Curse

majoho · Apr 28, 2011, 11:26 PM // 23:26

It's not comcast, norton firewall or anything else - it's on their end.

travathian · Apr 29, 2011, 01:57 AM // 01:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by majoho

It's not comcast, norton firewall or anything else - it's on their end.

Apparently Anet doesn't think so with all the stupid crap they want users to try in order to fix the problem. It is almost laughable at this point that a major gaming publisher can have these sorts of issues for this long. Whoever is in charge of their network infrastructure should be out of a job.

TaCktiX · Apr 29, 2011, 02:32 AM // 02:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by travathian

Apparently Anet doesn't think so with all the stupid crap they want users to try in order to fix the problem. It is almost laughable at this point that a major gaming publisher can have these sorts of issues for this long. Whoever is in charge of their network infrastructure should be out of a job.

Not true.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NCSoft Support

We are currently aware of an issue affecting some players while trying to enter Guild Wars. Our network department is working on the issue but has asked us to gather information from any players that report it. There is a free trial program called PingPlotter Standard which may be of some use to us in determining the health of your active Internet connection. We ask that if you are using a router, hub, or switch, to first disconnect this device and connect directly to your modem before running this utility. You may have to reboot your modem and/or computer to reestablish your Internet connection.

I haven't had a chance to run the PingPlot yet, but they are quite aware of the issue and it seems to only affect people who connect to American servers (Austin, Texas), and then only a subset of them.

TheGizzy · Apr 29, 2011, 03:06 AM // 03:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by travathian

Apparently Anet doesn't think so with all the stupid crap they want users to try in order to fix the problem. It is almost laughable at this point that a major gaming publisher can have these sorts of issues for this long. Whoever is in charge of their network infrastructure should be out of a job.

They are not actually causing the problem... AT&T is. This has been known for a few weeks now. Unfortunately, because most players don't bother filing support tickets, and among those who do very few actually submit back the info they've requested (like the PingPlotter logs), they don't have much ammo with which to beat AT&T over the head with.

Since I don't want to repeat the same information I've posted multiple times in the last few weeks, take a look at my posting history for the multitude of posts about this subject... and some work arounds I've posted which players can try so as to get themselves OFF the bad route into the servers. Pretty sure I've even posted them right here in this thread.

Albert Algorn · Apr 29, 2011, 05:07 AM // 05:07

Yeah they answered back something about flushing the dns cache and changing to a different dns server, which I did to no avail. Guess I go back to them for round 2.

bigalmax · Apr 29, 2011, 10:08 AM // 10:08

I wish I had more time to study this... but it seems there is a huge amount of network re-transmission issues which cause the 0% stuckage (see gw-failure-flow-retransmit.jpg).

I also captured wireshark packets from the proxy server and noticed the transmission was near 100% flawless. (see gw-clean-flow-retransmit.jpg)

See attached screenshots... yes I am able to get the 0% stuckage issue everytime and also able to resolve the issue by proxying GW on the same LAN.

I was half tempted to post the wireshark results (when gw was working [thru proxy] and was not) but was anxious that someone would use that information against me.

See my original post here: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...2&postcount=54

My thoughts:
When Axe mentioned flow control and his modem... it makes me believe that it's simply because the network transmission is going too fast for GW or network nodes to handle the request. And oddly enough when he mentioned he got it to work while flow control was off tells me that the hardware/software based communication was dropping packets which prohibited acknowledgement for retransmission (small packets). But when he tried doing -image for larger packets it failed because there was no proper flow control (large packets). I could be completely wrong as the modem age for me was too many years ago...and well I totally forget my CCNA training... lol.

references:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Modem-HOWTO-4.html
http://kb.iu.edu/data/acad.html

PhiLLPSi · Apr 29, 2011, 11:47 AM // 11:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigalmax

What is your system spec's Philisi if I may ask?

I have a Asus Republic of Gamers Notebook with:

- Intel I7 720QM
- Nvidia Geforce GTX 260M
- 4GB RAM *
- Windows 7 Home

* - Must verify when i get home

As for the problem, seems it fixed alone.

travathian · Apr 29, 2011, 12:21 PM // 12:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigalmax

My thoughts:
When Axe mentioned flow control and his modem... And oddly enough when he mentioned he got it to work while flow control was off tells me absolutely nothing

FTFY. Flow control is something you designate that deals with the connection between the two modems. It has NOTHING to do with your connection to a website elsewhere in the cloud. You are confusing your OSI layers. His problem was a layer 2 issue, our problem is a layer 3 issue.

bigalmax · Apr 29, 2011, 12:46 PM // 12:46

Update... after going through all my windows 7 settings found of course a ton of settings (which seems I changed since the beginning of time) I ended up reading http://www.speedguide.net/articles/w...08-tweaks-2574

and trying the SG TCP Optimizer w/ Optimal settings:
http://www.speedguide.net/files/TCPOptimizer.exe

After zoning in/out 10+ times so far not able to reproduce the 0% error... yet, I have a feeling changing these settings might of meant a con for some other network feature i needed... I hate forgetting things.

Anyways.... give the TCPOptimizer a try using the Optimal Settings... If your anxious about it read the article I posted.

ps. still getting a lot of retransmission issues thou.

travathian · Apr 29, 2011, 01:25 PM // 13:25

And here's why non of that matters dude:

I can connect to the entirety of the rest of the internet without a problem. I have 4 computers on my network, all work fine otherwise. All have different OS's, different configurations, different hardware. There is no way I am going to start mucking around with TCP settings because one domain or IP range is causing problems. If I can proxy through another route and then get to the site . . . the problem obviously is not within my network, so continuing to troubleshoot within my network is fruitless.

