At approximately 1 AM PST today (9 AM UTC December 12, 2012), Cryptic made a routing change that may work around this issue.
Our networking experts have done some analysis and, while the source of the Internet connectivity disruption is not known, they have made a change to route affected traffic by a different path. Our internal tests confirm that this resolves the issue for all cases we have access to.
For all individuals who were affected, we recommend checking again at this time if you are still experiencing disruption. Please disable any proxy, if you have enabled (in the Launcher) it to work around this issue; using the proxy unnecessarily may cause suboptimal performance.
I empathsize with anyone who has experienced this very disruptive issue. We really appreciate the help of everyone who has taken the time to report this issue.
We would very much appreciate any reports from customers who experienced this issue saying that their issue has been resolved.
For anyone still experiencing this issue, a report with the following information would also be very helpful:
1. Date and time that the problem began occurring, as precisely as you can tell (with time zone)
2. A quick description of exactly what sort of problem you observe (lag, rubberbanding, disconnects, etc), and when it occurs (beaming up, logging in, sitting on Earth spacedock, etc.)
3. If you have tried using a proxy in the Launcher, and if so, if it made things better.
4. Optional but helpful: The output of tracert to nettest.crypticstudios.com and the Cryptic 'nettest' program.
I have disabled the proxy as a work around and am still experiencing the same lag as before. Any help is appreciated.
I have disabled the proxy as a work around and am still experiencing the same lag as before. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks
Brian
Okay, being a system administrator I should have thought of this in the first place. After I dropped the proxy and went in it still seemed to lag. I rebooted this morning to clear out the old settings that may have been lingering and my character took off like a shot. For me the routing change made by Cryptic seems to have worked.
Lag and disconnects seem to have cleared up for me for the time being.
Probably stay stable like this until the next big season patch and corresponding jump in player activity mystifies everyone by coinciding with more connection and lag problems. :rolleyes:
I lag a bit occasionally. I notice it the most when I'm either trying to move things around of the inventory to the bank, etc or during STFs when I'm getting random damage from enemies I'm no longer nowhere near.
Sometimes it takes a second or two (or three) to move stuff from the inventory. But like I said, it's occasional. I only get a disconnect once in a blue moon. If I check with my friends/fleet members, they usually have the problem at the same time as well, so definitely a server hiccup at that point.
Again, it's "off and on" at best. I don't see it effecting my gameplay too much, but it's something that's always a concern.
Cryptic and PWE can confirm that this issue is occurring, and it is being investigated by our technical personnel to try to track down where the problem is. It's not yet clear if this is an issue on Cryptic's side, Comcast's side, or some intermediate provider.
To restate what other people said in the thread, traffic sourced from Comcast in California to our Boston data center seems to be afflicted by some network issue that causes intermittent gameplay glitches.
I really appreciate you guys taking the time to come to the forums and report this issue, and I'm sorry that you're having this disruption. I hope that we can offer some sort of resolution soon, but it may become the case that this is an issue outside of our immediate control; in that case, we'll have to decide what we can do.
In the near term, enabling one of the proxy settings in the Launcher may temporarily improve the gameplay experience. Note that you don't usually want to use proxies once the issue has been resolved, since they tend to be somewhat slower than connecting directly to our servers.
Cryptic and PWE can confirm that this issue is occurring, and it is being investigated by our technical personnel to try to track down where the problem is. It's not yet clear if this is an issue on Cryptic's side, Comcast's side, or some intermediate provider.
To restate what other people said in the thread, traffic sourced from Comcast in California to our Boston data center seems to be afflicted by some network issue that causes intermittent gameplay glitches.
I really appreciate you guys taking the time to come to the forums and report this issue, and I'm sorry that you're having this disruption. I hope that we can offer some sort of resolution soon, but it may become the case that this is an issue outside of our immediate control; in that case, we'll have to decide what we can do.
In the near term, enabling one of the proxy settings in the Launcher may temporarily improve the gameplay experience. Note that you don't usually want to use proxies once the issue has been resolved, since they tend to be somewhat slower than connecting directly to our servers.
Seeing 'SERVER NOT RESPONDING' followed by 'DISCONNECTED FROM SERVER' all the time is getting to BE VERY FRUSTRATING.
I can get on for very brief periods, and WHAM the fun starts. I have filed and updated support requests. I have done everything suggested. It's not my computer or my internet connection.
I have money to burn but there is no way in hell you're going to it if I can't even access the game I pay for.
Just received my second 'cut and paste' response. This time I have to provide another 2 types of log files. DXDiag.exe references DirectX which if I am not mistaken has absolutely nothing to do with connections - I could be wrong. The second is they want me to install another program - this time Hijackthis!
I have been getting unusual lag and disconnected issue to STO in the past 5 days.
Symptoms: Very slow to start the game (in game scene), slow zoning in sector space and loading new zone (i.e. mission), server not responding in STF and disconnected
I don't know how this issue come up, but I've been playing STO since February 2012 with same ISP and now I already reach VA rank with over 10K achievement points. Certainly something is not right which was started in 5 days ago. Could it be related to the up coming PvP boot camp? I experienced some irregularities with some PvP MMO that were not well protected and some players used trojan/virus/etc to make them superior compared to others.
I am not a dev, but this is what we've been able to piece together. Most of this is from the PWE site discussion.
