Very unreliable connection

[isobel]

Hi, i have been having serious problems for quite some time now.

When i am actaully able to login to DI, the server keeps disconnecting after no more than 30 minutes, and i am often unable to login again.
On the occasions i cannot even login, the client get as far as "Fetching Player" and crashes to a stck dump (which all seem to be different, when i can actually see them). But this does not seem to be a hard and fast rule - anywhere from the startup videos (exclusive) to getting in to Relto has crashed or disconnected me at some point.

I have tried almost everything i can think of, from slowing my processors down, using only one processor, no other net traffic, loads of net traffic and nothing seems to reliably recreate the problem, or to fix it.

I resort to posting here, as i now have two machines with quad core processors, and both behave this way. I was able to get in to DI on an older computer, but when that had to be replaced i now have no reliable way of visiting the shard.

My installs (repreated several times) have always been clean, and in accordance with the instructions - and still i have no luck.

I have tried removing all blocks on my firewalls, both in my router and my software, something that i was not cmfortable with, as it left my entire network open to attack.

I am literally on the verge of giving up completely with DI - i do not want to, it is my favorite shard, but i just cannot get more than 20 minutes at a time when i am sucessfully getting in - and if i try to link anywhere, i more often than not get kicked from the server. Nothing seems to affect this problem at my end - i have tried every combination of compatibility modes (that took some time, i can tell you), and running as administrator.

I am using a WinXP SP3 with 3Gb RAM and an Intel Quadcore processor for one machine, and the other machine i am unable to provide specs for as it is not mine, and not with me now - but it uses Vista - so its not my OS causing this either. But interestingly i have logged in on another Vista machine that was not a multi processor with no trouble. Everything i see leads me to believe it is multiple processors causing the problem, but as it never does the same thing twice it is really tough to tell.

Please feel free to post me with as many questions as you'd like - i really would love to get this shard working properly again. I will try to provide any information you think would be useful.

Isobel.

[semplerfi]

A few possiblities to improve your connection if it can be improved.

Anytime the game stops unexpectedly by stack dump, BSOD, crash and or disconnect the game files will be fragmented. I always do a defrag afterwards to keep my end from bogging things down.

Try looking into TCP Optimization , this could improve your connection. I use this program for tweaking TCP.
http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

Try checking on your DNS servers. I tweak mine with 'DNS Benchmark'.
http://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm

[ofperkins]

Everything i see leads me to believe it is multiple processors causing the problem, but as it never does the same thing twice it is really tough to tell.

That's interesting... I have a machine that I think has a dual processor (but I'm not totally sure), and I can get practically nothing to function correctly and/or reliably. It has WinXP SP3 on it as well, dual-booting with Fedora 17. Everything under Windows is perpetually playing up or not working at all (including Windows itself), and everything under Fedora runs sweet as a nut ( ), except Windows programs with Wine. You might be on to something with the multiple CPU thing.

Deep Island has been giving me hell lately on all my machines. This could be combined problems on your end and the server's end. The shard admin, diafero, should be back from vacation soon; maybe he'll know something more.

[isobel]

Thanks for your replies so far. However, i think i do not need to improvr my connection, i need to make it worse (believe it or not). To explain...........

The more i load my network connection, the more stable it gets. So, as this is totally unintuitive i will clarify - if i have 25 or 30 different instances of firefox running on my machine as well as DI, it seems to be more stable - i spent over 2 hours in one session tonight in DI - something i have not manged for at least 6 months.

As i have separeatly tried slowing my processors down with negligable results, i tried loading up my network port by opening many, many different threads - and it appears that putting loads of traffic on my network connection appears to improve things. I did bump into diafero a while back, and he said the logs looked strange, that i appeared to be arriving on one server before leaving the first or something - i am starting to wonder if high processing ability plus fast network and internet equals things happening at my end before the server can deal with them, and eventually my machine appears ahead of itself (according to the server). The server then throws a fit and disconnects me, or on some occasions causes some sort of error to occur in the running code and crashing out with a stack dump.

This has been so random, with no single failure mode. It would be interesting as to what someone with better knowledge of networking and deep knowledge of how the shard works would think - whether my theory as to what is happening is plausible.

Izzy

[diafero]

Fiddling with any TCP settings won't get you anywhere, Uru:CC uses UDP for network communication. Also, DNS queries are quite rare, so I'd advise you not to mess with such system internals without need. Actually, I wonder - are Windows' default settings so horrible that any change is necessary at all? For sure I will not touch any of these settings on my Linux box, as the guys who put the heuristics in place no much more about which values to choose than me

Concerning your issue, I have no idea what this might be. Uru is working fine though on my dual-core machine, both on Windows and Linux. The only thing coming to my mind is firewalls - there are still companies out there trying to sell you some snake oil called "Personal firewall" you ought to install on your system. In most cases, this won't give you any additional security, in many cases it will even leave you more vulnerable than you were before. Windows has a firewall built in since XP SP3 which does all you need, and doesn't annoy you more than necessary.
Do you have any other firewall installed?

[isobel]

Hi Diafero,

I have Bullguard installed on one machine, and just use Windows firewall on the Vista machine. But i have disabled them both at vaious times to see if the was the problem, and it wasn't.

At the moment, my having 30 firefox windows open whilst runnig DI at least allows to me get in and stay for more than 10 minutes.

I get the feeling that the problem is packets arriving too quickly and/or clashing as opposed to actually being blocked or a poor physical connection, but i am no expert in this field.

Ty for your reply,
Izzy

[isobel]

Actually, it looks like this isn't the problem either - i am having the same old problem even getting in today.. I am getting the other common error while logging in - Disconnected from server :-Reason Timed Out.

The only other thing i can think of, which i havent tried, and am unable to easily do so, is to bypass my router.

Both machines i try this on are behind routers, although one of them has worked with no problems before being upgraded (hardware upgrade with the same operating system).

[Tsar Hoikas]

Sounds like those upstream routers are tossing the UDP traffic.

[diafero]

Uru has no problems with packets arriving too fast. I usually test it locally, where server and client are on the same machine and packages are delivered almost instantaneously. It may however have problems with packets arriving unreliably, i.e. with the latency and bandwidth fluctuating a lot. I am not an expert in flow control, and I essentially hacked the flow control logic in the server until it would properly use my full upload bandwidth, from my laptop through the wireless connection to the server. It may have trouble with severely different conditions, or with bad connections (as in, high packet drop).

Do you have access to a VPN? That could be a way to bypass the routers.

We could try to get a Wireshark dump of your communication with the server, but I expect that all we will see is a large amount of packet drops as the connection breaks down.

[isobel]

I don't have VPN aceess set up, no.

The thing that is baffling me is that the two computers i use for DI are 20 miles apart, on different ISP's using different OS's (both of which have worked on the same connection with different hardware). The only difference being both computers are now at least Quadcore 2.66 MHz clock speed. This problem only occured with the faster machines.

After months of trying, i am almost totally out of ideas.

By the way, whilst trying to log in yesterday, i had another old favorite "Disconnected - Logged in somwhwere else" after the joining age part of startup to link to Relto. Never the same error twice