Very strange and persistent content loading issue

[Lightfall]

Hello. I have had my Xr500 for a few years now. Approximately 6-12 months ago (it has slowly been getting worse) I began noticing webpages taking longer to load than usual on my Samsung S10+. I tried changing my DNS on the router, changed my channel (I am on an unpopulated DFS channel right now), moved the router to get better signal strength, restarted the router and modem more times than I can count, contacted Comcast and had them send a reset signal to the modem, and factory reset my router. None of this has helped. I thought it was my phone so I went out and bought a Galaxy Z Fold 2. I have the same issue... My wife's Galaxy 20+ also has the issue. The situation has devolved into not just webpages loading slowly, but entire apps either not loading or loading excruciatingly slow. For example, I tried to open Hulu on my phone. Normally you get the Hulu logo for a few seconds and then it loads the content. However, my phone will just stay on the Hulu logo for an indefinite period of time. I closed the app and opened it again 3 different times yesterday with the same results. Other apps like Google News or Pinterest will load the app and then the content is just a bunch of gray boxes. If I switch to mobile data then everything is super snappy again. I have gigabit internet and a link rate that never dips below the 400mbps range within my house. A speed test will load just fine and confirm that. If I load YouTube and it's a bunch of gray boxes it will eventually after around 20 seconds load the video thumbnails. After it does that then clicking on a video will load it almost instantly. Scrubbing through the video generally works great as well. In fact, I have almost no issues streaming video once it is actually loaded. I have noticed that game update speed on my Xbox One X will drop every minute or so back to zero and slowly climb up to over 200 again. My laptop generally doesn't have any issues and neither does my wired desktop. However, I don't use those nearly as much as my phone so I'm not sure if it's just a smaller sample size. The issue is definitely the worst when I load apps on my Samsung devices. All 3 are on different firmwares and Qualcomm chipset versions though... Sorry for the long post, but I am just baffled at this problem considering it has persisted through a factory reset and across multiple devices (yet not all of them). Thank you in advance. 

[Netduma Fraser]

Hey, welcome to the forum!

Sorry to hear you're having this issue and thank you for the details. What is the model of the comcast modem/router? - Does that have WiFi or is it a pure modem?

I wouldn't recommend using a DFS channel as that can dip out and could exacerbate the issues so use a WiFi analyzer and try to find the least congested non DFS channel to change to. Are there any electrical or wireless devices (even headphones for example) within close proximity to the router? If so move those away as they could interfere. 

[Lightfall]

No wireless devices nearby. Netgear cm1200 modem with no integrated router. No issues on a wired connection with my desktop. 

I had this issue before the dfs channel. It actually helped my speeds quite a bit. 

[Netduma Fraser]

What firmware are you on currently? Are you using Smart Connect (SC) or connecting to 2.4/5GHz individually? If you're using SC, disable that and try connecting to the 2.4/5GHz manually, does that improve the performance?

[Lightfall]

Smart connect has been disabled from day 1. This is specifically on the 5ghz network. 2.4 seems pretty stable, but there are a lot of other networks nearby so 2.4 is not a viable alternative for speed or ping. I'm not home to check the firmware, but I know it is the most current one available because I manually checked 2 days ago. 

[Netduma Fraser]

49 minutes ago, Lightfall said:

Smart connect has been disabled from day 1. This is specifically on the 5ghz network. 2.4 seems pretty stable, but there are a lot of other networks nearby so 2.4 is not a viable alternative for speed or ping. I'm not home to check the firmware, but I know it is the most current one available because I manually checked 2 days ago. 

Use an app called WiFi hot spots and connect via 5GHz and see how strong the signal and the link speed is in different areas please. 5GHz does have less penetration and might be the walls are quite thick.

[Lightfall]

I can understand where you are coming from, but that isn't the issue. I know this because I have the problem in the same room as the router. My speed test is usually around 650mbps. Even in the corners of the house it floats around 400.

[Netduma Fraser]

Something must be interfering with the packets, could you disable QoS completely from the Anti-Bufferbloat 3 line option menu please and see if you notice an improvement?

[Lightfall]

I'm sorry I forgot to mention that. I already disabled QOS/anti bufferbloat. Once before my factory reset and also recently after I had the same issues post factory reset. I've been pulling my hair out for months trying just about everything with no results. It seems like certain days and times it acts up more than others. Some days it is so bad I just switch to mobile data. I can't find a consistent pattern though and if it was interference I would think changing to a different channel would fix it. 

[Netduma Fraser]

Do you have another router you could connect behind the XR and connect the devices that show the issues to it and see if they experience the same problem?

Also it might be worth trying the beta version for the XR and seeing if that helps.

[Lightfall]

I don't have another router around :-(. Only thing I can tell is that my ethernet connected desktop does not have this issue. I don't really experience it with my wireless laptop either. My 3 different Samsung phone models have issues though... To the point where I have spent double digit hours troubleshooting. This is all on 5ghz btw. 

[Netduma Fraser]

It's weird that it is just Samsung mobiles, you said it happens on 5GHz, does that mean it doesn't happen on 2.4GHz? 

I'd suggest in storage settings clearing the cache for each app you've noticed the issue on and then reboot the phone and see if that improves it.

[Lightfall]

I have been reluctant to use 2.4 ghz due to decreased performance. 3 different phones with 3 different Qualcomm chipsets experience the issue so it can't be an app data/cache issue. It persists across multiple apps as well. 

[Netduma Fraser]

Okay try the beta please: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-Pro-Gaming-DumaOS-3-0/bd-p/en-home-beta-npg-duma I'd recommend you factory reset after upgrading as it's a big jump in software. Then if it's still an issue we'll be better able diagnose it.

[Lightfall]

When will that version officially be released out of beta? 

[Netduma Fraser]

12 hours ago, Lightfall said:

When will that version officially be released out of beta? 

That version won't be as there are a few things we will need to fix that have been found in the version. A public version depends very much on how well the beta builds go, if we get to one that appears quite stable then that could be a release candidate.