What is wrong with my connection ?

[Turamber]

Okay never mind all the problems earlier in the evening we all had, I came back at 11:30pm and have had some very strange things happening -- though everyone else appears unaffected.

1) NPC's appearing and disappearing randomly;

2) Ghost images of other players running off, when really they are there all the time ... or seeing them next to me when they've moved off elsewhere minutes before;

3) Seeing my group fighting monsters, but when I choose F8 am told there is no target near enough to select.

This is not a post to moan or whine, can someone - anyone - tell me what's up with my connection or game, and what I can do about it? The game is completely unplayable for me at the moment and I'm very disappointed to say the least.

Thanks in anticipation.

 

[wolfensteine]

Shift & p will show how much lag you are getting.

Yesterday the server went down several times and during play the server was continually laggin gplayers this will explain your problem.

 

[Turamber]

Thanks for that.

Tried the shift & P thing, but don't really understand what it means! The "P" sign flashes red very now and again??

Also am getting the same as last night -- both player characters and NPC's keep disappearing and then reappearing. Need to get this sorted.

 

[Danya]

p = packet loss, you're dropping packets so losing information about monsters, NPCs etc. Get a hold of ping plotter and check out where you're loosing the packets.

 

[Turamber]

Okay, we are starting to get the bottom of this mystery. Thanks for the help all. Have got ping plotter now, what address do I have to enter to check my route? Thanks again!

 

[Danya]

The ip to prydwen, which is somewhere in the daoc files, though I forget where (user.dat I think). I'll check when I get home if you haven't found it yourself by then.

 

[Turamber]

Thanks D

I had a look on the tech support part of the forum (God, I must be blind) and the IP address is 193.252.123.13.

Not *really* sure how to use this Ping Plotter do hicky but it is showing 100% packet loss for the first 14 hops. Obviously not good. Will add this to my question to Right Now.

Sadly, I don't expect to be playing DaOC until this is sorted out... 50 will have to wait...

 

[aberrac]

100% packet loss on 14 hops? That's not so much bad as bloody disastrous!

That would suggest your ISP is using tin cans and string instead of routing equipment - don't mean to sound rude, but are you quite sure your ping plotter is set up right? Those results are almost incredibly bad....

 

[Turamber]

Ahh yes, oops. Got to the bottom of the mystery.

I installed a new anti virus software at the weekend ... and it has a firewall in it Now I didn't actually know what one of those was --- but i do now

Heh, also learned that it has an auto update feature which just clicked in during the middle of a tree pull .... turned the goddamn thing off now and going back to see if it had any consequences for my friends...

Who said anti viruses were good things!!!

 

[- Pathfinder -]

I long since disabled auto update on my FW God knows it causes more problems than any viruses I've had the dubious pleasure of encountering.

 

[Draigo]

Also NTL, if they are your ISP have been having major problems
as stated on their servers status page.

On the subject of FW's I have now been using Black ICE for
a while instead of Zone Alarm, much better ............

http://www.black-ice-firewall.com/