Noticed one particular social media site was demonstrating slow performance. For the past week or so, it has been frustrating to use. And because it was only this one site, where I saw the issue, I figured it was them.

Slowness across all websites would indicate a problem on my end. Slowness on just one? It seems like their issue.

Only… There were no other people really complaining about their slowness. And it lasted far too long. So, I started picking at it.

I started with the Chrome DevTools and its Network tab to watch where there is slowness. It only presented in the images. The HTML, Cascade Style Sheets, and JavaScript all downloaded fast. The images were slow. And they came from a different server.

I started exploring under which circumstances they presented a problem by looking at the same content in different contexts. The breakthrough came from looking at the networking.

A traceroute to compare the main URL with the media URL were odd. The IP address for the main website came back with an IPv4 address while the media one was IPv6. The traceroute data showed the www site was relatively snappy while the media site timed out on most tests.

So, to verify the IPv6 was the problem, I went into adapter settings and turned it off. Then, I restarted the adapter. Now, the traceroute test looks fast for both addresses. And the page quickly loads.

This suggests either my ISP, router, modem, or computer have an issue with the IPv6. That is annoying, but I will just leave it off for now.