POL News: All Worlds Maintenance

[Tok]

Maybe because ALL these people use the same third party stuff (and cheats) ... Ive never used "3rd party" on this computer, and reinstalled Windows+FFXI recently because Windows is a fucking OS, so in a sense my FF folder is clean. Everything works just fine. All the ppl i know that don't have trouble downloaded the update as soon as it was available (took like 30 mins).


Instead of arguing it's SE's fault, just uninstall FFXI and resinstall it after, and i bet your problems will disappear. You know, on thursday i tried to download the update on my 2nd computer, and gave up, because it was impossible, so i bet all those problems put corrupted files in your PS2/xbox/PC. If your want to have the game work fine juste like me, reinstall the game. You'll have a 3H update to do .. no big deal.

i use ps2 and i have all these problems, and i checked my files 3 times and they all came back with no problems

im sorry but i shouldnt have to reinstall the game just to fix a problem that SE should fix

 

[Uzor]

And for us stupid people that means.....?

The

1 26 ms 22 ms 21 ms ua-83-227-173-65.cust.bredbandsbolaget.se [83.22
173.65]

part simply means that it took the first package 26 ms to reach the first "hopp", 22 ms the second time, and 21 ms the third time.

The

10 63 ms * 62 ms 72.14.232.241

part means that it took 63 ms to reach the second "hopp", the second one times out (didn't reach its target), and the thrid hopp took 62 ms to reach its destination.
The

13 63 ms 62 ms 62 ms gv-in-f147.google.com [216.239.59.147]

Simply means it reached its target, gv-in-f147.google.com which is the server google is hosted on, in 63, 63 and 62 ms respectively. It also shows the IP of google's server.

 

[Dowzer]

Yes, part of the problem lies with SE because their way of making sure packets reach their destination is to send everything twice. So if both those packets are lost, you'll DC. If they used a more reliable protocol, like most things use (internet, AIM etc.), you wouldn't have this problem at all. This is why your other applications work the way you'd expect them to work.

Alrighty. You said it yourself.

Square Enix themselves said to wait, patiently. (albeit they haven't said how long)

In no way have they told us -ANYTHING- you have been saying is a problem solver. The reason why? They do not want us to risk tampering with our own connection.

 

[Everlasting]

Everything uses a different protocol then FFXI, because FFXI's protocol sucks.

Yes, part of the problem lies with SE because their way of making sure packets reach their destination is to send everything twice. So if both those packets are lost, you'll DC. If they used a more reliable protocol, like most things use (internet, AIM etc.), you wouldn't have this problem at all. This is why your other applications work the way you'd expect them to work.

but you probably didn't read the above part anyway.

You can still perform a tracert. I know, the Swedish FFXI population did th esame thing and found out the problem was a bottleneck in one of the backbones in Russia. We told our ISP and PlayOnline about it and the problem was eventually fixed.

Tracerout is still a good way to find where a bottleneck occurs simply because it sends a packet to a destination to see how long it takes to reach it. If it finds a bottleneck, it choses another route to attempt to reach its target. Atleast that's how I remember it when I took networking courses.

I'll clarify a little bit: By default most versions of traceroute and ping will use the ICMP protocol. This protocol is never used to actually transmit data, it is for testing purposes only. FFXI and many other games use UDP protocol which is completely different than ICMP, the big one is ICMP doesn't use ports (like 80 for WWW and 22 for SSH, 6666 or whatever for Doom, etc) whereas UDP does use port numbers. By testing with ICMP the tests will be inherently flawed because the right thing isn't being tested.

Many people have performed traceroutes, look at the various FFXI message boards, Alla's main forum is overflowing with them.

If this was truly a networking related problem wouldn't people have problems getting to at least some JP web sites including possibly pol.com? Wouldn't sites like InternetWeatherReport be showing some problems? Wouldn't we be hearing things about how AIM is acting funky when people from the US talk to their JP friends? If this was simply network congestion or a link down we would be seeing many more problems, not just FFXI and other places would be talking/reporting about it. If one point in the journey is congested or broken it will most likely be broken for all things, not just FFXI.

You're a good guy Uzor but right now your heated emotions mixed with incomplete technical understanding is making for a lot of unncessary arguing.

 

[Burne]

nvm.. should have refreshed before posting

 

[CmdrFly]

Yes, it saves information all the time which route it have previously take, and how long it takes to adjust the route in order to find the fastest one to take. Tracert don't do that though, as you say. But it still technically finds another way.