The common experience is slow connections, server not responding errors, excessive rubber banding, freezing and random disconnections. Good news it's likely not you, your isp or STO. If you have submitted support tickets, please follow thier suggestions. It helps them identify the extent of the problem.
The problems are originating with COGENTCO, and it's not a dev issue but it is an issue with the ISP itself. As PWE is a customer of COGNETCO, they are speaking directly to them.
We believe that around the 7th of December network upgrades were made that began impacting STO and other games where requests were routed through the above connections.
The problem has escalated since that time. Contacting support will put you through a number of steps, which are used by support to confirm that you too may be part of the group affected by the outage.
If you disconnect your modem for 10 minutes to ensure you drop your IP address, then reconnect again it has been found to provide temporary relief for some users. I was able to reconnect to the game for about 1 hour using this process, before the disconnections started again.
STO/PWE is aware of the problem and are doing their best to resolve it. Posts in both forums - although buried in long chains from the eyes of average users - confirm this.
I have been getting unusual lag and disconnected issue to STO in the past 5 days.
Symptoms: Very slow to start the game (in game scene), slow zoning in sector space and loading new zone (i.e. mission), server not responding in STF and disconnected
I don't know how this issue come up, but I've been playing STO since February 2012 with same ISP and now I already reach VA rank with over 10K achievement points. Certainly something is not right which was started in 5 days ago. Could it be related to the up coming PvP boot camp? I experienced some irregularities with some PvP MMO that were not well protected and some players used trojan/virus/etc to make them superior compared to others.
Please help me, Dev.
That's some nasty lag you're getting there (anything over 150 is problematic, and yours passed that at something like warp 9), and it's not all from Cogent. In fact, your entire trace is extremely laggy and outright timed out in spots (note the asterisks in your trace, those are missed packets of data).
I'd suggest a full power cycle of your router, PC and modem, for starters. Make sure that nothing else is utilizing your connection that can be eating bandwidth (P2P programs, Pando, etc.)
Try using one of the proxies and see if that helps you out any. Again, those numbers are absolutely atrocious for a trace and make me think something else is going on with your internet connection.
I have been getting unusual lag and disconnected issue to STO in the past 5 days.
Symptoms: Very slow to start the game (in game scene), slow zoning in sector space and loading new zone (i.e. mission), server not responding in STF and disconnected
I don't know how this issue come up, but I've been playing STO since February 2012 with same ISP and now I already reach VA rank with over 10K achievement points. Certainly something is not right which was started in 5 days ago. Could it be related to the up coming PvP boot camp? I experienced some irregularities with some PvP MMO that were not well protected and some players used trojan/virus/etc to make them superior compared to others.
Please help me, Dev.
wow you come from the same country as i am
yes, we got lag & rubberband since second week of winter wonderland event. i did notice the problems are occured between 11:00 to 07:00 UTC on weekday, and the whole 24 hours on the weekend. from between 06:00 to 10:00 UTC during weekday, the ping was constant and no lag or rubberband occured.
my guess is, there's over network overload somewhere between cogent's atlanta and washington dc route since packet loss started to occur on that segment. and since i'm working on telco company, i can try re-route traffic using seabone cable to europe. the result was, i got higher latency but with less packet loss.
so, i think there's really a network overload in north america between west coast and east coast, even worse at usa's peak hours. i suggest you to use eu proxy first, then if you still got lag, use us proxy. direct connection on high packet loss will make you having rubberband all the time
btw, there's average of 80ms latency between cogent's boston and amazon data center in dublin, so using eu proxy will add more latency (means you toon will respon a bit late) but with less packet loss, the game will be more playable.
Date/Time: Dec 19 / 7:27pm PST
Location: Canada West Coast
Issue: 'Rewind' (Char keeps teleporting back to previous location when doing the Winter Race), Disconnect, UI unresponsive.
Tried US Proxy ON and OFF makes no difference for me. Rebooted system makes no difference either.
Issue Started: Dec 18 at night. It got worst today (Dec 19) and it is almost unplayable now. I have been trying to get my daily race done but I have to repeat 8~10 times before I can finish due to the 'rewind' issue. I keep going out of bound without knowing.
This is very frustrating. The only blessing is I can at least login unlike some other users on this thread. Please fix this.
I too have been getting disconnected to the point that the game has now just become unplayable. I recently changed my IP to ATT U-verse in September, but the problems have really just started in the past 3 weeks leading me to believe that it may be a problem on Cryptic's end.
I have no solutions, just wanted to vent my frustration.
Date/Time: Dec 19 / 7:27pm PST
Location: Canada West Coast
Issue: 'Rewind' (Char keeps teleporting back to previous location when doing the Winter Race), Disconnect, UI unresponsive.
Tried US Proxy ON and OFF makes no difference for me. Rebooted system makes no difference either.
Issue Started: Dec 18 at night. It got worst today (Dec 19) and it is almost unplayable now. I have been trying to get my daily race done but I have to repeat 8~10 times before I can finish due to the 'rewind' issue. I keep going out of bound without knowing.
This is very frustrating. The only blessing is I can at least login unlike some other users on this thread. Please fix this.
What you're describing is called "rubberbanding", which is caused by the server and client being momentarily out of sync and your character being returned to the point at which the server last recorded its location. Usually, it's caused by sporadic network latency.
