"Unable to establish connection to Patch Server"

shantavi · November 2013

So, I was able to connect with no problems on Wednesday, patched up fine, etc etc.

Went to log in today, when I went to start the game, the Cryptic Patcher updated, and now it tries 5 times to connect and returns the old "Unable to establish connection to the Patch Server" message for the past 5 hours.

WTH? I still have characters I need to get through that mission for the carrier along with getting the new 'limited time' tribble.

shantavi · November 2013

As an aside, from the command window I can ping and tracert 'patchserver.crypticstudios.com' just fine. The patcher itself can't make the connection. This happens with the 'normal' patcher and the Steam one.

praetorianzero · November 2013

having had the same issue for days, my thinking is there is a problem with the cryptic server itself, why this issue has not been approached and fixed already seems to be the biggest concern, there have been reports of this same problem since 2011...

smokinssoulmate · November 2013

shantavi wrote: »

As an aside, from the command window I can ping and tracert 'patchserver.crypticstudios.com' just fine. The patcher itself can't make the connection. This happens with the 'normal' patcher and the Steam one.

can you tracert to the login server. Players don't connect to the patch server ever, they connect to the Login server, Then the patch server makes the connection to you. As any mmo uses the UDP ports and not TCP. If it can not get a direct connection it will fail. I am assuming and I feel it's a safe assumption they have more than 1 patch servers. However you are competing with everyone else that is logging in and trying to update patch their client.

If the server gets too many attempts or requests for connections it will drop the requests out of hand.

grouchyotaku · November 2013

smokinssoulmate wrote: »

.... As any mmo uses the UDP ports and not TCP. ....

Really? UDP (User Datagram Protocol) does not guarantee that the data has arrived at the destination, or even the order that the packets are received. This is why TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol) is the 'normal' network connection on the Internet, (which offers a ordered byte stream) And since STO requires the presence of the Internet Explorer HTTP libraries, this make the requirement for TCP/IP connections doubly so...

The Cryptic/PWE Support document does state that STO uses TCP ports... https://support.perfectworld.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4000/kw/Network%20ports

smokinssoulmate · November 2013

Really? UDP (User Datagram Protocol) does not guarantee that the data has arrived at the destination, or even the order that the packets are received. This is why TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol) is the 'normal' network connection on the Internet, (which offers a ordered byte stream) And since STO requires the presence of the Internet Explorer HTTP libraries, this make the requirement for TCP/IP connections doubly so...

The Cryptic/PWE Support document does state that STO uses TCP ports... https://support.perfectworld.com/app...etwork%20ports

Yeah it is UDP. This how you on your computer knows the position of you, your friends and enemies with in seconds. This as you rightly said is what causes the dreaded lag and rubber banding. When there is a delay in that transmission you get lag.

The only time a MMO uses TCP ports (if you ever dabbled in your own servers.) is when you are setting up the servers to allow the communications through your firewall and Access lists

However all communications with customers/clients computers to the game servers is UDP

and trust me although they said they use TCP ports, You computer talks to their server to get instant data information through UDP. If it didn't you don't have a working MMO (This is covered in basic CCNA text books "Mastering the CCNA Audiobook and you actually listen to how MMO works on UDP)

Added:
Also it makes perfect sense if you really think about it, your doing a Omega task force mission. The Borg Cube Fires a plasma torp at you.

Now with TCP and the Authentication , The server is sending out position data for every inch it moves towards you. It takes 1 second for TCP to go through the encryption and sending then authentication and de-crypting again just to read there is a torpedo coming to you. (consider the torpedao will take seconds to hit you. by the time it has gone through all the processes of encryp and de-crypt adding a second for each of them. you would see your ship being hit like 5 minutes after is already happened.

With UDP as you said doesn't check and no authentication doesn't have to pause, you get the information in like 30ms for every inch. so In exactly 5000 ms time you see the torp hitting you. not 5 minutes

grouchyotaku · November 2013

smokinssoulmate wrote: »

Yeah it is UDP. This how you on your computer knows the position of you, your friends and enemies with in seconds. This as you rightly said is what causes the dreaded lag and rubber banding. When there is a delay in that transmission you get lag.

The only time a MMO uses TCP ports (if you ever dabbled in your own servers.) is when you are setting up the servers to allow the communications through your firewall and Access lists

However all communications with customers/clients computers to the game servers is UDP

and trust me although they said they use TCP ports, You computer talks to their server to get instant data information through UDP. If it didn't you don't have a working MMO (This is covered in basic CCNA text books "Mastering the CCNA Audiobook and you actually listen to how MMO works on UDP)

Added:
Also it makes perfect sense if you really think about it, your doing a Omega task force mission. The Borg Cube Fires a plasma torp at you.