Not really. It gets the IP of the destination then goes to your gateway. Your gateway says "wtf, I dont know how to get here - go talk to this guy". Bam, first response to tracert.

Goes to the next hop, that router says "wtf, I don't know how to get here - go talk to this guy". Bam, second response to tracert. Lather rinse repeat until your node gets a response from the destination.

This is all determined by BGP and any internal routing protocols (EIGRP or OSPF seem to be most common with sensible companies), tracert is just the dumb terminal outputting to your screen.

If the routing protocols change the route between your node and the destination, then tracert displays the new routes next time you run it. But this is not caused by tracert - your computer does not keep records of routes to places you've contacted recently, your gateways do that.

All routing protocols today maintain their own route tables based on communications with other appliances, not on requests from nodes inside the network. RouterA talks to RouterB, gets it's list of routes, determines the fastest next-hop based on various metrics, updates it's routes, then propagates that to any other appliances it is specified to push updates to. It's a lot more complicated than this but you get the idea.

 

[Uzor]

lol uzor if SE really can't fix it with all there resources how do you expect us to I gues i should have said.

You: Complaining about us not fixing a problem we can't fix.

Us: Comlaining about SE not fixing a problem they can't fix (so you say)

I have done all the things you said to do and I still have the problem on my PS2, Xbox 306, PC and even when I use my laptop at work I have the problem although in different zones than at home. So now that I have tried everything I can think of I am askin SE to do something about it even if they have to contact another company and get them to do it. I pay for the service and I expect to have it.

BTW just because it happens to you in sweden all the time doesn't make it all right. It also proves that the problem has happend before and they should know why and how to fix it.

I choose to actually get what I pay for instead of sit by and let them stick it to me. You can let them take your money in return for nothing if you want thats your choice.

Great, then we can conclude that the problem is somewhere between your house and SE.

Since everyone don't have the same problems, we can conclude that the problem is somewhere between your house and somewhere before SE's building.

Since you say you have the same problem on all of your consoles, we can conclude the problem is somewhere in the backbone.

Thus, people with the problem need to perform a tracert to find out where the backbone is.

And no, I didn't once said you need to fix the problem. I'm quite aware that that is impossible. What I said whas that you could contribute to solving the problem instead of sitting on your hands and complain.

 

[CmdrFly]

I'll clarify a little bit: By default most versions of traceroute and ping will use the ICMP protocol. This protocol is never used to actually transmit data, it is for testing purposes only. FFXI and many other games use UDP protocol which is completely different than ICMP, the big one is ICMP doesn't use ports (like 80 for WWW and 22 for SSH, 6666 or whatever for Doom, etc) whereas UDP does use port numbers. By testing with ICMP the tests will be inherently flawed because the right thing isn't being tested.

Neat, I didn't know that. Good info.

 

[Zyndara]

Yes, I know. Your ISP will quite naturally tell you its nothing wrong at their end. I do believe I even wrote that myself. You need to ask if there's anything you can do etc.

And yes, all 3 of the times I had the same problem, everything was working fine except for FFXI. So yes, I've been in that possition more then once. I do believe I've written this 3-4 times now, aswell. I'm not sure how many more times I have to write that I've been in the situation before you snap it up, though. I'll see that as an experiment.

And comparing this to a movie theatre is rather out there, as its not even close to similar.

Wow you're really not getting this. Let me help you out: This problem is happening for people in EU & NA locations almost exclusively. I found that out when I tried to get support through POL Service & Support. It is happening to all types of system users (PS2, Xbox & PC), it is happening to people with DIFFERENT INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS, is happening with different zones on different characters within the same account. You really need to stop talking to all of us like we're morons. Get it through your skull, this is not an isp problem when you're talking about random people that widespread with different isps having this issue. Calling my internet service provider is kind of ridiculous considering it's obvious the issue is not with their service. And furthermore PCHAN, it is not a windower issue or a dat changing issue because people have posted again and again that they use neither and are still having this problem. And btw,that is a ridiculously slanderous and irresponsible thing to say that anyone having problems of this nature cheats. Not to mention, your statement about "Oh reinstall, it's no big deal" is crap. It is a big deal. It's a ridiculously long amount of time to reinstall. 3 hours is being modest even with a fast computer. And I believe someone said in one of the other posts they did a reinstall and it didn't solve the problem anyway. Not to mention if you have any marks on your maps, they get wiped, which may not be a big deal to some, but when I had to reinstall a few months back, maps that were marked over time with important information (ie: sky nm locations/entrances) were wiped clean.