What are your traceroute and nettest results? Determining those is covered in the sticky at the top of this sub-forum titled "Diagnosing Lag and Rubberbanding".
I'm willing to guess that there might be some significant lag at a point or two in that trace.
Here are my test results.
tracert patchserver.crypticstudios.com
Tracing route to patchserver.crypticstudios.com [208.95.185.41]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms * 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 29 ms 15 ms 15 ms 64.59.147.213
4 31 ms 22 ms 23 ms 66.163.69.145
5 37 ms 33 ms 23 ms rc4wt-pos14-0-0.wa.shawcable.net [66.163.76.130]
6 39 ms 18 ms 14 ms xe-11-0-0.edge1.Seattle3.Level3.net [4.59.232.85]
7 238 ms 209 ms 228 ms te7-8.ccr02.sea02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.12.25]
8 * 232 ms 203 ms te2-7.ccr02.sea01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.85.181]
9 55 ms 70 ms 62 ms te0-7-0-4.ccr21.slc01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.80.10]
10 81 ms 79 ms * te4-3.ccr01.den01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.0.41]
11 89 ms * 79 ms te0-2-0-7.ccr21.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.82.206]
12 * 71 ms 70 ms te0-3-0-7.ccr21.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.84.74]
13 97 ms 97 ms 95 ms te0-1-0-6.ccr22.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.43.206]
14 96 ms 98 ms 109 ms te3-2.ccr01.bos06.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.46.130]
15 100 ms 95 ms 101 ms 38.111.40.114
16 106 ms 106 ms 110 ms 208.95.185.41
Here are my test results.
tracert patchserver.crypticstudios.com
Tracing route to patchserver.crypticstudios.com [208.95.185.41]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms * 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 29 ms 15 ms 15 ms 64.59.147.213
4 31 ms 22 ms 23 ms 66.163.69.145
5 37 ms 33 ms 23 ms rc4wt-pos14-0-0.wa.shawcable.net [66.163.76.130] 6 39 ms 18 ms 14 ms xe-11-0-0.edge1.Seattle3.Level3.net [4.59.232.85]
7 238 ms 209 ms 228 ms te7-8.ccr02.sea02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.12.25]
8 * 232 ms 203 ms te2-7.ccr02.sea01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.85.181]
9 55 ms 70 ms 62 ms te0-7-0-4.ccr21.slc01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.80.10]
10 81 ms 79 ms * te4-3.ccr01.den01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.0.41]
11 89 ms * 79 ms te0-2-0-7.ccr21.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.82.206]
12 * 71 ms 70 ms te0-3-0-7.ccr21.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.84.74]
13 97 ms 97 ms 95 ms te0-1-0-6.ccr22.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.43.206]
14 96 ms 98 ms 109 ms te3-2.ccr01.bos06.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.46.130]
15 100 ms 95 ms 101 ms 38.111.40.114
16 106 ms 106 ms 110 ms 208.95.185.41
Trace complete.
Looks like the issue is the gateway onto the Cogent Communications backbone in Seattle. You might want to contact your ISP (presumably Shaw Cable) and see if their aware of this problem...
Here are my test results.
tracert patchserver.crypticstudios.com
Tracing route to patchserver.crypticstudios.com [208.95.185.41]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms * 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 29 ms 15 ms 15 ms 64.59.147.213
4 31 ms 22 ms 23 ms 66.163.69.145
5 37 ms 33 ms 23 ms rc4wt-pos14-0-0.wa.shawcable.net [66.163.76.130]
6 39 ms 18 ms 14 ms xe-11-0-0.edge1.Seattle3.Level3.net [4.59.232.85]
7 238 ms 209 ms 228 ms te7-8.ccr02.sea02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.12.25]
8 * 232 ms 203 ms te2-7.ccr02.sea01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.85.181]
9 55 ms 70 ms 62 ms te0-7-0-4.ccr21.slc01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.80.10]
10 81 ms 79 ms * te4-3.ccr01.den01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.0.41]
11 89 ms * 79 ms te0-2-0-7.ccr21.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.82.206]
12 * 71 ms 70 ms te0-3-0-7.ccr21.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.84.74]
13 97 ms 97 ms 95 ms te0-1-0-6.ccr22.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.43.206]
14 96 ms 98 ms 109 ms te3-2.ccr01.bos06.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.46.130]
15 100 ms 95 ms 101 ms 38.111.40.114
16 106 ms 106 ms 110 ms 208.95.185.41
I'm inclined to agree with the above poster. Also, your nettest is extremely hit and miss. Some ports are getting through just fine, others are not. In particular, most of your middle column values are below optimal values (20KB/s).
For security reasons, I have done you the favor of editing out your local IP in my quote. I'd suggest in the future you not post your IP in your nettest results.
When I came home after work today around 6pm PST, I started going thru my toons for the daily race. The race for the first 5 toons went great. No lag, rubberbanding or any issues at all. I completed those races very quickly and though the issue is fixed somehow. When I started my 6th toon, I start to get some minor rubberbanding. Nothing that really impact my race too much. As I go thru the rest of my toons, it just keep on getting worst. For my last toon, it took my around 10 tries. Keep getting disconnect, unresponsive UI with missing textures (Q was bald because the texture for the hat was not loaded which is kinda funny. I should have taken a picture with Raptr and post it). In the end, I got thru it and just call it a day.
