What is the deal with TD?

[sylphia]

Almost every night, at roughly this same time (Midnight~2AM), for the last week+, TD has been losing connection. I know its not just me, because as soon as I hop into the TD chat rooms, there are several players complaining about losing conn. I am getting really sick of this, especially given the fact that nothing has even been mentioned by the staff. Is it just going unnoticed because we arent squeking the wheel? Jeez change out the gerbils once in a while so they dont pass out in the middle of the night, will ya? Or tell Bob he isnt allowed to bring food into the server room until he can learn to quit spilling Pepsi on the TD server :mad:

[Rune]

Bob doesn't learn :p

[Korvus]

The three yeard old cream soda coating the inside of my ATX case hasn't bothered anything as yet, so it can't be pop causign the issue. Whats nifty is that even after all this time since "the accident" the chemicals in that cream soda were so potent, that it is still bright pink in there…

Maybe Bob ate a gerbil?

[Ozy]

Interesting, I recall that same problem (every night, same time) on FF in the first month or so of retail.

[sylphia]

Not really sure I want to know WHAT Bob did to/with a gerbil... (shudders). Maybe they should upgrade to hamsters? Or perhaps we should try guinea pigs, given the surplus of THOSE we have in-game lately (cough cough).

[MaddyFF]

Have the people in the chat room started to compare notes? What ISP are you using? Where do you live?

[sylphia]

The commonality is the game Maddy. Its not our end of the connection. Period.

[MaddyFF]

Originally posted by sylphia
The commonality is the game Maddy. Its not our end of the connection. Period.

So every person on TD is getting booted?

[sylphia]

I am not going to argue withyou Maddy. Everyone in the entire world doesnt have to lose connection at one time for it to be a server-side issue. Its not uncommon for parts of the (in-game) world to crash, while others remain operative. It has happened plenty of times in the past. Its not my job to figure out what the cause is; that is the purpose in reporting it. Every tiume anyone raises a connectivity issue, invariably someone else immediately starts hinting and suggesting that it is not on Turbine's side, but on that of the players. Sorry but when players from England, Michigan, Kentucky, and at least 2 or 3 other locations all lose conn at the same time, the chances become less and less likely that it is either those players individual ISPs or internet routers.

And quite frankly I am tired of you playing devil's advocate on everything I say. If I said the sky was blue, you would say it is orange. If I posted a week later it was orange, you would say it was blue. You can play that game with someone else from now on. Its one thing to have a healthy, logical debate on a subject on which you legitimately disagree; it's entirely another to spark an arguement just for the sake of doing it. Goodbye.

[MaddyFF]

I'm not arguing nor playing devil's advocate, just trying to help gather information as to what the root cause could be. I do a lot of troubleshooting and root cause analysis in my job, so it is a habit to ask questions. :)

So if some people are getting booted and others aren't, you need to identify the common factor for those that are getting booted. Playing the game is a common factor, but also is a common factor for those not getting booted. So playing the game in general can be ruled out. So the first two things that came to my mind your ISP and a common location (which means you could be using a common route to the AC servers). Others that I would think of asking is are you running Decal and is there a common app you all are running? What part of the world are you in when you get booted (could be a land block issue)?

Now you provided more information, people are from different parts of the country. Next time it happens ask people what part of the world they were in and what they were doing.

And quite frankly I am tired of you playing devil's advocate on everything I say.

Compare your posts to mind, I bet you find the majority of your posts I have no comment on. :)

Its one thing to have a healthy, logical debate on a subject on which you legitimately disagree

Which is what I do, and welcome it anytime. :) I don't post just for the sake of arguing. If someone posts an idea I disagree with I'll comment on it. Ditto if they post something I do agree with, I'll probably comment and say nice idea.

Oh yeah, techincally I would the sky is every color but blue. :D

[Korvus]

For what it is worth, on Frostfell I was being dropped consistantly each night between midnight and half passed. Everyone I know, which have less than nothing in common with their computer and ISP package and I except… they were playing Frostfell at the same time as well. This went on like clockwork last month for a week and a half or so, but since I haven't played much since I couldn't tell you whether it has been more persistant that that.

Bob, when you have rodents working the mainframes, you need to clean the 'leftovers' out every once and a while, yeesh.

[MaddyFF]

Originally posted by Korvus
For what it is worth, on Frostfell I was being dropped consistantly each night between midnight and half passed. Everyone I know, which have less than nothing in common with their computer and ISP package and I except… they were playing Frostfell at the same time as well. This went on like clockwork last month for a week and a half or so, but since I haven't played much since I couldn't tell you whether it has been more persistant that that.


