Using MTR (my traceroute)

Introduction

MTR is a popular tool for diagnosing network-related issues. It combines the functionality of the ping and traceroute commands. Submitting MTR reports can help Brightcove Support resolve issues in some cases.

See How to Run an MTR for information on installing MTR.

Note that Homebrew now installs MTR into a non-path directory (at least on Mac). To be able to run MTR, you will need to do the following in terminal:

cd /usr/local/Cellar/mtr/
# to get the version number - in this case 0.94 - and cd into that directory's /sbin directory
ls
cd 0.94/sbin
# now copy mtr to the path
sudo cp mtr /usr/local/bin

Now you will be able to run sudo mtr (using sudo is required)

The steps below will walk you through the basic installation and use of Wireshark.

Using MTR

The instructions below assume you are running MTR as a command line application on Mac OS. If you are running WinMTR instead, the only difference is that you will simply enter the domain or IP address that you want to analyze instead running mtr {domain or IP address}.

Launch Terminal.
Enter the following command:
```
sudo mtr players.brightcove.net
```
You should see a display that looks something like this:

MTR Display
Note the commands listed above the data display, or press h to see all available commands:

MTR Commands
Copy and paste the information you want from terminal:

Copy MTR Data
You can press q at any time to stop MTR.

Using MTR with Live

Using MTR with Live streams is similar to using it to analyze VOD, but a little different because MTR sends ICMP request packets and most internet devices deprioritize ICMP-based trace requests and intentionally throttle ICMP traffic which can create the illusion of packet loss.

In addition, you need to run MTR both on the RTMP URL as well as the playback URL, as issues might arise both in the input and output.

To troubleshoot connectivity issues properly, a TCP-based trace must be run. Below is an example run on the RTMP URL for Mac users.

sudo mtr -n -T -c 200 1a244fa8f08a464e869695dd01c890d6.sep.bcovlive.io --report

The highlighted portion is the live playback domain extracted from the Endpoint URL displayed in the Live module:

Sample output

Sample MTR Output for Live — Sample MTR Command and Output for Live