I think you guys may be right about my ISP contributing to the problem. However, I am not completely convinced that my ISP is the only one to blame though because there are many others in this thread that are not using my ISP and having similar issues. I will give my ISP a call tomorrow and hopefully they can doing something about it.
Thanks guys for having a look. (lewstelamon01-Thanks for the reminder about taking out my IP. I edited it out now from my original post).
...
I think you guys may be right about my ISP contributing to the problem. However, I am not completely convinced that my ISP is the only one to blame though because there are many others in this thread that are not using my ISP and having similar issues. I will give my ISP a call tomorrow and hopefully they can doing something about it....
Though actually, the problem your Trace Route is showing is different then the problem most other people have been having, (which is the Boston Cogent Communications Hub) Backbone Hub congestion can generate the same symptoms, even if their occurring in different locations...
The following is my response to PWE support after 2 weeks of utter frustration:
I appreciate the 'cut and paste' answers - but the problem is not my computer, it's connection to the internet, or my ISP. I have followed all of your suggestions, provided you with substantive feedback in the form of log files and written answers.
It has become increasingly clear, based on feedback from other players through forum posts that a problem exists with your capacity*. Peek periods see a marked increased rate of poor connections and outright disconnects. 10 disconnects per hour is not acceptable.
*I work in SaaS, and yes I am a knowledgeable person in the field. I know all too well what happens to the customer experience when capacity is overtaxed. You can point blame elsewhere, but at the end of the day, this is a capacity issue.
As a paying customer I expect access to the game. If you have to limit my access in some way due to a technical limitation, are you not required to identify that clearly before you take my money?
Ideally paying customers should have access rights greater than those who are free to play. Perhaps some form of guaranteed login, or guaranteed times to play. I am willing to live with a smaller access window if necessary. I do enjoy the game.
But as of today - I unable to play the game I enjoy, because your capacity is poor.
I will not be spending another dollar for any Perfect World product until you do. I will not recommend your games. If there is not a marked improvement with your service by the end of this subscription cycle, I will transfer my account to F2P only. Given that I have spent over $600 in the past year, I am disappointed that CRYPTIC and Perfect World deems that my business to be irrelevant.
I get that there will be times when as a business, you cannot please everyone. I get that you have connectivity issues with your third party suppliers. What I don't understand is that you don't see the value in retaining paying customers as this is a problem of capacity which you do control.
My opinion of the Star Trek brand has dropped, and I will spend considerable time to ensure that CBS understands that.
The following is my response to PWE support after 2 weeks of utter frustration:
I appreciate the 'cut and paste' answers - but the problem is not my computer, it's connection to the internet, or my ISP. I have followed all of your suggestions, provided you with substantive feedback in the form of log files and written answers.
It has become increasingly clear, based on feedback from other players through forum posts that a problem exists with your capacity*. Peek periods see a marked increased rate of poor connections and outright disconnects. 10 disconnects per hour is not acceptable.
*I work in SaaS, and yes I am a knowledgeable person in the field. I know all too well what happens to the customer experience when capacity is overtaxed. You can point blame elsewhere, but at the end of the day, this is a capacity issue.
As a paying customer I expect access to the game. If you have to limit my access in some way due to a technical limitation, are you not required to identify that clearly before you take my money?
Ideally paying customers should have access rights greater than those who are free to play. Perhaps some form of guaranteed login, or guaranteed times to play. I am willing to live with a smaller access window if necessary. I do enjoy the game.
But as of today - I unable to play the game I enjoy, because your capacity is poor.
I will not be spending another dollar for any Perfect World product until you do. I will not recommend your games. If there is not a marked improvement with your service by the end of this subscription cycle, I will transfer my account to F2P only. Given that I have spent over $600 in the past year, I am disappointed that CRYPTIC and Perfect World deems that my business to be irrelevant.
I get that there will be times when as a business, you cannot please everyone. I get that you have connectivity issues with your third party suppliers. What I don't understand is that you don't see the value in retaining paying customers as this is a problem of capacity which you do control.
My opinion of the Star Trek brand has dropped, and I will spend considerable time to ensure that CBS understands that.
I wish you luck in your crusade against CBS, but I'm afraid you'd only be tilting at windmills. Handling tech support issues simply isn't profitable for gaming companies anymore. Back in the olden days gaming companies, both online and offline, actually had tech support numbers you could call and talk to an actual live person about solving your tech issues. That kind of tech support is very expensive, but companies were willing to do it in the dinosaur days because the gaming community was relatively small and they needed a high percentage of satisfied customers to make any money. In the year 2012 however things are much different. The gaming community is huge and it's more profitable for companies to take the profits from the 70% who aren't having tech issues than to spend huge sums of money solving the tech problems for the 30% who are having trouble. This is why there are no more live help lines. Now we just have forums like this one where you post your problem and it may or may not (usually not) get solved.
The support ticket system here has been broken for over six months. If CBS or Perfect World gave a carp about handling tech problems don't you think it would have been fixed by now? We are nothing but numbers to them. As long as there are enough gamers not having problems to pay the bills then they can afford to simply ignore the rest of us.
No, not a crusade in the slightest. I'm not one the rabid fans who flail at the air. No petitions.