Maybe a landblock issue then, not sure. I have a buffbot running at the mansion on FF and has been running pretty solid without any issues (buffing armor issues aside).

[Rauth]

I was on TD last night around midnight ET. No problems. I logged off for a bit then logged back on and while I did get back in, I noticed that the connection screen with the bubble indicators took 3 times as long to load up, so I was essentially staring at a black screen for about 45 seconds or so.

I know that in my area, our broadband provider had a period of about 6 weeks where every night between 2 and 5 AM internet connectivity was spotty at best. It wouldnt really keep you from accessing webpages (especially if they can be found on Akami's mirrors) but it would affect anything requiring a persistent connection like online games, streaming music, etc. They vehmently denied anything was going on until one day I got through to an actual engineer who admitted to an issue where their routers rebooted themselves - which was resolved by replacing the equipment. He said the "official" line was that they had been upgrading their equipment. (Every day, between 2 and 5 AM mind you.) I asked what gauge of twine they were using between the coffee cans now - I think if they really were recording that call for quality assurance they are minus one Engineer by now.

[sylphia]

Rauth,
Thats another problem that many of us have bumped into...trouble getting back in; either long delays or flat refusals to connect. Each time that I personally have experienced it, it has been on multiple worlds, and a clannie in England confirmed the same problem at the same time, on multiple accounts. Specifically, MT and TD. It was occuring the first couple weeks after the patch, and I havenot encountered it since, but I tend to leave my clients connected specifically to get around that, as already connected clients seemed impervious to it. yeesh the things we do to stay connected :-/

[MaddyFF]

Originally posted by Rauth
I know that in my area, our broadband provider had a period of about 6 weeks where every night between 2 and 5 AM internet connectivity was spotty at best.

A local phone company used to do line tests at around 3am where I was, lucky I was able to get them to stop. Plus, at one time I had a local ISP that would do tests at "off" hours" that would cause connection issues. Uusally drop you but you could connect again right away. Verizon here for me had a DNS issues that caused my machine to requery the DNS from time to time. Uusually I wouldn't notice this unless I was in AC and then it was a sure-fire red link to disconnect. Took me a couple of weeks to track it down and get a solution from Verizon.

So wierd things can happen :)

[Ibn]

Have you tried contacting our tech support?

[sylphia]

You're kidding, right? Whats the point in that when I know its not on my end? I am not going to jump through a bunch of silly hoops to determine if its my ISP blah blah blah when players all across the world are losing conn or unable to connect at the same time. Its not my end, and I really get tired of the Turbine motto of fobbing connection issues off on the players.

[Danilo Thann]

It is possible it is neither Turbine or your ISP but rather someone in the middle.

Do you see the same people getting booted all the time? If so maybe you are all on Comcast ( for lack of a better example ) and to get to the AC Servers which are on AT&T ( for lack of a better example ) you need to take a certain path through one or more other providers. If one of those providers re-sets a router every night at 12:30 AM then.... you see where I am going.

[KirillHuntersun]

Hey Sylphia, if that last response was to Ibn's post, I politely suggest you remove your cranium from your fourth point of contact (ask a paratrooper if you don't get it) and read again. You seem to have inserted the letter Y in an inappropriate place.

As in, he said "Have you tried contacting OUR tech support?" (Emphasis mine)

And, as a network engineer, you would be bloody amazed what could cause the issue. Never mind the fact that at any period between midnight EST and 4am PST the net is going to be slightly less stable in the States, because that's when the vast overwhelming majority of ISPs do any maintenance that's required. If an ISP between your provider and AT&T is doing maintenance routinely, there's your problem.

If your provider IS AT&T, call up and scream loudly. It HAS to be their problem, since it's all within their network.

Happening on all worlds, but not to all players, is definitely NOT a sign of a server-side issue, and it IS likely to be a network issue.

[Isidar Mithrim]

you talk of upgrading to hamsters or guinea pigs???
i say, y not just have BOB run the wheel, with gerbils, hamsters, AND guinea pigs running also, NO LAG!!
of course, bob will occasionally get hungry, and those guinea pigs are good eats ;)

[Mageling]

Well in your opening post you mention going to teh chat room/login part, do you normally use that same room? What I recall of the setup is that each 'room' is a seperate set of login servers at least(maybe more than just the login servers, I don't persoanlly know). It MAY be a room specific issue.....

[sylphia]

Mageling
No actually I avoid the chat rooms like the plague; I dont even connect through them at all unless my normal path is borked. I only go to them when I lose conn to see if anyone else got dropped as well.

