Slow download speeds

Slow downloads for Exports:

On and off for weeks:

PC / Chrome:

I have recently been experiencing very very slow downloads when trying to export. When I say slow, I mean 1Mb per minute slow. Surely I shouldn’t have to wait 4 hours to download a 230Mb file export? And that’s if it downloads. One attempt got to 180Mb before stalling and not restarting and the second to about 7Mb before also stalling.

I have asked the IT department who quite rightly point out that any other download from any other source remains lightning quick, taking just seconds to download 200Mb.

Capture%20DD

Edit:- Nope, third attempt has stalled at 9.3Mb and will have to cancel and start again.

Edit:- Fifth time lucky.

Hi @JamesC,

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been experiencing slow downloading times with exporting. I wish I could pinpoint a reason for you but it’s hard to tell when every operating system, environment, and device is different. Did you happen to try downloading the exports on a different device?

Cheers,
Christina

Hi Christina. Yes, downloaded on my Windows 10 workstation in the office, Windows 9(?) laptop and my iPad and phone. All the same. I assumed the problem was at your end but if nobody else is experiencing the same problems then it’s hard to confirm it is. J.

Hi @JamesC,

I haven’t seen anyone else report this issue yet but I’ll keep my eyes peeled.

Cheers,
Christina

I am having the same problem. Had a 167M flight and the download took several hours (went to bed with it still running) for 84 pictures.

I am on a high speed internet connection.

How can we speed it up?

Hi @JamesC and @JohnB,

It’s very difficult to say what the root of the issue is if it’s not consistent or reproducible a decent percentage of the time. Since every connection and setup varies as well, there isn’t a stable solution or explanation I can share since it can be a different reason for each person. I do suggest closing out any apps, windows, or tabs that may be taking up a lot of processing power though. I notice that having programs like Microsoft Office and Adobe Suite tend to slow down things on my laptop drastically, no matter what I’m trying to do.

Cheers,
Christina

@Christina

I don’t think it’s a local problem as I’ve experienced it at home on the laptop also. Hard to pinpoint I know.

That said, I have just successfully downloaded the same 220mb file in a 2 or 3 minutes using my S8+ phone and WiFi at home. Maybe it’s a different device. Maybe it’s because it’s my home WiFi and not office network. Maybe because it’s 21:20 and not 09:00. Who knows? It’s not the PC. It’s extremely powerful and although does have Adobe Suite and of course Office on it as well, I would say it was absolutely fine a few weeks ago. I’m sure it has since gone through a few updates over that time but I can still download from other sources super quick.

What I have also discovered however in the last 20 minutes is that I can no longer download an export through the app, whether it be the app on Android or iOS, nor through Chrome or Safari on iOS, in mobile mode or desktop. I can however download through Chrome on Android. I click on the attachment in the app and nothing happens.

Thanks again for your help.

Hello @JamesC for best results, I would export via a computer on Google Chrome or FireFox.

Hello @Yusuf. Unfortunately these best results took 5 attempts and several hours yesterday and why I flagged the problem. I may try Firefox next week however.

I do question why the app provides the functionality to download but not the ability. I’m sure it used to work.

To my remembrance I had nothing else running, but will ensure all other apps are turned off next time.

BTW I am running Win 10 and Chrome 66 64 bit.

Hi @JohnB,

Unfortunately, there is not much I can do to diagnose or troubleshoot. :frowning: If the issue becomes consistent and is reproducible at a steady rate, then we may be able to take a deeper dive into the issue. Sometimes there are just bad days with the network, website, device, etc. Sorry I can’t provide a logical answer.

Cheers,
Christina

Hi @Christina.

I am by no means an IT whizz, but have just spent 3 hours this morning with my IT manager trying to work out why it is taking me so long to download my exports, if at all they are successful - many of them fail and timeout. It’s difficult for him to say what the exact cause of the problem is, but he is saying it is to do with your infrastructure and slow response times provided by your system.

Hi James

Looking at your issues with drone deploy, I can confirm the issues are beyond our network or our ISP.

