 124.at-2-0-0.XR2.POR3.ALTER.NET [152.63.105.158]
6 22 ms 22 ms 22 ms 0.so-6-0-0.XL2.POR3.ALTER.NET [152.63.107.114]
7 34 ms 22 ms 22 ms 0.so-0-0-0.TL2.POR3.ALTER.NET [152.63.107.153]
8 38 ms 33 ms 33 ms 0.so-4-2-0.TL2.SAC1.ALTER.NET [152.63.0.134]
9 37 ms 37 ms 37 ms 0.so-7-0-0.XL2.PAO1.ALTER.NET [152.63.113.21]
10 36 ms 37 ms 37 ms POS1-0.XR2.PAO1.ALTER.NET [152.63.54.78]
11 119 ms 85 ms 89 ms 188.ATM10-0-0.BR1.PAO1.ALTER.NET [146.188.148.101]
12 43 ms 39 ms 38 ms 137.39.52.178
13 105 ms 99 ms 99 ms ge1-1.atluna.as.unaatlga.aleron.net [205.198.2.40]
14 1189 ms 1198 ms 1207 ms 205.198.2.130
15 1236 ms 1198 ms 1277 ms themike.com [209.51.134.122]

Trace complete.

I would talk to your host and see whats going on.. that high of a ping usually means some problems.. Unfortuneately if they can't do anything, then the other solution would be to switch hosts.. I would check with them first though..

Laterz,
palmtree

I agree with Palm best thing you can do is contact your hoster.

Thank you both very much for your responses!

I contacted my host last night about the problem. They said that it was normal and there was nothing to worry about. They also said the email was most likely slow because of my ISP, due to high traffic and such that they probably have on the POP and SMTP ports. I didn't see anything wrong with that answer (it was also fast for 11pm pst), but it just doesn't fit right.

For one the ISP I use is a small local company here in Portland, OR. I have never had a problem with theirs or other companies POP service being slow through them. The other is it just doesn't seem normal, I don't have this sort of problem with any other site I go to.

I guess my only option left then is to try another host as both of you suggested. :(

Unless someone wants to go and dig me a bigger pipe out East. I've got shovels in the garage you can borrow. :D

Thank you agian,
Mike

Originally posted by palmtree
I would talk to your host and see whats going on.. that high of a ping usually means some problems.. Unfortuneately if they can't do anything, then the other solution would be to switch hosts.. I would check with them first though..

Laterz,
palmtree

Originally posted by mikeh80
Is there anything that can be done about the last two hops shown in the trace route below?


Generally, when you see a huge jump in latency on the last hop or hops of a trace, particularly where it enters the destination network, the problem is in the *reverse* path. ie, the path inbound via UUnet might be fine, but your packets might be coming back on, for example, Sprint, and running into problems somewhere.

You have to login to the destination network and run a traceroute back to your originating IP address. They you get more of the complete picture.

I would never say it's normal; that sounds like a brush-off.

Kevin

Originally posted by sigma
Generally, when you see a huge jump in latency on the last hop or hops of a trace, particularly where it enters the destination network, the problem is in the *reverse* path. ie, the path inbound via UUnet might be fine, but your packets might be coming back on, for example, Sprint, and running into problems somewhere.

You have to login to the destination network and run a traceroute back to your originating IP address. They you get more of the complete picture.
Thank you very much for your input!

This stuff is so cool, I logged into my Cpanel account on the server and ran a traceroute back. The result from the trace is below.

It looks like it timed out just short of the destination. Hops 23 and 24 are to my ISP's sister company, I think they share the same line or something. The trace stopped on number 25, before it reached my IP.

So is there anything else I can do? Is it worth talking to my host about or is this an ISP issue?

I would never say it's normal; that sounds like a brush-off.