Kiril,
be glad that the board CoC prevents me from responding to you in the manner in which you deserve. Content yourself with knowing you are now being ignored.

Danilo,
We have thought of that; one of our clan membrs ia a LAN specialist, website layout manager, and about a dozen or so other titles that make my head spin just trying to sort them. Suffice it to say that if it involves computers or the net, he is the go-to-guy. And there are a couple of other folks in the clan who are pretty savvy when it comes to computers and the net. All of them have tested our connections and routes and blah blah blah and verified they are good. As I said before, its not on our end. I cant speak for the random strangers in the chat rooms who long in with WTF?!?!? WHY IS TD DOWN AGAIN?!?!? But it seems to me that if we can get in on the log-in/verification servers to the chat room, then our conn to the zone is good. Those servers then jump us to the actual play servers, and THATS where the problem with connectivity lies, as thats where we start running into the problem.

I dont believe I need to contact a tech support team and go through the same silly "Do you have your computer turned on?" type questions, with a bunch of techies who have pre-determined tha the issue ison MY end and are loking for a way to point it back at me instead of feeding the gerbils better.

[GraceMolloy]

my buffbot does not get logged out

and there is no need to give Kirill/Ibn/anyone else ****.

YOU be a big girl and try the normal channels.

now if AFTER you have exausted the normal resources you want to come back and ask again nicely you are welcome to it.


your threads are normally above this (from what I've seen)

[sylphia]

I gave Kril alot less than what he gave me and had earned in return; there was no reason for him to attack me or insult my intelligence; I wasnt giving Ibn and **** as you put it; I was making my pont that this BS about passing the buck is getting old. In case you havent noticed, EVERY time someone says there is a connection problem with Turbine/Zone, Turbine immediately closes ranks and tries to fob it off on the players' ISP or comp set-up. Players have reported similar issues for months and we keep getting shoved off with the same lame excuses, and I am tired of playing this silly blame game every time anyone mentions lag or disconnects. Now kindly do not patronize me anymore.

[GraceMolloy]

I'm sorry Syl you just go right back to trollin and I won't say another word to ya ;)

From now on I will just listen intently b/c we all know everything you say is correct 100% of the time.

[sylphia]

Trolling?
Reporting server disconnects is trolling? riiiight.

[GraceMolloy]

sylphia


Registered: Dec 2003
Location:
Posts: 1050 <-- Troll

[sylphia]

Do you realize how absurd that was? By your flawed definition, Ibn would be a troll, too.

You must be new to message boards, if you think a high post count = troll.

What YOU are doing is trolling.

Really, you are going to have to try harder than that if you want to get a rise.

[GraceMolloy]

Ibn's is called a job ... :)

[sylphia]

Grace,
I have better things to do than play silly games with you. If you want to continue trolling, find someone else. You arent worth my time. The best thing about trolls is that you are easy to deal with by simply adding you to ignore lists. Now I am sure you will want to respond to get the "last word in" like a good little troll. Feel free to do so but I wont be reading it. Good bye.

[Danilo Thann]

FYI: I am a senior tech in many many areas including networking.

I suspect this is a routing issue.

If you have extended periods where you cannot get into TD I suggest ( if you haven't already ) to do an immediate Tracert to the server at that time.

Take those results and compare it to a tracert that was done during a good period.

There likely will be a difference. Also can you please post your tracert here.

For the record, I do not believe that it is an issue with the TD server cluster but rather something in the middle that is messing with routing of that IP block.

Edit: And IBN Did as you to call the Turbine help desk not your ISP's help desk.

[sylphia]

Danilo,
Its not. Like I said thats already been tried by a fellow in our clan. Its not usually an extended period. The server drops a bunch of folks simultaneously. If it were a routing issue, it would hit us before the zone; rather it would if it were an issue with our ISPs. If we can get to the Zone and muck around in the lobbies, then our route TO the Zone is stable; the problem occurs somewhere in between the zone's authentication servers and the game servers themselves. Despite this, everyone always wants to try and blame the user or the user's ISP.

[Ifuritah]

I play TD from about 7:30 pm pst to roughly 2:00am pst almost everyday.

I have never had any server drops on a regular basis around these times that I can recall.



Despite this, everyone always wants to try and blame the user or the user's ISP.
Because its most probable. - most companies run maintenance during that time period. *shrug*

[Danilo Thann]

My understanding of how it works is that you authenticate with the ZONE servers and then are passed off to the AC Cluster. So the problem is between you and the AC Cluster not the Zone servers and the AC Cluster.

Try running a ping -t to the AC cluster and then look at it when you drop. Theoretically you should be timing out.