Looking at this tracert, we can see the latency kicks in once we are beyond our gateway (bisnet.uk.com).

In windows networking, any domain resolved in more than 30 “hops” (think of these as stops on a train track, leading to a destination), is pretty much seen as a time out.

Below shows a tracert (this sends a trace through these “hops”, to a destination):

Tracing route to dronedeploy.com [34.198.88.200]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

_ 1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms 10.0.40.252_
_ 2 3 ms 4 ms 4 ms 100.121.0.6_
_ 3 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms bn-pe02-lon.bisnet.uk.com [82.113.226.35]_
_ 4 4 ms 2 ms 2 ms bn-gw01-man.bisnet.uk.com [82.113.226.38]_
_ 5 3 ms 2 ms 2 ms 82.113.228.202_
_ 6 5 ms 3 ms 3 ms bn-ig02-lon.bisnet.uk.com [82.113.228.252]_
_ 7 4 ms 5 ms 6 ms 83.231.204.165_
_ 8 3 ms 3 ms 5 ms ae-0.r24.londen12.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.140]_
_ 9 75 ms 76 ms 76 ms ae-5.r24.nycmny01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.2.18]_
10 74 ms 76 ms 74 ms ae-1.r07.nycmny01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.181]
11 79 ms 80 ms 79 ms ae-0.a00.nycmny01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.94]
12 74 ms 77 ms * ae-2.amazon.nycmny01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.201.126]
13 77 ms 86 ms 78 ms 52.93.4.115
14 77 ms 76 ms 76 ms 52.93.4.44
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 80 ms 80 ms 80 ms 54.239.44.214
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 107 ms 179 ms 118 ms 54.239.108.84
19 88 ms 87 ms 85 ms 52.93.27.2
20 108 ms 99 ms 109 ms 52.93.27.11
21 80 ms 80 ms 80 ms 54.239.111.59
22 80 ms 80 ms 80 ms 205.251.244.216
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

He also carried out various tests to check the response time to your servers from around the world. Whereas within the US there does seem to be reasonable response times (although not amazing), one from within the UK is almost non existent and goes a lot of the way to explaining why I’m struggling the way I am.

Would it be possible for my IT guy to have a telephone conversation with yours? He’s more or less been able to replicate the problem at will.

Many thanks,
James.

Hi @JamesC,

I’ve escalated your issue to our engineers for investigation. I’ll report back if I need more info or have anything to share. Thanks for being cooperative!

Cheers,
Christina

Hi @JamesC,

Just wanted to relay some information over to you from our engineering team here:

All of our expert downloads are currently stored on Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3), which is hosted in Virginia in the US. When download speeds are slow, it is most likely because your ISP is overloading one route from their location to the US. In cases like this, there is little we can do to troubleshoot or remedy the issue since we cannot control where your ISP routes their request.

We tried to download one of your exports with 3 separate ISPs in the UK and couldn’t reproduce the issue. In addition, using the tracert for dronedeploy.com is not an effective way to measure the speed of your downloads because that is a different hosting system.

Cheers,
Christina

Thanks. I will relay this to the IT chap tomorrow when I’m back in the office. What he emailed me was just a snippet of the tests he carried out - he spent 3 hours troubleshooting my problem this morning. He did say something about you only hosting from just a single location ie. Virginia, and perhaps you ought to be providing “more than one Point of Presence”?

He was able access just about any other site around the world in a fraction of the ms he was able to access DD. Honestly, from knowing nothing first thing this morning, I felt like a fully fledged Microsoft engineer afterwards. The biggest problem was the path it took for us in the UK to reach you. This was tried on a couple of networks and ISPs and so I wonder how anyone else over here is coping.

Please can you arrange for your engineer to spare him a few minutes? This might be something really simple that can easily be resolved with a quick chat.

Ta.

Hi @JamesC,

Apologies for the delayed response. Our engineers are not available to chat but would like to let you know that we are moving away from our current storage solution to one which will provide much better global download speeds.

Cheers,
Christina