I completely agree about the the lack of support. The process is called call avoidance. Companies invest heavily in methodologies to minimize customer interaction. I work in SaaS. Every call we get in North America costs the company $14.72 in fiscal 2012. We have more than 300 per hour. Our Japanese support costs were more than $70 per call (oops so much for non disclosure).
I can navigate marketing departments. It's not that hard to get internal email addy's.
Licensing teams are sensitive. They don't troll forums, or monitor help desk requests. They rarely interact at the customer level beyond the launch. If a comment about a protected IP (intellectual property) makes it to them directly, they pass it along. And questions do get asked. This is good news - so many players online that some cannot get access. The fact that paying customers are not getting on - that will raise further questions especially when the business model depends on the 5% or less that pay $500+ to play.
"I've invested more than $600 this year in the game, and I cannot access it. I'm not the only one. Hard to trust Star Trek"
It will have a 2 day lifespan (if that), then it will disappear. Until another comment makes it through the gauntlet. When it's about money, they do listen.
I want to follow-up on my post about the connectivity issues I have been experiencing. Today, I spent a better part of the morning to really troubleshoot this. To make a long story short, the issue is with my router.
For those interested, read on. I review the information I have based on two other players' comments. My tracert and nettest result are inconsistent. I also see inconsistency with the slowness in that it seems to be better some times but not others. It would make sense if I were to experience disconnect & slowness during peer hours (after work) but not during the off hours (2~3am). However, that is not the case. So the first thing I did was to do a speed test, my upload speed is very slow, that probably explain the rubberband/out-of-sync issue. Next, I checked rebooted my router and do speed test. Similar result. Then I removed my router and connect my PC directly to my cable modem. The speed went up significantly and my issue with STO is gone. I never would have guess my router is the problem because it didn't die completely except it works very slowly.
The lesson from this story is never rule out anything until you really test it. Thanks for those who commented on my original post for help.
i think after i win my breen ship im going to stop playing. this is ridiculous. The lag in this game is so horrible.
Have you bothered to do any sort of diagnostics to help Tech Support/any tech-savvy player assist you or are you, like many others, merely blindly raging at the company?
Have you bothered to do any sort of diagnostics to help Tech Support/any tech-savvy player assist you or are you, like many others, merely blindly raging at the company?
Sometimes that really does help.
Lets name the online games i play:
WoW: no lag
Team Fortress 2: no lag
Call of duty modern warfares 1 and 2: Barely lag
Half life 2 deathmatch/garry's mod: no lag
grand theft auto IV online: no lag
Star wars The old republic: barely lag
battlefield 2 bad company: barely lag
Transformers fall of cybertron/war for cybertron: no lag
This is THE only game that has severe lag. id submit a report, but it still wont help. They'd say working as intended just like every other bug.
Lets name the online games i play:
WoW: no lag
Team Fortress 2: no lag
Call of duty modern warfares 1 and 2: Barely lag
Half life 2 deathmatch/garry's mod: no lag
grand theft auto IV online: no lag
Star wars The old republic: barely lag
battlefield 2 bad company: barely lag
Transformers fall of cybertron/war for cybertron: no lag
This is THE only game that has severe lag. id submit a report, but it still wont help. They'd say working as intended just like every other bug.
It does not matter what other online games have no lag--I know I'm going to take some flak for saying this, but why is that the first justification people use for blaming the server/company, besides "I have a super fast internet connection and an expensive new PC"?
Different games traverse different routes to their respective servers. It's much the same as going to two different houses some distance apart--you don't necessarily take the same streets to each one, and what affects one street isn't necessarily going to affect another.
What matters is the route that STO takes to its server. Unless you've done the basic diagnostic tests described in the sticky "Diagnosing Lag and Rubberbanding" and therefore would have some snapshot of what's going on with the transit between your PC and STO's server, don't be so quick to point your finger at the company.
Not a tech savvy person.. but I do know that I am getting the same issues as others. As long as I don't switch maps (no load screen) I have no issues.. so I can stay in winter land forever.. but as soon as I leave or change instance.. booted by server
Then you have to wait for 5-10 min before the thing will let you log back in.. some login server not responding or stuff like that..
I just would like to play:(
Edit.. this is a new thing ever since winter event..
Comments
I have disabled the proxy as a work around and am still experiencing the same lag as before. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks
Brian
Okay, being a system administrator I should have thought of this in the first place. After I dropped the proxy and went in it still seemed to lag. I rebooted this morning to clear out the old settings that may have been lingering and my character took off like a shot. For me the routing change made by Cryptic seems to have worked.
Thanks Cryptic team?
Brian
Probably stay stable like this until the next big season patch and corresponding jump in player activity mystifies everyone by coinciding with more connection and lag problems. :rolleyes:
Sometimes it takes a second or two (or three) to move stuff from the inventory. But like I said, it's occasional. I only get a disconnect once in a blue moon. If I check with my friends/fleet members, they usually have the problem at the same time as well, so definitely a server hiccup at that point.
Again, it's "off and on" at best. I don't see it effecting my gameplay too much, but it's something that's always a concern.
Add that to layers from BC,
Seeing 'SERVER NOT RESPONDING' followed by 'DISCONNECTED FROM SERVER' all the time is getting to BE VERY FRUSTRATING.