Now with TCP and the Authentication , The server is sending out position data for every inch it moves towards you. It takes 1 second for TCP to go through the encryption and sending then authentication and de-crypting again just to read there is a torpedo coming to you. (consider the torpedao will take seconds to hit you. by the time it has gone through all the processes of encryp and de-crypt adding a second for each of them. you would see your ship being hit like 5 minutes after is already happened.

With UDP as you said doesn't check and no authentication doesn't have to pause, you get the information in like 30ms for every inch. so In exactly 5000 ms time you see the torp hitting you. not 5 minutes

Excuses me, I don't dabble in servers, I dabble in programming networked services & applications...

First of all, the better Firewalls do keep separate track of UDP vs TCP ports. If a firewall is set to the 'official' Cryptic/PWE port settings of TCP, and STO uses UDP, it would be blocked by the firewall, plain and simple...

And why are you talking about Encryption? TCP/IP doesn't use Encryption, unless you're using an encrypted data payload, such as SSL The handshake with the Cryptic Authentication Server only occurs during the initial handshake to set up a new connection, such as transitioning to a instance, or location, and is then out of the picture until another change, so there is no Encryption with the normal TCP/IP connection. And where are you pulling this 1 second encryption overhead from. If AES 128 or AES 256 is being used, your maybe talking about a 50 msec overhead, as AES in incredibly efficient once the encryption pipe has been set up...

And you seem to have a flawed conception on how the Client/Server relationship of STO works. In many cases, the Server simply conveys the result of the action, leaving it up to the Client to display how the results took place. Though this does lead to the case where you dash behind a asteroid to block the path of a torpedo, and still get plastered at time x, simply because the Server has already flagged you as being hit at time x...

Seems like you need to hit the books on how TCP/IP and network socket programming actually works...

smokinssoulmate · November 2013

yeah I know I exaggerated the 1 second thing a little, and I had meant to say Encapsulation not encryption.

Anyhow we kind of hi-jacked the OP'er thread here. Vices to say I may have the fine points miss understood. However what I am saying originally that MMO use the UDP port to transmit data of position etc is being taught in CCNA classes, text books, even on Cisco's CCNA practice stuff on their own site, they just revamped the course recently and it is still in there as part of the course.

Also I apologize if you took offense when I mentioned "dabble in game servers" General rule of thumb is to treat everyone on the internet as if they are 12 until proved otherwise.

I stand corrected on the information I was wrong on.

grouchyotaku · November 2013

shantavi wrote: »

As an aside, from the command window I can ping and tracert 'patchserver.crypticstudios.com' just fine. The patcher itself can't make the connection. This happens with the 'normal' patcher and the Steam one.

Back on topic here...

Actually, whats important here is not if you can ping and tracert to the patch server. Its what does the results look like? Diagnostic tests don't correct the problem, or prove that there's no problem, its interpreting the results that is important. (And if you don't know how to do that, thats the reason why you should post the results...)

and using 'pathping patchserver.crypticstudios.com' may also help in showing if you are suffering from silently dropped packets, which is very likely the cause of your problem...

praetorianzero wrote: »

having had the same issue for days, my thinking is there is a problem with the cryptic server itself, why this issue has not been approached and fixed already seems to be the biggest concern, there have been reports of this same problem since 2011...

I haven't had any STO Server problems this week, and so far, Season 8, compared to other seasons, is simply amazing how trouble free the Servers are. So its unlikely to be a STO Sever issue, and more likely a ISP/Internet Backbone issue. But if this is your problem, its hard to say without looking at some diagnostic results...

constantine4 · March 2014

I'v had more lag in the last 6 months playing than the 1.5 year before that, so can't say STO servers have improved for me.

angrybear32 · March 2014

Nice stories, but at the moment alot of people cannot connect to the patchserver / launcher.

There appears to be an issue especially if you're from the Netherlands for some reason.

See general discussion thread, for 0 info.

Nobody knows what the hell is going on, but something is down somewhere along the line.
Its not cryptic at any rate.

alonkim90 · March 2014

I'm having the same issue. Maastricht here.

I heard they're having issues in Germany as well.

Is it too much to ask for an explanation? Considering the amount of money I've used in this game it doesn't seem like to much to ask.

Worked fine this morning.

grraver · March 2014

Similar experience. Launcher wont go past its initial "trying to connect to patch server" I live in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Tried several times, flushing my DNS cache aswell. I used ARC to start up launcher, and steam.

sbertens0007 · March 2014

Patch Server is down CAN NOT START STO

alonkim90 · March 2014

Do the people who take care of the server (idk what theyre called :P) even read these? Has anyone received any sort of explanation??

sebastiaanb007 · March 2014

Patch Server Is Down , Cant Not Start STO

freezy321 · March 2014

Same here, netherlands as well

Logged in earlier today without issue, but now the launcher wont connect at all.

I hope the issue will be resolved soon

askray · March 2014

This is a necro thread and as such it's being closed. Be aware that they are aware of a regional ISP issue that's affecting EU connections.

See http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1064371 for more information.

"Unable to establish connection to Patch Server"

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