Very low download speeds & frequent "Package Failed" messages

Bug Reporting Hub Install, Performance & Graphics
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1

Do you have any add-ons in your Community folder? If yes, please remove and retest before posting.
Tried with both, no difference.

Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?
No.

Brief description of the issue:
Downloading in-sim updates and items from the Marketplace is extremely slow and unstable (eg “Package Failed”). Other applications like Steam or Chrome are able to fully utilize my bandwidth, it’s only MSFS that is seemingly throttling its download speed.

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:
Average download speed on a 1 Gbps connection.
image

Detail steps to reproduce the issue encountered:
Not sure how to reproduce…

PC specs for those who want to assist (if not entered in your profile)
/

Did you submit this to Zendesk? If so, what is your ticket #?
No.

Updates:

With the help from @Hester40MT, we’ve been able to further investigate this problem.

Update 1:
I decided to download the sim on my laptop to single out a possible pc configuration issue, but that’s not the case because my laptop is also being limited to a 12 Mbps download speed. It seems like the issue must be situated now somewhere at the router, ISP or Microsoft level.

Update 2:
Continuing our search for the problem, I tried NetLimiter 4 to limit my available bandwidth. That sadly didn’t change anything because I was still getting around 13 Mbps download (I set the limit to 200, 100, 40, 20 and 10, and obviously only with the latter setting did I notice a difference).

Next up I tried using a VPN (to circumvent the ISP) and surprise surprise, my download speeds increased to around 180 Mbps!

Update 3:
As of July 16, 2021 it seems like my ISP is no longer throttling the MSFS download speeds. I tried downloading with a VPN as usual and then also without and I got the same speeds. Hopefully this will apply for more users in the future as well.

Preliminary conclusion:

It seems like some ISP’s are throttling the 13.107.246.13 IP address that Microsoft uses for their in-game downloads. A (temporary) fix is to use a VPN.

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Contacted via Discord. Will post back results.

3

Had the same issue earlier as well while trying to install the carenado waco. Had to try multiple times before it worked.

4

I’ve had similar issues over the past couple of weeks while trying to download various sceneries after purchase from the Marketplace. Some will download & install fine while others fail along the way (sometimes right at the very end) but all have had very inconsistent download speeds.

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This is what we are noticing and failures. We’ve traced it an IP address that’s at fault.

Doing more tests!

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Update 1:
I decided to download the sim on my laptop to single out a possible pc configuration issue, but that’s not the case because my laptop is also being limited to a 12 Mbps download speed. It seems like the issue must be situated now somewhere at the router, ISP or Microsoft level.

7

Do you have any add-ons in your Community folder? If yes, please remove and retest before posting.
No
Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?
No
Brief description of the issue:
The Download speed isn’t going over 6 mbit. I have a wired 100 Mbit Connection.
Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:

Detail steps to reproduce the issue encountered:

PC specs for those who want to assist (if not entered in your profile)
Ryzen 5 2600x GTX 1050 ti
Did you submit this to Zendesk? If so, what is your ticket #?
No

8

Not saying its not happening, but noticed with steam it would show it was using what was available from my net in the steam downloader but when looked on task manager it showed it was using all 70mbps.
This was when installing updates from other games as I got MSFS from the Microsoft store.

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Had to change hard drives so have to reload MSFS 2020. Very slow, even thought I have bursts as high as 180Mbps data download. The package downloader even appears to run backwards sometimes. I will get up to 14 gigs then back down to 12 or 13. It will loop this way for quite a while.

It would help if we could download an encrypted zipped 110GB “blob” asynchronously, then have the official licensing and installation system “download” its components as fast as it wants from the local “blob” on my hard drive. Then whatever it is in the installation system that gets frustrated with slow connections wouldn’t be frustrated anymore.

Now it is stuck at around 45GB downloaded. It might stay there for hours. What is wrong?

I am back up after another try, but this was a work-out.

10

Do you have any add-ons in your Community folder? If yes, please remove and retest before posting.
No

Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?
No

Brief description of the issue:
I uninstalled the game after buying it via GamePass, I’ve been playing it on there for a bit and wanted to own it. Upon reinstalling my downloadspeed never goes over 12Mbps (or so the progress bar and task manager tells me). I’ve tried all solutions on the forums and Reddit. Also updated my BIOS and checked for driver updates. But the download issue in only affecting Flight Sim. I also changed the drive where it gets installed and reisntalled, repaired and reset a few times to no avail.

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Hmm, looks like this issue is more widespread than I thought, thanks all for sharing!

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After help from @Hester40MT we figured out that in my case it was my ISP (Telenet, Belgium) which caused the problems. Using a VPN fixed this issue for me.

2 Likes
13

Adding my observations:

I experienced 4-5Mbps download speeds throughout the entire download process, and observed loop issues in the evenings and overnight (MST) - I only did my download during the day because of the loop issues. I resorted to restarting the program many times to get steady downloads, resulting in about a week+ of total download time. I don’t have the most robust connection (20Mbps) and never experienced any other issues with downloading other files from other sources.

My upstream provider is CenturyLink, if that helps.

I tried VPNs, NetLimiter, and other recommendations, and nothing observable resulted - in the end it was just patience and diligence.

14

Thanks for reporting this, making sure it’s seen by the devs.

2 Likes
15

My downloads are also painfully slow. It wasn’t always the case. At launch and in the first couple of updates, speeds were ok. Not anywhere near my 1Gbit speed, but still pretty decent at up to 300 Mbits. The last couple of updates, I’m lucky to break 100 Mbits, with it being closer to 50-75Mbits.

I don’t know why ISPs would throttle connections to MS servers. I’m wondering now if MSFS is using BitTorrent as a transfer protocol for their file distribution. If so, that would most definitely explain ISPs throttling it.

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Note: Moderator Edit (Hester40MT)
Merged post(s) from another topic.

When I first bought MSFS. 3 days of downloading with between 18 and 22Mbps download.

As I said, only MSFS has this download speed issue for me. Everything else screams.

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My Speedtest result

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OK. This was my next question if other programs/games have issues.

From my experience of assisting others on this forum, I have found that some ISPs are indeed throttling MS gaming servers, in particular MSFS. To test if this is the case for you, install a VPN to bypass your ISP. If you get a faster speed then you know it’s your ISP. You may have to try several servers in the VPN to get that speed.

The team is looking to one of the MS servers that these ISPs are throttling; as to why.

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Interesting. I’ll check that out. That would indeed be a significant bit of information if it’s the case. Odd that they would focus on just Microsoft.

I’ll run a VPN when I renew Bitdefender in a few days.

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Let me know the results!