I can get on for very brief periods, and WHAM the fun starts. I have filed and updated support requests. I have done everything suggested. It's not my computer or my internet connection.
I have money to burn but there is no way in hell you're going to it if I can't even access the game I pay for.
Just received my second 'cut and paste' response. This time I have to provide another 2 types of log files. DXDiag.exe references DirectX which if I am not mistaken has absolutely nothing to do with connections - I could be wrong. The second is they want me to install another program - this time Hijackthis!
At least they are responding....
Symptoms: Very slow to start the game (in game scene), slow zoning in sector space and loading new zone (i.e. mission), server not responding in STF and disconnected
Result of tracing route to 208.95.108.41:
1. 82ms 93ms 65ms 10.20.30.33
2. * * * Request timed out
3. 68ms 72ms 66ms 10.20.161.42
4. * 88ms 92ms 202.70.56.49
5. 91ms 71ms 81ms 202.70.56.17
6. * * * Request timed out
7. 111ms 105ms 106ms ip-176-146.moratelindo.co.id [202.43.176.146]
8. 210ms 281ms 277ms tenge13-3.br01.sin02.pccwbtn.net [63.218.229.109]
9. 299ms 273ms 272ms te0-6-0-3.ccr22.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.11.161]
10. 298ms 313ms 305ms te0-0-0-3.ccr22.scjc01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.6.1091]
11. 270ms 292ms 299ms te0-1-0-5.ccr22.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.5]
12. 338ms 317ms 308ms te0-0-0-0-2.ccr22.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.30.66]
13. 325ms 354ms 326ms te0-3-0-2.ccr22.ord01.atslas.cogentco.com [154.54.6.213]
14. 352ms 359ms 359ms te0-2-0-5.ccr22.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.43.74]
15. 378ms 557ms 428ms te4-2.ccr01.bos06.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.254]
16. 354ms 366ms 350ms 38.111.40.114
17. 377ms 353ms 377ms 208.95.185.41
Result of tracing to nettest.crypticstudio.com [68.178.232.99]
1. * 69ms 67ms 10.20.30.33
2. * * * Request timed out
3. 48ms 66ms 66ms 10.20.161.37
4. * 67ms 66ms 202.70.56.49
5. 51ms 59ms 53ms 202.70.56.17
6. * * * 3967ms ip-179-125.moratelindo.co.id [202.43.179.125]
7. 118ms 99ms 112ms supernet-06.1-1-20.edge2-eqx-sin.moratelindo.co.id [202.43.176.218]
8. 103ms 101ms 99ms 203.208.131.101
9. 109ms 106ms 191ms 203.208.152.217
10. 275ms 273ms 280ms 203.208.178.206
11. 260ms 298ms 281ms 203.208.171.150
12. 273ms 279ms 272ms 203.208.178.250
13. * 391ms 319ms phn-edge-06.inet.qwest.net [205.171.12.142]
14. 301ms 296ms 333ms 63-234-235-102.dia.static.qwest.net [63.234.235.102]
15-30. * * * Request timed out
I don't know how this issue come up, but I've been playing STO since February 2012 with same ISP and now I already reach VA rank with over 10K achievement points. Certainly something is not right which was started in 5 days ago. Could it be related to the up coming PvP boot camp?
Please help me, Dev.
I am not a dev, but this is what we've been able to piece together. Most of this is from the PWE site discussion.
The common experience is slow connections, server not responding errors, excessive rubber banding, freezing and random disconnections. Good news it's likely not you, your isp or STO. If you have submitted support tickets, please follow thier suggestions. It helps them identify the extent of the problem.
The problems are originating with COGENTCO, and it's not a dev issue but it is an issue with the ISP itself. As PWE is a customer of COGNETCO, they are speaking directly to them.
We believe that around the 7th of December network upgrades were made that began impacting STO and other games where requests were routed through the above connections.
The problem has escalated since that time. Contacting support will put you through a number of steps, which are used by support to confirm that you too may be part of the group affected by the outage.
If you disconnect your modem for 10 minutes to ensure you drop your IP address, then reconnect again it has been found to provide temporary relief for some users. I was able to reconnect to the game for about 1 hour using this process, before the disconnections started again.
STO/PWE is aware of the problem and are doing their best to resolve it. Posts in both forums - although buried in long chains from the eyes of average users - confirm this.
Looking forward to a solution -
Admiral Thrax
That's some nasty lag you're getting there (anything over 150 is problematic, and yours passed that at something like warp 9), and it's not all from Cogent. In fact, your entire trace is extremely laggy and outright timed out in spots (note the asterisks in your trace, those are missed packets of data).
I'd suggest a full power cycle of your router, PC and modem, for starters. Make sure that nothing else is utilizing your connection that can be eating bandwidth (P2P programs, Pando, etc.)
