High ping junction causing unplayable lag? (Happening again)

[FuzzyYellow]

hey guys, i'm having another network issue. I tried to play my favorite game today, and was having latency/lag issues. but instead of it being a ping fluctuation, my Ping Junction is really unstable, going from 25-40 where it normally is, to 500/600/LAG withing seconds. not sure if this is caused by packet loss, or what? 

 

If i can't figure it out, then i will be calling Windstream (my ISP) to complain, but i want to try and solve the problem first because they are completely incompetent over there.  :angry:

 

Thanks guys

 

Its happening again! i have already tried restarting my router, and flushing dns. i don't know what else to do.

[sirtoby]

What game? might be  a server issue. Have you restarted your router? I have the same issue from time to time and a restart fixes it most of the time.

[FuzzyYellow]

What game? might be  a server issue. Have you restarted your router? I have the same issue from time to time and a restart fixes it most of the time.

Cube 2:Sauerbraten.

Not a server issue, because everyone els on the server is fine (30 other people)

I'll try restarting my router, didn't even think about that.

[BuntzenB]

Cube 2:Sauerbraten.

Not a server issue, because everyone els on the server is fine (30 other people)

I'll try restarting my router, didn't even think about that.

 

Try flushing dns

[sirtoby]

Cube 2:Sauerbraten.

There are still people playing this? I was into that game some years ago, but I didn't expect that there is still a community

[FuzzyYellow]

There are still people playing this? I was into that game some years ago, but I didn't expect that there is still a community

yup, there's always people in Demophobia, i'm also in the process of applying for a Crowd membership

 

Also, the router restart seemed to fix it, thanks for the help!

[FuzzyYellow]

Try flushing dns

i also flushed DNS for good measure, and it helped even more

[BuntzenB]

i also flushed DNS for good measure, and it helped even more

 

Yay! hope it stays fixed!

[FuzzyYellow]

Its happening again! i have already tried restarting my router, and flushing dns. i don't know what else to do. 

[Noxxx]

are you using wifi? if so, it could be caused by low signal or some kind of interference

[FuzzyYellow]

are you using wifi? if so, it could be caused by low signal or some kind of interference

Nope. I've got a wired connection.

[Noxxx]

Nope. I've got a wired connection.

 if it's wired, here are the reasons I can think of:

* bad routing path

* your ISP is trolling you

* bad router

* someone else in your household is using up all the bandwidth

[FuzzyYellow]

if it's wired, here are the reasons I can think of:

* bad routing path

* your ISP is trolling you

* bad router

* someone else in your household is using up all the bandwidth

Well, it happens even when no one is on the internet, so that's not it.

The router should be fine, seems to work for everything else besides this one game.

Trolling ISP is a possibility, but if it was the routing path, how would I fix that?

[JamesDwho]

A good way to find out where the congestion is in your connection is to perform a traceroute, it will show each hop (network router) your connection passes, where there is a large delta in minimum and maximum ping then that may likely be the cause. If that's the case you might need to you contact your ISP. To do a traceroute find the IP of the server you're trying to connect to and then in windows command prompt type "tracert (server IP here)" eg "tracert 8.8.8.8" . If it is an issue with one of the network hops that's either on the server provider side or the ISP side using a VPN may resolve your problem depending on what is the issue. Although using a VPN for online play will likely result in higher ping, it all depends on where the VPN server is located.

[flexin1981]

although trace-route can be an indication, ISP's often give low priority to ICMP by default. I would try a tcp trace-route which takes this one step further and can see how the type of traffic is getting prioritized.

 

You would need to download a tools to do this something like this.

 

http://www.elifulkerson.com/projects/tcproute.php

[FuzzyYellow]

I've done a trace route before, and sometimes it was fine, and other times it didn't even go through. Although simply pinging the server resulted in no packet loss.

[FuzzyYellow]

although trace-route can be an indication, ISP's often give low priority to ICMP by default. I would try a tcp trace-route which takes this one step further and can see how the type of traffic is getting prioritized.

 

You would need to download a tools to do this something like this.

 

http://www.elifulkerson.com/projects/tcproute.php

ok, i tried to run the thingy, and its saying "timed out" over and over again...

[FuzzyYellow]

ok, i ran a traceroute to the game server, and here are the results. there are misses in the 6th and 8th hops.

 

 

[flexin1981]

If that is the case then it seems that the path has turned off the function of returning icmp unreachable messages to the sender when the packet TTL reaches 0.

 

By the sounds of it there is no real way to see if there is a hop in the middle that is causing this other that the standard trace-route that you have done. If this was my issue I would try to narrow down the time that I am seeing this as there could be congestion at the ISP, then you may have something solid to take to them.

 

perhaps some type of script. 

[flexin1981]

just seen your post,

 

That, latency seems really bad overall.

 

Just to compare I tried the same trace and got 34ms to the end server. How far from the local exchange are you ?

[FuzzyYellow]

If that is the case then it seems that the path has turned off the function of returning icmp unreachable messages to the sender when the packet TTL reaches 0.

 

By the sounds of it there is no real way to see if there is a hop in the middle that is causing this other that the standard trace-route that you have done. If this was my issue I would try to narrow down the time that I am seeing this as there could be congestion at the ISP, then you may have something solid to take to them.

 

perhaps some type of script. 

well, it seems to be all the time that i have this issue. and certain games are affected more than others. so idk what to do really. not exactly sure what you mean by the first line... i'm not that knowledgeable in networking...

[FuzzyYellow]

just seen your post,

 

That, latency seems really bad overall.

 

Just to compare I tried the same trace and got 34ms to the end server. How far from the local exchange are you ?

I'm from minnesota, USA, so my ping will be astronomically higher. a normal ping for me to this server is about 150-160ms which is fine for the game that ther server is for.

 

not sure what you mean by local exchange. do you mean my ISP? because i'm about 10 miles from that (i think)

[flexin1981]

  not exactly sure what you mean by the first line... i'm not that knowledgeable in networking...

It is not really important  I wouldn't worry about that.

 

As for the lag it seems that you are just on the edge of where the lag becomes noticeable and it only takes a small issue to cause havoc. I am not that familiar with the US spec for the DSL, but here in the UK we have hubs in each area that collect all the signals from the homes and collate them into one big signal that goes into the internet. The further away from this hub your home is the weaker the signal and the slower and more unreliable the connection becomes.

 

I have had an issue in an office once where the ISP keeps an eye on the connection and if it is stable for a while they try to jack up the speed, and this goes on till they hit the limit, this caused the office to loose connection for two days as they went too high on the speed. I am not sure if this works the same over there but perhaps they can try to throttle you a little for the trade off of stability.  

[FuzzyYellow]

It is not really important  I wouldn't worry about that.

 

As for the lag it seems that you are just on the edge of where the lag becomes noticeable and it only takes a small issue to cause havoc. I am not that familiar with the US spec for the DSL, but here in the UK we have hubs in each area that collect all the signals from the homes and collate them into one big signal that goes into the internet. The further away from this hub your home is the weaker the signal and the slower and more unreliable the connection becomes.

 

I have had an issue in an office once where the ISP keeps an eye on the connection and if it is stable for a while they try to jack up the speed, and this goes on till they hit the limit, this caused the office to loose connection for two days as they went too high on the speed. I am not sure if this works the same over there but perhaps they can try to throttle you a little for the trade off of stability.  

our internet seems to be fairly stable overall, speeds stay consistent, as well as ping. i guess i will just have to live with it