Kevin
I'm glad I posted here, I now have a foot out the door. My big question is when should I start running. :)

Thanks

Mike


traceroute to ***.***.***.*** (***.***.***.***), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 209.51.134.121 (209.51.134.121) 0.643 ms 0.425 ms 0.306 ms
2 dv2-atl-core-core-b.dv2.net (209.51.131.2) 0.483 ms 0.541 ms 0.496 ms
3 f13.ba01.b000173-0.atl01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.28.253) 0.786 ms 0.763 ms 0.685 ms
4 g9-2.core01.atl01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.5.245) 0.795 ms 0.512 ms 1.028 ms
5 p15-0.core01.jax01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.137) 7.374 ms 7.000 ms 6.866 ms
6 p14-0.core01.tpa01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.141) 12.003 ms 12.214 ms 11.757 ms
7 p5-0.core01.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.45) 31.697 ms 31.721 ms 31.627 ms
8 p14-0.core01.san01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.6) 62.542 ms 62.491 ms 62.387 ms
9 p4-0.core01.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.77) 64.984 ms 68.873 ms 65.768 ms
10 p14-0.core01.sjc01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.74) 76.846 ms 76.075 ms 75.960 ms
11 p4-0.core01.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.93) 82.280 ms 82.176 ms 81.897 ms
12 p15-0.core02.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.70) 82.080 ms 82.144 ms 81.909 ms
13 p6-0.tr1.sfr1.netrail.net (66.28.28.58) 82.967 ms 82.436 ms 82.517 ms
14 ge-2-2-0--0.pr1.SanFrancisco1.CA.us.netrail.net (205.215.12.2) 82.409 ms 83.004 ms 82.614 ms
15 SERIAL4-1-0.BR1.PAO1.ALTER.NET (204.255.168.209) 1453.802 ms 1306.142 ms 1342.818 ms
16 109.ATM3-0.XR2.PAO1.ALTER.NET (146.188.148.110) 1356.988 ms 1371.941 ms 1351.498 ms
17 0.so-0-0-0.XL2.PAO1.ALTER.NET (152.63.54.77) 1410.238 ms 1314.486 ms 1363.115 ms
18 0.so-3-0-0.TL2.SAC1.ALTER.NET (152.63.54.10) 1336.413 ms 1449.765 ms 1340.419 ms
19 0.so-7-0-0.TL2.POR3.ALTER.NET (152.63.0.133) 1402.976 ms 1405.981 ms 1459.710 ms
20 0.so-0-0-0.XL2.POR3.ALTER.NET (152.63.107.154) 1419.880 ms 1432.254 ms 1430.740 ms
21 0.so-7-0-0.XR2.POR3.ALTER.NET (152.63.107.113) 1366.224 ms 1367.092 ms 1411.983 ms
22 192.ATM7-0.GW3.POR2.ALTER.NET (152.63.105.157) 1424.469 ms 1475.657 ms 1485.494 ms
23 spiritone-gw.customer.alter.net (157.130.182.230) 1471.983 ms 1541.077 ms 1539.795 ms
24 redback.spiritone.com (216.99.222.2) 1500.015 ms 1420.300 ms 1459.676 ms
25 * * *

Originally posted by mikeh80
It looks like it timed out just short of the destination. Hops 23 and 24 are to my ISP's sister company, I think they share the same line or something. The trace stopped on number 25, before it reached my IP.

So is there anything else I can do? Is it worth talking to my host about or is this an ISP issue?


Your problem starts between hops 14 and 15. The handoff from Netrail to UUnet shows a huge increase in latency, which usually implies that that link is congested. Now, Cogent bought Netrail (right?), so the problem should probably be addressed to Cogent by Cogent's customer, dv2.net.

This is the kind of peering problem which people imply you might run into with some providers, and for whatever reason, it seems that in this case you have run into that.

Mind you, it could be a transient problem, due to an outage elsewhere shifting traffic, or due to an ongoing packet flooding attack, etc. Refer it to your ISP and point out the problem for them to point out to Cogent.

Kevin