Try using one of the proxies and see if that helps you out any. Again, those numbers are absolutely atrocious for a trace and make me think something else is going on with your internet connection.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
wow you come from the same country as i am
yes, we got lag & rubberband since second week of winter wonderland event. i did notice the problems are occured between 11:00 to 07:00 UTC on weekday, and the whole 24 hours on the weekend. from between 06:00 to 10:00 UTC during weekday, the ping was constant and no lag or rubberband occured.
my guess is, there's over network overload somewhere between cogent's atlanta and washington dc route since packet loss started to occur on that segment. and since i'm working on telco company, i can try re-route traffic using seabone cable to europe. the result was, i got higher latency but with less packet loss.
so, i think there's really a network overload in north america between west coast and east coast, even worse at usa's peak hours. i suggest you to use eu proxy first, then if you still got lag, use us proxy. direct connection on high packet loss will make you having rubberband all the time
btw, there's average of 80ms latency between cogent's boston and amazon data center in dublin, so using eu proxy will add more latency (means you toon will respon a bit late) but with less packet loss, the game will be more playable.
Location: Canada West Coast
Issue: 'Rewind' (Char keeps teleporting back to previous location when doing the Winter Race), Disconnect, UI unresponsive.
Tried US Proxy ON and OFF makes no difference for me. Rebooted system makes no difference either.
Issue Started: Dec 18 at night. It got worst today (Dec 19) and it is almost unplayable now. I have been trying to get my daily race done but I have to repeat 8~10 times before I can finish due to the 'rewind' issue. I keep going out of bound without knowing.
This is very frustrating. The only blessing is I can at least login unlike some other users on this thread. Please fix this.
I have no solutions, just wanted to vent my frustration.
What you're describing is called "rubberbanding", which is caused by the server and client being momentarily out of sync and your character being returned to the point at which the server last recorded its location. Usually, it's caused by sporadic network latency.
What are your traceroute and nettest results? Determining those is covered in the sticky at the top of this sub-forum titled "Diagnosing Lag and Rubberbanding".
I'm willing to guess that there might be some significant lag at a point or two in that trace.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
tracert patchserver.crypticstudios.com
Tracing route to patchserver.crypticstudios.com [208.95.185.41]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms * 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 29 ms 15 ms 15 ms 64.59.147.213
4 31 ms 22 ms 23 ms 66.163.69.145
5 37 ms 33 ms 23 ms rc4wt-pos14-0-0.wa.shawcable.net [66.163.76.130]
6 39 ms 18 ms 14 ms xe-11-0-0.edge1.Seattle3.Level3.net [4.59.232.85]
7 238 ms 209 ms 228 ms te7-8.ccr02.sea02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.12.25]
8 * 232 ms 203 ms te2-7.ccr02.sea01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.85.181]
9 55 ms 70 ms 62 ms te0-7-0-4.ccr21.slc01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.80.10]
10 81 ms 79 ms * te4-3.ccr01.den01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.0.41]
11 89 ms * 79 ms te0-2-0-7.ccr21.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.82.206]
12 * 71 ms 70 ms te0-3-0-7.ccr21.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.84.74]
13 97 ms 97 ms 95 ms te0-1-0-6.ccr22.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.43.206]
14 96 ms 98 ms 109 ms te3-2.ccr01.bos06.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.46.130]
15 100 ms 95 ms 101 ms 38.111.40.114
16 106 ms 106 ms 110 ms 208.95.185.41
Trace complete.
nettest
contacting nettest server..
Local IP:
Ping: 125.0 msec
Port: 80: 114 KB/sec 7 KB/sec 124 KB/sec 500
Port: 80: 517 KB/sec 27 KB/sec 544 KB/sec 500
Port: 443: 115 KB/sec 7 KB/sec 123 KB/sec 500
Port: 443: 420 KB/sec 23 KB/sec 441 KB/sec 500
Port: 7255: 411 KB/sec 21 KB/sec 431 KB/sec 500
Port: 7255: timed out
Port: 7003: 390 KB/sec 17 KB/sec 409 KB/sec 500
Port: 7003: 118 KB/sec 9 KB/sec 126 KB/sec 500
Port: 7202: timed out
Port: 7202: 183 KB/sec 7 KB/sec 196 KB/sec 500
Port: 7499: 448 KB/sec 25 KB/sec 471 KB/sec 500
Port: 7499: 420 KB/sec 17 KB/sec 443 KB/sec 500
Port: 80: 344 KB/sec 14 KB/sec 363 KB/sec 500
Idle NIC bandwidth Send: 0 KB/sec Recv: 0 KB/sec
hit return to exit
I'm inclined to agree with the above poster. Also, your nettest is extremely hit and miss. Some ports are getting through just fine, others are not. In particular, most of your middle column values are below optimal values (20KB/s).
For security reasons, I have done you the favor of editing out your local IP in my quote. I'd suggest in the future you not post your IP in your nettest results.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
I think you guys may be right about my ISP contributing to the problem. However, I am not completely convinced that my ISP is the only one to blame though because there are many others in this thread that are not using my ISP and having similar issues. I will give my ISP a call tomorrow and hopefully they can doing something about it.
Thanks guys for having a look. (lewstelamon01-Thanks for the reminder about taking out my IP. I edited it out now from my original post).
I appreciate the 'cut and paste' answers - but the problem is not my computer, it's connection to the internet, or my ISP. I have followed all of your suggestions, provided you with substantive feedback in the form of log files and written answers.
It has become increasingly clear, based on feedback from other players through forum posts that a problem exists with your capacity*. Peek periods see a marked increased rate of poor connections and outright disconnects. 10 disconnects per hour is not acceptable.
