Random ping spikes on Wifi (not ethernet) every ~15 minutes when streaming on Mac OSX

[ashleyxxa]

Normally I have about 30ms ping when gaming on my mac, but about every 15 minutes I get a huge ping spike from 400ms to 3000ms for about a 2 minute period of time. I haven't changed any router settings and previously it was working for the past month. Does anyone know what it is? I have heard it's related to computer scanning for Wifi on PC but I'm not sure how that translates to the mac world?

[ashleyxxa · Accepted solution]

I have resolved the issue. After testing my internet streaming connection on other apps it was something to do with a bug in the specific streaming app I was using. After deleting and re-installing the offending app it resolved itself.

[ashleyxxa]

I found this post about turning off location services which I have, but it hasn't fixed the issue. According to the response Apple still does some location service scanning even if it's off. The weird thing that confuses me is that this is a NEW issue that hasn't occured for the past month. Additionally, I haven't updated my software or added any new programs to the computer that would send pings or scans wirelessly. Hmm 🤔

[ashleyxxa]

Also if there's any question about the router itself, I fixed major ping issues with a firmware update to1.0.11.110 about a month ago which actually fixed the router which before it was amost broken. But as of yesterday I'm not getting these massive ping spikes. See  https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/Help-My-Nighthawk-R7000-has-more-packet-loss...

[ashleyxxa]

Update: After more testing to see what is trying to get access to data, I have found I can actually control the ping spikes by throttling my wifi download speed. If I stream at 70mbps my ping spikes to 3000ms but if I throttle down to 15mbps it goes back down to the average of 30ms ping. 

This is odd because it has previously been working over wifi fine. I have deduced by this that it indeed has something to do with the router. I assume that the bandwidth is overwhelming the wifi and that is what is causing the spike. Which is odd because it works fine most of the time.

[ashleyxxa · Accepted solution]

I have resolved the issue. After testing my internet streaming connection on other apps it was something to do with a bug in the specific streaming app I was using. After deleting and re-installing the offending app it resolved itself.