If you'd like to keep telling yourself SE is doing great and we're all a bunch of whining bitches, you keep telling yourself that. But please, stop spouting that garbage here. Because this is frustrating enough to deal with without someone trying to tell us to shut up and cope. I spend money to play this game and plenty of my personal time which has value to me. With this number of people having issues (and yes, there is a large number of people having issues, so just because it doesn't affect you doesn't mean it isn't affecting most people), yes, SE needs to step up and locate the problem. Their product is now defective for a LOT of their userbase, and "yeah we don't know what's wrong with it" isn't going to keep those players paying for long. They can trace the problem a hell of a lot easier and more thoroughly on their end than we could with our limited resources.

I mean seriously "Just run a tracert and stop bitching?" M'kay. And when we find this magical backbone issue, and we've been so proactive, oh sage of bottlenecking, what then?

 

[Uzor]

Not really. It gets the IP of the destination then goes to your gateway. Your gateway says "wtf, I dont know how to get here - go talk to this guy". Bam, first response to tracert.

Goes to the next hop, that router says "wtf, I don't know how to get here - go talk to this guy". Bam, second response to tracert. Lather rinse repeat until your node gets a response from the destination.

This is all determined by BGP and any internal routing protocols (EIGRP or OSPF seem to be most common with sensible companies), tracert is just the dumb terminal outputting to your screen.

If the routing protocols change the route between your node and the destination, then tracert displays the new routes next time you run it. But this is not caused by tracert - your computer does not keep records of routes to places you've contacted recently, your gateways do that.

All routing protocols today maintain their own route tables based on communications with other appliances, not on requests from nodes inside the network. RouterA talks to RouterB, gets it's list of routes, determines the fastest next-hop based on various metrics, updates it's routes, then propagates that to any other appliances it is specified to push updates to. It's a lot more complicated than this but you get the idea.

Yes, I'm well aware of that. I do believe I didn't once say your computer kept track of where it goes. I do also believe I didn't say it was caused by tracert. All I said was that it sent packages, and the "hops" routes it forwards and saves information where it sends it.

Local area networks workvery much the same way. The gateways keeps track of routing information. Where a specific IP address coems from, and the route it takes, and then attempts to send it forward. Eventually it finds the closest route between computers on the network and everything runs faster. The gateways occasionally send that information between eachother to keep themselves synchronized.

 

[Zaltana]

what amazes me is that this hasnt hit the flameboard yet.

 

[duncanrun]

Yes we do agree that the problem is between my house and square. What I am sayin is I am paying square to keep all things running while I am paying for the service. If they choose to outsource a part of the process it is their responsibility not mine. They need to work with whoever they outsourced to and get it fixed. It is their responsibility not mine I am paying them. You seem to think its ok to sit around and not get what your paying for I dont.

 

[Kagemusha]

what amazes me is that this hasnt hit the flameboard yet.

I'm sure if you post a cat pic this should be pretty much flameboard-worthy.

 

[pchan]

i use ps2 and i have all these problems, and i checked my files 3 times and they all came back with no problems

im sorry but i shouldnt have to reinstall the game just to fix a problem that SE should fix

Ok, but if something is bugged on your hard disk no one can help you fix it. File check from pol might miss some files. That's the only way i see to know if it's Se's fault or not.

 

[Uzor]

Wow you're really not getting this. Let me help you out: This problem is happening for people in EU & NA locations almost exclusively. I found that out when I tried to get support through POL Service & Support. It is happening to all types of system users (PS2, Xbox & PC), it is happening to people with DIFFERENT INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS, is happening with different zones on different characters within the same account. You really need to stop talking to all of us like we're morons. Get it through your skull, this is not an isp problem when you're talking about random people that widespread with different isps having this issue. Calling my internet service provider is kind of ridiculous considering it's obvious the issue is not with their service. And furthermore PCHAN, it is not a windower issue or a dat changing issue because people have posted again and again that they use neither and are still having this problem. And btw,that is a ridiculously slanderous and irresponsible thing to say that anyone having problems of this nature cheats. Not to mention, your statement about "Oh reinstall, it's no big deal" is crap. It is a big deal. It's a ridiculously long amount of time to reinstall. 3 hours is being modest even with a fast computer. And I believe someone said in one of the other posts they did a reinstall and it didn't solve the problem anyway. Not to mention if you have any marks on your maps, they get wiped, which may not be a big deal to some, but when I had to reinstall a few months back, maps that were marked over time with important information (ie: sky nm locations/entrances) were wiped clean.