Why you keep beating a dead horse is beyond me.

axe · Apr 29, 2011, 02:13 PM // 14:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigalmax

My thoughts:
When Axe mentioned flow control and his modem... it makes me believe that it's simply because the network transmission is going too fast for GW or network nodes to handle the request. And oddly enough when he mentioned he got it to work while flow control was off tells me that the hardware/software based communication was dropping packets which prohibited acknowledgement for retransmission (small packets). But when he tried doing -image for larger packets it failed because there was no proper flow control (large packets). I could be completely wrong as the modem age for me was too many years ago...and well I totally forget my CCNA training... lol.

references:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Modem-HOWTO-4.html
http://kb.iu.edu/data/acad.html

Thanks for hearing me out

, I am 90% sure it has something to do with what I discovered, I wish I was more knowledgeable in this area, but from the little I have read it seems that there are settings at THEIR end that tell what protocol to use for sending the data, and its not matching up right.

Its the Error Control setting that makes it succeed or fail. If you have the ability to turn off Error Control in your modem settings using the Optimizer or anything else GW.Exe will connect, -Image will not work unless you switch it back.

Its an easy fix for me on dial up, I attempted a -image with error control off last night (6th year Anniv. patch) and it failed, switched error control on, -image went through, tried to log in error control ON, failed stuck at connecting, turned error control OFF, logged in no problem.

I tried through support to make them aware of these setting changes to fix this issue, but I am not sure if this info got into the hands of the right people.

and YES to everyone else saying this is a worthless fix, it IS, because EVERY SINGLE PIECE of software I have works fine without fiddling with this setting, but for the time being I must do this every time with GW to get it to work.

If anyone that has knowledge of the error control protocols or settings, please look into this, it definitely has something to do with this issue

majoho · Apr 29, 2011, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Why exactly are a lot of people posting their game issues in this thread?

I mean it's really about the anet-websites, from what i can tell there is no real connection between the two problems.

I ONLY have issues with the sites not with the actual game.

TheGizzy · Apr 29, 2011, 03:29 PM // 15:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by majoho

Why exactly are a lot of people posting their game issues in this thread?

I mean it's really about the anet-websites, from what i can tell there is no real connection between the two problems.

I ONLY have issues with the sites not with the actual game.

The problems are actually one and the same, which has been known for about 5 weeks now. They do not necessarily affect all players, all ways, all the time.

For example - do you use the Euro/International/Asia servers in-game instead of the American? If so, the in-game issue would not affect you... but you still wouldn't be able to access the sites if you are routing through the bad AT&T bridge. Unlike the various district options in-game, which physically change the destination of your connection... the destination to access the websites is the same for everyone. Point of origin determines what path one takes to the destination.

It's all one issue, all caused by a bad bridge from AT&T. The effects may differ, but the cause is still the same.

majoho · Apr 29, 2011, 05:58 PM // 17:58

Guess you're right.

Now I'm stuck on "Connecting..."

I wonder why it's taken them a month to not fix this yet.

TheGizzy · Apr 29, 2011, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by majoho

Guess you're right.

Now I'm stuck on "Connecting..."

I wonder why it's taken them a month to not fix this yet.

My guess is that AT&T is dragging their heels. I swear it takes an act of god to get companies like AT&T to actually look for a problem, let alone acknowledge it exists and fix it. That's part of why I keep nagging people to send in support tickets & the tracert information... because NCSoft needs to be able to take all those tickets, all those logs, and rub AT&T's face in it every time they say, "it's not us, everything is working fine here."

You'll probably be able to get on again shortly... overall, my ability to connect improved greatly after I forced my ISP to roll me a new IP address a few weeks back, but I still get intermittent issues where I'm stuck on "Connecting" as you are. It's happened to me a few times while moving from zone to zone in-game as well, usually at the absolutely most inconvenient time possible - like while I'm zoning in and out for Vaettir farming. LOL

]SK[ · Apr 29, 2011, 06:32 PM // 18:32

Same issue but Virgin Media in the UK. Works from my office connection.

FoxBat · Apr 29, 2011, 07:14 PM // 19:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGizzy

For example - do you use the Euro/International/Asia servers in-game instead of the American?

Asia servers are now located in America. Not sure about International but they may also be in America - canadian guildie being affected by this cannot play in international consistently and must hang out in Europe.

TheGizzy · Apr 29, 2011, 07:19 PM // 19:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

Asia servers are now located in America. Not sure about International but they may also be in America - canadian guildie being affected by this cannot play in international consistently and must hang out in Europe.

That's good to know. Euro was the one I used when I couldn't connect to American... never had any reason to try the others at the time. Thanks for the added info!

fifone · Apr 29, 2011, 08:10 PM // 20:10

same issue here in Italy, my ISP is Fastweb. The game works from the office.
I get stuck at "connecting...." before the character selection screen.
Everything else works

Yorl · Apr 29, 2011, 08:12 PM // 20:12

I think this problem might be resolved, but I haven't had an opportunity to try. I got the following just now from ncsoft support.

Quote:

Recently, we have identified an issue with one of our routing peers which may be causing intermittent issues accessing our websites and game servers. We apologize for the delayed responses as we are continually working to resolve the issue. As of today, we have altered our network traffic in order to alleviate the connectivity troubles being encountered by you. The routing changes may take a few hours to take effect but please try connecting at your earliest convenience.

I live in Dallas so the servers were in my neighborhood, but had the same problems. I've been spending most my time on the Euro servers, and then occasionally testing my luck with PUGs on American servers.