Laaaag / Packet Loss - Any Ideas?

[Eldritch]

I have been playing UO for about 10 years and never had this problem (at least this bad).

This is what I see when I attempt to log in:

Now I ran a few traceroutes to determine what was causing this and this is what I saw:

Host Name Hop Ping Avg % Loss Pkts r/s Ping best/worst
.fuse.net 1 8ms 0% 156 / 156 8ms / 11ms
.zoomtown.com 2 10ms 0% 156 / 156 8ms / 147ms
.fuse.net 3 14ms 0% 156 / 156 9ms / 177ms
.wvfiber.net 4 12ms 0% 156 / 156 11ms / 25ms
.wvfiber.net 5 25ms 0% 156 / 156 16ms / 212ms
.wvfiber.net 6 84ms 0% 155 / 155 62ms / 377ms
.wvfiber.net 7 83ms 0% 155 / 155 71ms / 265ms
core1.paix.ea.com 8 100% 0 / 155
edge03.eqx-sjc.ea.com 9 75ms 0% 155 / 155 74ms / 88ms
edge01.eqx-sjc.ea.com 10 74ms 0% 155 / 155 74ms / 76ms
* Unknown Host * 11 83ms 0% 155 / 155 74ms / 451ms
central-aw4.owo.com 12 75ms 0% 155 / 155 74ms / 81ms

I am not a network / internet expert but I think I see that the problem lies somewhere in the area of the 8th hop. I have never seen a traceroute with 100% packet loss before.

I messaged EA to see if they could fix it (it is an ea server after all.)

After going back and forth I got the following response (edited for the sake of brevity):

I would like to apologize for any confusion. Data loss is caused when there is excessive data flowing through a certain point and creating unreliability and information packet loss. This creates an unreliable connection since any lost data must be resent, which can also be lost. Any amount of data loss can and will cause issues.

NOTE: 100% data loss is fine as this is just networks protecting themselves from probing and attacks.

In this case, you will have to contact your ISP for possible resolution, it is best to show the trace results to your ISP to help isolate the cause.

The EA rep went on to recommend that I check to make sure I had no programs running in the background etc. (I don't.) I had already emailed my ISP so we will see about that.

So My question is: Is the EA rep correct? Is this my ISP's deal or EA's? And what else if anything can I do?

Thanks for your help.

Eldritch

 

[Exgirlfriend]

I had that same problem a couple times over the years, what you have to remember is that it could be the return hops, the information takes a different route to you. you should ask them to ping your machine and then they can tell if its an in coming or out going problem.

good luck

 

[Basara]

Yeah, it would look like the zoomtown machine is the issue, from that (was zoomtown something that fuse.net bought out? strange seeing it between two fuse.net routers)

I see the 100% all the time for major router hops on the backbones - though I've never seen that particular ea router before - usually, there's a couple of sprintnet hops, and only 2 edge machines for EA, not 3, before the aw*.owo (UO west coast) machines. no clue what that mystery machine is between the edge and owo machine is, either.

 

[Anakena]

100% Packet loss doesn't mean the router loses 100% of packets. This happens on some routers configured for not answering ping commands.

I would say that your problems begin at hops 6 and 7 :

wvfiber.net 6 84ms 0% 155/155 62ms / 377ms
wvfiber.net 7 83ms 0% 155/155 71ms / 265ms

Your average ping is boosted there up to 80 ms, with some pings going above 200

 

[Fox (Europa)]

It is an ISP problem. If you can raise a trouble ticket with them online then include your trace. Chances are it will clear up in a couple of days as a number of people will be effected by this.

Fox

 

[Basara]

100% Packet loss doesn't mean the router loses 100% of packets. This happens on some routers configured for not answering ping commands.

I would say that your problems begin at hops 6 and 7 :

wvfiber.net 6 84ms 0% 155/155 62ms / 377ms
wvfiber.net 7 83ms 0% 155/155 71ms / 265ms

Your average ping is boosted there up to 80 ms, with some pings going above 200

Actually, if you look again, there is a range from 8 to 147 ms on their second hop - but yes, definitely an ISP issue

 

[Eldritch]

Thanks for the info. I will deffinately follow-up with my ISP (Cincinnati Bell) which uses both Fuse (dial-up) and Zoomtown (DSL) as their brands. That is why you see both names used interchangably.

I sent them an email yesterday. I will call them and follow-up tomorrow.

Best regards,

 

[Lefty]

More than likely you are on a reroute. Networks usually do this to replace copper wire with fiber optic lines or other groundwork, replace a router etc. It will probably be cleared up within a few business days.