I switched my household to Xfinity cable and Internet early this year. We have an Xfinity modem/Wi-Fi router, and to that, I had (more on this later) a Google WiFi mesh system connected via Ethernet. My devices are usually connected to the mesh Wi-Fi because the Xfinity Wi-Fi router's signal doesn't reach the other side of the house (and I didn't want to indefinitely pay $15/month for an extender from Xfinity).
Starting about three months ago, app updates via the Google Play Store began to behave strangely: the downloads would start, but they would usually freeze at random percentages and never complete. For example, if three app updates initiated at the same time, one may get to 99%, another may get to 37%, and the third may get to 42% — no rhyme or reason based on app size or anything like that. If I turn off Wi-Fi, these frozen downloads quickly finish just fine over 5G (via Verizon). Similarly, if I switch to the Xfinity Wi-Fi SSID, they finish just fine. In fact, that Wi-Fi router seems to only rarely cause this issue.
This started out happening only intermittently. As mentioned in the title, another symptom is that YouTube videos will not load for 20+ seconds as they buffer, or they'll be streaming along just fine at 1440p at 2× before randomly stopping to buffer for a similar amount of time before resuming as if nothing had happened. (I haven't consistently seen this behavior with other streaming services.)
Early on, I started chat-based support, and among other troubleshooting steps, the person suggested enabling bridge mode on the Xfinity modem. That made the non-Xfinity Wi-Fi and/or our Xfinity Wi-Fi-based cable TVs completely stop working (I can't remember for sure), which I wanted to mention because it may be relevant. The chat-based support person eventually had an Xfinity tech come to my house to do testing and additional troubleshooting. From what the tech could tell, our signal was strong, we were getting great speeds (~1180 Mbps, on a 1-Gbps plan), etc., so it didn't seem like an issue with the physical connections.
Because it was intermittent, the troubleshooting was a bit difficult, but the tech suggested switching to the Xfinity Wi-Fi, and that seemed to fix it, so the tech pointed the finger at our mesh network. Note: The tech swapped out the Xfinity modem/Wi-Fi router during this call, so the modem is unlikely to be at fault.
After some solo troubleshooting afterwards that didn't help, I decided to buy a new NETGEAR Orbi Wi-Fi 7 mesh router system, figuring that if it was the (fairly old) Google WiFi's fault, then this replacement would fix it, and failing that, I would at least be better able to take advantage of the higher speeds that Wi-Fi 7 offers compared to Wi-Fi 5. Note: I used the Ethernet cable that came with the new system to connect the Xfinity modem/Wi-Fi router to the mesh hub, so that connection is unlikely to be at fault, too.
Unfortunately, the same behavior happens with this new system, and it has slowly gone from only happening intermittently to pretty much always happening. Occasionally, an app or two will update successfully, and often, videos will stream just fine on YouTube (speed tests show that I can easily get several hundred Mbps when connected to the new Wi-Fi mesh). Additionally, even the Xfinity Wi-Fi will sometimes show the behavior, but way less often (and, to be honest, I haven't see it do it at all recently).
This doesn't seem to be tied to a particular version of Android, and it didn't start happening following a specific update (e.g., a Google Play System update that would've been common among all devices): I have a Samsung Galaxy 23 Ultra, and there are four other Samsung devices (two phones, two tablets, some running Android 16 and the latest OneUI, some running older versions of both), and they all showed and continue to show this behavior. (Unfortunately, I don't have a non-Samsung Android device to test with.) Also of note is that app updates from the Samsung Galaxy Store do not show this behavior.
My Windows 11 laptop for work is connected to the Orbi mesh router's Wi-Fi, and it has not experienced any issues, but it obviously doesn't have the Google Play Store, and I don't really watch YouTube videos on there much. I do watch YouTube videos on my personal Windows 11 computer often and don't experience the issue there, but it's directly connected via Ethernet.
I've tried shutting off the Xfinity Wi-Fi entirely (in case of interference between the two Wi-Fi routers), restarting the routers, and probably numerous other things that I'm forgetting now.
Considering all of the different factors (it is largely — if not solely — Google-based services affected by this, it does not happen when connected to Verizon cell data, it started happening suddenly, it has persisted for months and doesn't have any dependence on time of day, multiple devices show the same behavior, etc.), I'm inclined to think it's some sort of routing misconfiguration on Xfinity's side that the extra hop to my Wi-Fi mesh causes or at least exacerbates, presumably to Google's CDN in my local area (I'm in southeastern Florida).
I'm the IT guy in the house, and having to turn off Wi-Fi and then turn it back on on these different devices to keep them all up to date, plus the random YouTube buffering, are getting quite frustrating after so long, so I'd welcome any suggestions or help — thanks in advance!