SEE MY FINAL POST #27

Now this maybe completely coincidental, but since installing the new patch I have had nothing but grief when trying to play online.

Constant disconnects from servers, at seemingly random intervals as well as trouble connecting to the servers in the first instance. Even refreshing the server list is not a tedious ordeal compared to before. Before the patch, I would regularly have 44ms pings to most servers, and could stay connected all night. However, now I have 80ms pings minimum and the server list takes ages.

Now I thought it must be my side creating the problems, but after spending all yesterday trying to find a problem, I am still scratching my head.

The only period of long connection time I had was from midnight last night until about 3am However, having tried again today to race at ‘normal’ hours I discovered that the problem remains.

Now, I still think it is probably a problem at my end, and I will run a test later to see what it is like from another system, but I would like to hear what other people think. Possibly even if the devs have changed any of the NET code?

Just 10mins ago, I connected up again, only to find it slow. When I eventually got onto a server, a few people said they had been experiencing similar problems since the patch. So is it possibly anything to do with the patch, or just me and a few others?

My connection is a 1Mb/256Kb ADSL line from TalkTalk (UK). Previously it has been perfectly reliable, and even now after running speed tests, I get good results. I even downloaded the whole new S2 to see if that would solve my problem, but it came down at a constant rate of 100Kb +. So where does the problem lie?

I am running a Netgear Firewall/Router DG834 on which I have just updated the firmware in an effort to fix this problem.

Any suggestions or tests I can run would be greatly appreciated. I used Dan Elwells speed test btw.

Thanks

edit: I just ran another speedtest, and it showed some levels of packet loss(4% and 16%), is this normal?

I am leaning towards thinking it might be packet loss, as download speeds are relatively ok, but pings are higher than normal. Also, contention ratio should not be a problem as I stay in a smallish village and have never had such issues before.

I don't think it's the code, after installing the patch and going online I did think it was though. Constant disconnections and I was lagging badly when I shouldn't have been. Left the server, went on another one and later went back only to find I was back to the normal connection speed and quality. Haven't had any probs since.

i have tried numerous server, and generally all my pings are now worse.
i will keep trying, and also maybe try something like Q3 or HL2 to test my connection.

Quote from mrbogeyman :

I just ran another speedtest, and it showed some levels of packet loss(4% and 16%), is this normal?.

Not the end of the world, but not very good (16% :zombie, might just be your link to that particular speedtest, most online/web tests are incredibly incorrect for obvious reasons.

No problems with T for me, few hours yesterday, 80 minute run in an endu race just now, no disconnections or lag at all.

after numerous tests and different permutations, i am down to considering it being my outside line or the patch. more likely the line. i will try another game right now to verify this.

now i have tried ALL permutations! illepall

i tried an old patch (thanks Ed) and got the same results.

i also tried Doom3, which worked perfectly.

any difference between the packets for LFS and Doom3?

doom3 pings seemed pretty slow as well though.

however, i am coming to the conclusion that it is a dodgy line atm, possible to do with exchange upgrades that are happening in UK (dsl max i think). LFS seems to be particularly sensitive to it anyway. and it had to be now.......... :doh:

Another update.

After using Pingplotter (awesome tool! thanks again Ed! ) I can see that I am getting intermittent packet losses. almost anywhere, and even on my exchange.

It would seem my ISP (TalkTalk) currently have a crap network, or are upgrading, so I am currently out of LFS action

I have noticed problems since the S patch too. Its not as bad for me, but I have noticed other drivers jump around quite a bit more than before and I got a 'wrong size packet' error when trying to join a server yesterday.

So for me, there is definitely something not quite as good as before S.

I raced a good bit on Brazil servers over the weekend. I'm in the US and on dialup (45-46k connection). Pings were 400+ ms. I asked and noone said there was a problem with me lagging and I disconnected I think twice in the servers all weekend. Once for trying to get on the Inferno site while connected to LFS server and once just random lagging out from the connection

good to see the good old dial-up works pretty well then

i am pretty certain it is a crap line anyway. nothing to do with LFS, other than the fact it uses UDP packets, which i think are affected badly by a didgy line. either that or they have no way of compensating for packet loss.

something like that...........

anyway, i sent a email to my ISP to see what the story is.

is anyone getting the problem where you cant see any other games?? but can join off a friends username ??? mines playin up something rotten now

well, not being able to easily refresh the server list is a symptom of my problem. but it usually comes through after a few tries.

BUMP!

Just a quick question for those of you in the know....

Does any part of the LFS network, i.e. Master Server, reset at approximately midnight or shortly after?

I ask this because LFS starts to run perfectly online after about this time. It is not a gradual thing, it is instant. One moment racing online is impossible with 150ms average pings, the next it is 40ms pings and working like it was before!

So, is it something on the LFS side?

Otherwise, does anyone have any knowledge of what ISPs/Network exchanges do that could explain this? i.e. do they auto-reset at this time of night? Does the network magically clean up somehow? I checked with ping-plotter when it started running perfectly and I still get packet losses??!!