If you'd like to keep telling yourself SE is doing great and we're all a bunch of whining bitches, you keep telling yourself that. But please, stop spouting that garbage here. Because this is frustrating enough to deal with without someone trying to tell us to shut up and cope. I spend money to play this game and plenty of my personal time which has value to me. With this number of people having issues (and yes, there is a large number of people having issues, so just because it doesn't affect you doesn't mean it isn't affecting most people), yes, SE needs to step up and locate the problem. Their product is now defective for a LOT of their userbase, and "yeah we don't know what's wrong with it" isn't going to keep those players paying for long. They can trace the problem a hell of a lot easier and more thoroughly on their end than we could with our limited resources.

I mean seriously "Just run a tracert and stop bitching?" M'kay. And when we find this magical backbone issue, and we've been so proactive, oh sage of bottlenecking, what then?

Wow, see that's why customer service treat people like morons. How many times have I said I'm not saying its a ISP problem. All I said once was to call your ISP and ask for information how to trace the problem. That's far from saying its your ISP's fault. What's more is that Iv'e eve nsadi several tiems that its quite naturally that it happends to severa ldifferent ISP's

You're obviously not reading even half of my posts. Try doing that before you throw yourself at the quote button, because I've stated this more then once in almost every post.

And I didn't once call you whining bitches. You're seriously exagerating there. I did tell you to stop complaining, but that's far from callign someone a whining bitch.

I do appreciate the constant insults and remarks, though.

 

[Ubuntu]

I see that a news thread has turned into a trouble shooting thread? :biggrin:
well... has anyone try to tcpdump the data using ethereal while you're getting R0 ?

I see packets being dropped (at my end - the client side) from an IP in Japan and the port range is around 33xxx.
These packets can not reach POL thus you get R0

From what I understand SE uses something very similar to Cisco GSS that globally load balance user traffics to their systems that's why people from Japan and most people from Taiwan are not having this issue.

The global load balancer detects where you are coming from and decides what would be the shortest distance to route to.

By resetting your IP address I believe resets the ip stickiness table on the GSS that allows you to login again.. until the next R0

 

[Uzor]

Yes we do agree that the problem is between my house and square. What I am sayin is I am paying square to keep all things running while I am paying for the service. If they choose to outsource a part of the process it is their responsibility not mine. They need to work with whoever they outsourced to and get it fixed. It is their responsibility not mine I am paying them. You seem to think its ok to sit around and not get what your paying for I dont.

That's the point. If its a backbone problem, there's nothing SE can do if they don't know where it is. And finding it themselves would take a lot longer then their playerbase helping them out.

As I've said several times and still not gotten an answer to, exactly what is it you expect by complaining? there's nothign they can do, and complaining won't make it go faster. It'll only cause yourself to go around and be annoyed, andry and/or upset, which is clearly noticable by your attitudes in this very thread.

 

[Kotsu]

I do appreciate the constant insults and remarks, though.

Well in that case... you smell like dookie.


Today's my trolling day, I'm tired. >.>

 

[Zaltana]

I'm sure if you post a cat pic this should be pretty much flameboard-worthy.

im tempted but i cant till it actually hits the board. there are rules to follow with the kitties. :rtfm:

 

[Uzor]

I see that a news thread has turned into a trouble shooting thread? :biggrin:
well... has anyone try to tcpdump the data using ethereal while you're getting R0 ?

I see packets being dropped (at my end - the client side) from an IP in Japan and the port range is around 33xxx.
These packets can not reach POL thus you get R0

From what I understand SE uses something very similar to Cisco GSS that globally load balance user traffics to their systems that's why people from Japan and most people from Taiwan are not having this issue.

The global load balancer detects where you are coming from and decides what would be the shortest distance to route to.

By resetting your IP address I believe resets the ip stickiness table on the GSS that allows you to login again.. until the next R0

See, if everyone attempted to do what Ubuntu did, you could isolate the problem faster. It really isn't much harder then performing a tracert.

One of the times I had this problem, the problem was at a backbone in Japan aswell. It wasn't at the SE office, it was at a backbone in Japan. The time it took the longest to fix, the problem was with a backbone in russia.

So, Ubuntu, could you kindly provide us with the address you pinged towards?