Hetzner <--> Cloudflare slowing down recently

Servers Dedicated
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#1

Hey all, I’ll start by saying I’m really excited to try out the new Sudobox when ready, however I’m wondering if I’ll need to get a new host or reconfigure my dedicated host as I’m seeing some performance issues lately.

I have a an AX41-NVMe from Hetzner located in the Finland datacenter. I’ve also setup CloudFlare according to the excellent guide from @hawks to take advantage of the peering to improve speeds back to the US (I’m in Nebraska).

This setup has worked great for a little over a year and I’ve always been able to watch movies / tv at full quality without issues.

However lately I’ve noticed I need to dial down the PLEX settings to 8 mbps to maintain a stable stream.

LibreSpeed test on my server shows I am only getting around 20 mbps download (I’ve tested multiple times a day for a few days now).

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As you can see LibreSpeed shows the IP address for a CloudFlare data center in Chicago, so I believe I am going though CloudFlare’s network.

When I run a speed test from CloudFlare it autodetects and uses what appears to be a very similar location (probably the same data center) in Chicago and I’m able to achieve over 300 mbps download.

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When I run a command line speedtest (using speedtest.net’s python tool) I can achieve speeds over 800 mbps download to whatever the local speedtest.net server’s around the datacenter in Finland are.

Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Testing from Hetzner Online GmbH (116.202.xxx.xx)...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Retrieving information for the selected server...
Hosted by teliko GmbH (Limburg) [198.08 km]: 6.879 ms
Testing download speed................................................................................
Download: 875.75 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed................................................................................................
Upload: 817.07 Mbit/s

So my questions:

  1. Has anyone else run into this lately? And for long periods of time (I’m going on a week or two now)
  2. Does anyone know what might be going on? Issue w/ Hetzner or issue w/ Cloudflare, etc…
  3. Does anyone have any other suggestions on how I can troubleshoot this further?
  4. Finally I’m curious if anyone has a similar setup and what sort of download speeds from Hetzner they get back here in the US?

Thank you!

#2

I too have had these same issues with Cloudflare and Hetzner. Cannot say that I have a solution, my only somewhat success it to turn off:

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And then I have to re-enable remote access in Plex and I get the speeds i need but it causes it’s own headaches with doing this.

I was hoping this would get more attention in order to get a viable solution from brains smarter than my own, but so far this week I have had no luck.

#3

So if I turn off the proxy (just use CloudFlare for DNS) then my download speed drops even more.

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So CloudFlare’s fancy routing (when enabled) is helping to prioritize and get my traffic across the pond but not enough and not like it used to do.

Hopefully someone else can chime in with some insight or help us diagnose this issue. I really don’t want to have to switch to a US hosting provider as I haven’t been able to find anybody close to Hetzner’s price & performance.

#4

Yep, I had to turn off cloudflare CDN for Plex streaming a few weeks ago because of this. It was essentially making content unplayable if you tried to direct play.

#5

Yes I’ve had to move away completely from Hetzner and Cloudflare due to the speeds.

Hetzner speeds to North America are generally not acceptable these days… sometimes I’m not even able to download at 2 mpbs. My users noticed.

I would suggest getting a replacement VPN in Canada (OVH Cloud). They are priced roughly the same as Hetzner but much faster due to no intercontinental congestion. I ended up just running the solution on a local machine and upgraded my internet with the $25/m.

#6

Not to turn this into a server pricing discussion, but I’d like to see those comparable to Hetzner prices from OVH Cloud. An i7 7700 with 32 GB RAM and 2x450GB NVME with unlimited Gb access is $125+ USD there, while less than half that at Hetzner.

#7

I was only supporting about 20 users so I only needed the CX41 Cloud server. OVh has one of similar spec Comfort.

Now that I see it, it OVH has half the ram but I still would have made the switch if not moving to my home connection because I never used more than 8 gb ram.

#8

“Hetzner speeds to North America are generally not acceptable these days… sometimes I’m not even able to download at 2 mpbs. My users noticed.”
Ive had no issues with speeds from Hetzner (I am located in WI, USA) and I have used them on and off for 5 years. I even use to have the same exact server OP has, running proxied thru Cloudflare. Currently I use one of their “auction” servers, still proxied thru Cloudflare, and I dont have any issues. I would like something not literally across the ocean, but I haven’t yet found anything better for the price.

#9

Server in North America will always come with a premium. I highly suggest buying a home server and running it.

#10

I really wish I could do my own hardware but so many of us in the US are limited to DOCSIS cable plants that it’s really not feasible. I’ve got gig at home but it’s still only 30Mb/s up and that just doesn’t work. My EX42-NVME is $40 USD per month, includes i7-7700, 64GB RAM, 2x512GB NVMe SSDs, and dedicated gigabit. Lately my speeds have been pretty reliable, >400Mb/s during the day in the state of Iowa, and >125Mb/s during peak evening times.

If I had a fiber ISP with unlimited traffic though, I think I’d absolutely make the investment of a home server. But I think that’s less than half of Americans.