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Performance boost:

When "idle" isn't idle: how a Linux kernel optimization became a QUIC bug

Cloudflare·Cloud·PerformanceImprovement·5/12/2026

We investigated a bug where CUBIC's congestion window became pinned at its minimum floor, causing a performance to plummet. The fix involved correctly measuring idle periods to distinguish RTT wait times from actual application idleness.

Why it matters → Cloudflare shipped measurable performance improvements. Upgrading may reduce latency or infrastructure costs.

Who should care → Engineers running this tool at scale.

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Source payload preview

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  "guid": {
    "#text": "1zBGqAHw4u2LDu0ldcF3AM",
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  "link": "https://blog.cloudflare.com/quic-death-spiral-fix/",
  "title": "When \"idle\" isn't idle: how a Linux kernel optimization became a QUIC bug",
  "pubDate": "Tue, 12 May 2026 13:00:00 GMT",
  "category": [
    "Congestion Control",
    "Debugging",
    "QUIC",
    "QUICHE",
    "Networking",
    "HTTP3",
    "Rust"
  ],
  "dc:creator": [
    "Esteban Carisimo",
    "Antonio Vicente"
  ],
  "description": " We investigated a bug where CUBIC's congestion window became pinned at its minimum floor, causing a performance to plummet. The fix involved correctly measuring idle periods to distinguish RTT wait times from actual application idleness. ",
  "content:encoded": " <p></p><p>CUBIC, standardized
…