*I work in SaaS, and yes I am a knowledgeable person in the field. I know all too well what happens to the customer experience when capacity is overtaxed. You can point blame elsewhere, but at the end of the day, this is a capacity issue.
As a paying customer I expect access to the game. If you have to limit my access in some way due to a technical limitation, are you not required to identify that clearly before you take my money?
Ideally paying customers should have access rights greater than those who are free to play. Perhaps some form of guaranteed login, or guaranteed times to play. I am willing to live with a smaller access window if necessary. I do enjoy the game.
But as of today - I unable to play the game I enjoy, because your capacity is poor.
I will not be spending another dollar for any Perfect World product until you do. I will not recommend your games. If there is not a marked improvement with your service by the end of this subscription cycle, I will transfer my account to F2P only. Given that I have spent over $600 in the past year, I am disappointed that CRYPTIC and Perfect World deems that my business to be irrelevant.
I get that there will be times when as a business, you cannot please everyone. I get that you have connectivity issues with your third party suppliers. What I don't understand is that you don't see the value in retaining paying customers as this is a problem of capacity which you do control.
My opinion of the Star Trek brand has dropped, and I will spend considerable time to ensure that CBS understands that.
I wish you luck in your crusade against CBS, but I'm afraid you'd only be tilting at windmills. Handling tech support issues simply isn't profitable for gaming companies anymore. Back in the olden days gaming companies, both online and offline, actually had tech support numbers you could call and talk to an actual live person about solving your tech issues. That kind of tech support is very expensive, but companies were willing to do it in the dinosaur days because the gaming community was relatively small and they needed a high percentage of satisfied customers to make any money. In the year 2012 however things are much different. The gaming community is huge and it's more profitable for companies to take the profits from the 70% who aren't having tech issues than to spend huge sums of money solving the tech problems for the 30% who are having trouble. This is why there are no more live help lines. Now we just have forums like this one where you post your problem and it may or may not (usually not) get solved.
The support ticket system here has been broken for over six months. If CBS or Perfect World gave a carp about handling tech problems don't you think it would have been fixed by now? We are nothing but numbers to them. As long as there are enough gamers not having problems to pay the bills then they can afford to simply ignore the rest of us.
I completely agree about the the lack of support. The process is called call avoidance. Companies invest heavily in methodologies to minimize customer interaction. I work in SaaS. Every call we get in North America costs the company $14.72 in fiscal 2012. We have more than 300 per hour. Our Japanese support costs were more than $70 per call (oops so much for non disclosure).
I can navigate marketing departments. It's not that hard to get internal email addy's.
Licensing teams are sensitive. They don't troll forums, or monitor help desk requests. They rarely interact at the customer level beyond the launch. If a comment about a protected IP (intellectual property) makes it to them directly, they pass it along. And questions do get asked. This is good news - so many players online that some cannot get access. The fact that paying customers are not getting on - that will raise further questions especially when the business model depends on the 5% or less that pay $500+ to play.
"I've invested more than $600 this year in the game, and I cannot access it. I'm not the only one. Hard to trust Star Trek"
It will have a 2 day lifespan (if that), then it will disappear. Until another comment makes it through the gauntlet. When it's about money, they do listen.
Damn! I was hoping somebody would start a crusade.
For those interested, read on. I review the information I have based on two other players' comments. My tracert and nettest result are inconsistent. I also see inconsistency with the slowness in that it seems to be better some times but not others. It would make sense if I were to experience disconnect & slowness during peer hours (after work) but not during the off hours (2~3am). However, that is not the case. So the first thing I did was to do a speed test, my upload speed is very slow, that probably explain the rubberband/out-of-sync issue. Next, I checked rebooted my router and do speed test. Similar result. Then I removed my router and connect my PC directly to my cable modem. The speed went up significantly and my issue with STO is gone. I never would have guess my router is the problem because it didn't die completely except it works very slowly.
The lesson from this story is never rule out anything until you really test it. Thanks for those who commented on my original post for help.
Have you bothered to do any sort of diagnostics to help Tech Support/any tech-savvy player assist you or are you, like many others, merely blindly raging at the company?
Sometimes that really does help.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
Lets name the online games i play:
WoW: no lag
Team Fortress 2: no lag
Call of duty modern warfares 1 and 2: Barely lag
Half life 2 deathmatch/garry's mod: no lag
grand theft auto IV online: no lag
Star wars The old republic: barely lag
battlefield 2 bad company: barely lag
Transformers fall of cybertron/war for cybertron: no lag
This is THE only game that has severe lag. id submit a report, but it still wont help. They'd say working as intended just like every other bug.
It does not matter what other online games have no lag--I know I'm going to take some flak for saying this, but why is that the first justification people use for blaming the server/company, besides "I have a super fast internet connection and an expensive new PC"?
Different games traverse different routes to their respective servers. It's much the same as going to two different houses some distance apart--you don't necessarily take the same streets to each one, and what affects one street isn't necessarily going to affect another.
What matters is the route that STO takes to its server. Unless you've done the basic diagnostic tests described in the sticky "Diagnosing Lag and Rubberbanding" and therefore would have some snapshot of what's going on with the transit between your PC and STO's server, don't be so quick to point your finger at the company.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
Then you have to wait for 5-10 min before the thing will let you log back in.. some login server not responding or stuff like that..
I just would like to play:(
Edit.. this is a new thing ever since winter event..