I am really at a loss as to what is causing this and I intend to phone the ISP again tomorrow, but I would like something more specific to ask about.

Many thanks again.

Quote from mrbogeyman :

BUMP!

Just a quick question for those of you in the know....

Does any part of the LFS network, i.e. Master Server, reset at approximately midnight or shortly after?

I ask this because LFS starts to run perfectly online after about this time. It is not a gradual thing, it is instant. One moment racing online is impossible with 150ms average pings, the next it is 40ms pings and working like it was before!

So, is it something on the LFS side?

Otherwise, does anyone have any knowledge of what ISPs/Network exchanges do that could explain this? i.e. do they auto-reset at this time of night? Does the network magically clean up somehow? I checked with ping-plotter when it started running perfectly and I still get packet losses??!!

I am really at a loss as to what is causing this and I intend to phone the ISP again tomorrow, but I would like something more specific to ask about.

Many thanks again.

I'm not expert enough to say for sure but I know that a lot of ISPs lease their time off other people, so if it is the same time every day it might be that you get switched from one network to another, or a network stops leasing space on yours, that kind of thing. The packet loss could be happening on a different part of the journey between your computer and the server, so it wouldn't change - the same percentage of loss at a higher speed would have less effect on the game, I think. I'm being vague because I don't know all the details but if there's a pattern you can see there's a reason somewhere... if you kept a log of exactly when it was happening you'd find your ISP would figure it out, I'm sure.

Theres a BT auto line/fault test computer that checks lines at around midnight and knocks your router/modem out for about 30 secs if you phone them up you can get it stoped to your line

The UK is undergoing another speed shift in ADSL at the moment BT are pushing out 8Mb and 16Mb downstream speeds where costomers are close to enabled exchanges and increasing most 512Kb and 1Mb users to 2Mb and above . While this is all well and good for downloading music the state of BT's lines downstream from the optics is IMO outdated and in some cases poor , even you local telephone installation in your house/flat can cause some packet loss because of the way phone cables are connected .

If your running a wireless link anywhere in your connection then this would be my first port of call but if not then get your ISP,s technical people to post it back to BT to check the lines and keep on at them until its fixed

SD.

There you go, someone who knows. I always wonder when I see the state of the inside of a BT box how it works at all, let alone well.

No, wired Netgear DG834. The router firewall has been totally checked out, it is definately not the problem.

I dont see how what you said about the line getting knocked out would affect me dave.

I am with talktalk, and surely if the line got reset i would temporarily loose connection? Which doesnt happen btw. Also, whatever it is that is happening at around midnight, is good! It sorts the line out. I need to figure out what is happening, and try and replicate it, rather than ask them to stop

Thanks for the info. Any other suggestions are welcome.

Recently, over the past few days, i have been getting a really poor connection for some reason, it used to be ok on the current patch (U) but i will ahve to test it again later...

Mrbogeyman I wonder what your connection ratio is, maybe you have some high bandwith neighbours powering down late at night ?

What rev firmware did you upgrade to (dg834) and just out of interest have you tried running just 1 PC from the router after a router reboot and checking this prob happens on more than 1 port?

SD.

Quote from SparkyDave :

Mrbogeyman I wonder what your connection ratio is, maybe you have some high bandwith neighbours powering down late at night ?

What rev firmware did you upgrade to (dg834) and just out of interest have you tried running just 1 PC from the router after a router reboot and checking this prob happens on more than 1 port?

SD.

Yeah, ive done all that Dave. Ive tried new firmware etc etc, and only a single PC on the router. I have tested with the original freebie ADSL modem from the ISP too.

As for the contention ratio, while it may be high, upto 50:1, I very much doubt I have any real high usage neibours. I stay in a village so I very much doubt there are that many high demand users. Especially not any who run their high-demand like clockwork and switch it off at midnight It had crossed my mind.

Therefore I am still 90% sure it is the exchange/network. Anyway, I will phone again now and be a bit more persistant.

Ites pretty normal that home user have best connection usually around night or midnight as there is less home users using the line.
Its a problem all home lines even declared as 2mbit or whatsoever speed are in fact shared connection where other users affect the quality of the line.
ITs a pitty mostly of ADSL connection which have very high sharing ration,usually like 1:40-1:50 which may affect the line is some situation very much.
Also there might bit a intteraption on line line of the telephone cable in the ground is pretty old.There might be many factors.

sounds very similar to my problem, ever since we changed phone company (dont pay line retal to bt) i've experienced intermitent drops, my isp (f2s) informs me there is a bt outage at my exchange, but no one at bt will talk to me because i'm not one of their customers!!!!

I have connection problems too. I installed the patch, and it was all fine for about 2 weeks, then I began to experience constant D/Cs. I get the message:

'ChiliFan - CPW
Lost connection to host'

I have an older version too, and it's all fine on that one. Any idea how to fix this?

Its not your connection.

Heres some info on that: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=7443

Quote from zeugnimod :

Its not your connection.

Heres some info on that: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=7443

Thanks, all is good now.