CuppaManga

I actually got all the way to Level 3 support, where they answer the phone as "Roadrunner Network Operations". I think the only thing higher would be the executive offices (and I wouldn't even know where to begin to access that).

As for PCCW's phone numbers, I'm a little afraid of that for 2 reasons: First, usually the phone numbers listed in a whois don't work at all anyway; and second, I worry if their attitude toward "suggestions" about running their network might be the *reason* Time Warner isn't allowed to call them.

I don't have a traceroute of the DSL connection just now, but the last time I ran one it connected via Level3.net to PCCW.

What I do have, though, is another interesting traceroute - the one to the west coast CoH servers via Time Warner, which doesn't seem to suffer packet loss:

traceroute to 216.107.240.3 (216.107.240.3), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1) 2.798 ms 0.727 ms 0.698 ms
2 10.65.64.1 (10.65.64.1) 9.078 ms 8.005 ms 7.406 ms
3 son0-2-2.mtgmoh1-rtr0.columbus.rr.com (24.29.2.61) 7.094 ms 6.420 ms 7.787 ms
4 network-024-029-002-129.cinci.rr.com (24.29.2.129) 8.736 ms 8.643 ms 8.553 ms
5 tge3-0-3.clboh1-rtr0.mwrtn.rr.com (65.25.137.85) 22.511 ms 20.581 ms 19.449 ms
6 ae-4-0.cr0.chi30.tbone.rr.com (66.109.6.68) 30.471 ms 35.774 ms 31.154 ms
7 ae-1-0.pr0.chi10.tbone.rr.com (66.109.6.155) 31.348 ms 26.988 ms 29.414 ms
8 ge9-4.br03.chc01.pccwbtn.net (209.8.108.37) 31.378 ms 37.214 ms 31.236 ms
9 ncsoft.ge5-11.br01.lax05.pccwbtn.net (63.218.73.2) 93.944 ms 89.417 ms 88.719 ms


If you look closely, you'll see the route is almost entirely identical up to PCCW, which is very weird. That's *also* why I have to wonder what their attitude will be when I call them - it's entirely possible they're throttling/limited traffic from Time Warner IP's headed to the east coast purposely either because of high traffic or because of lots of stray malware traffic. If I call they might just yell at me and tell me to get Time Warner to cut malware traffic or this will continue.

I like your reply so far, Soul Train, but there are a couple glitches:

1. I tried CoH both with a Windows 7 PC and a Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard. The red netgraph stripes appear on *both* when connecting to east coast servers, neither when connecting to west coast servers. That doesn't negate the possibility of both having the wrong packet settings, but it does decrease the chance (I do know that MacOS seems to be set to Automatic/1500).

2. The ping size capped at 4096, but it didn't lose any packets to that level.

3. TWC told me specifically that they're prohibited from contacting outside ISP's to fix problems.

Another interesting fact if I didn't mention it before: The most massive packet loss occurs only between 9 pm and 12 am eastern time. It loses packets outside that window, but much less painfully - scattered red netgraph lines, but not clusters or constant flood.



Partial traceroute:

traceroute to 216.107.248.3 (216.107.248.3), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1) 1.489 ms 3.306 ms 0.937 ms
2 10.65.64.1 (10.65.64.1) 12.824 ms 7.791 ms 7.706 ms
3 son0-2-2.mtgmoh1-rtr0.columbus.rr.com (24.29.2.61) 11.314 ms 6.987 ms 8.197 ms
4 network-024-029-002-136.cinci.rr.com (24.29.2.136) 7.925 ms 11.114 ms 9.249 ms
5 gig3-1.mtgmoh1-rtr4.cinci.rr.com (24.29.2.102) 9.871 ms 7.556 ms 13.279 ms
6 tge3-0-3.clboh1-rtr0.mwrtn.rr.com (65.25.137.85) 17.798 ms 20.055 ms 18.669 ms
7 ae-4-0.cr0.chi30.tbone.rr.com (66.109.6.68) 33.812 ms 34.519 ms 30.386 ms
8 ae-1-0.pr0.chi10.tbone.rr.com (66.109.6.155) 29.455 ms 28.935 ms 30.558 ms
9 ge9-4.br03.chc01.pccwbtn.net (209.8.108.37) 32.080 ms 40.184 ms 33.683 ms
10 63-218-83-242.static.pccwglobal.net (63.218.83.242) 39.826 ms 40.768 ms 38.198 ms

If you have an Intel GMA 3100 or 950, the flickering is the result of a workaround that fixed a problem with the cursor jumping around instead. So you're experiencing the lesser of two evils.

Let me know if you have an nVidia or ATI video though, because then it would be a new issue. You can check which one you have by opening System Profiler (pull down the Apple menu, select About This Mac, and then More Info) and then look at the Graphics/Displays section.

That particular model should work great with CoH. You won't get as high framerates as with iMac or Macbook Pro, but you're trading extreme portability and a much better price for it.

Follow the instructions in this thread:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=199092

And also send a Support request at help.ncsoft.com so they can track how widespread this issue is.

I talked to Time Warner, they claim the problem is with the one hop just outside their reach.

At the same time, the "one hop" is NCSoft's border router, just inside their ping-blocking firewall, and they claim the problems with their ISP have been fixed already and it's Time Warner's Fault.

So now everyone's pointing at everyone else, and this problem has little hope of getting fixed except by accident maybe. I guess all I can do at this point is deal with it and hope it doesn't turn into a permanent outage that nobody will fix.

P.S. I've been fighting with this problem for so long I even know that NCSoft's ISP has double redundant internet connections. Those coming into the east coast servers via Level3 (like Zoomtown here) are fine, it's the ones coming in via the other (PCCW?) are pretty much screwed.

Try this: Create a new user and switch to it, and then try launching CoH. Normally this might not work properly for patching, but we're testing for conflicts here. Also, don't use the Guest user.

Meanwhile, can you think of anything that might be loading at startup that CoH wouldn't like for some reason?

For the past few months I've had extreme packet loss/lag/rubberbanding on Triumph, and I'm a Time Warner/Roadrunner customer.

I've been through several troubleshooting steps from NC Support and Time Warner, replaced the cable modem, had replaced or checked all the cabling to the pole, and have gone all the way to Level 3 support.

This issue does not happen on west coast servers or the training room, or on Zoomtown DSL.

So far, Time Warner won't help as long as the "neighborhood loop" is ok, and NC Support is out of ideas.

As I'd rather not switch to Zoomtown because of occasional service issues, I'm posting this to see if it's a common problem, and if anyone has any experience in what to do about it.

I'll feel really stupid if this works, but did you reboot recently? Sometimes the wineserver process gets stuck.

What kind of Mac, graphics card, and MacOS are you running?

Also, did you throw out the City of Heroes Preferences folder as noted above? The patchserver IP is stored in there, and sometimes it stores incorrectly.

Follow the instructions here first:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=199092

If they don't work, open Console (Applications > Utilities > Console) and paste the last few lines from around the time of the crash.

Both. Contact Support, and also open Console (Applications > Utilities > Console) and copy and paste the last few lines right after CoH fails to a reply here.

Drag Cohupdater.exe to the desktop and launch it once. Then you can use the normal shortcut again.

Source: NCSoft Support knowledge base

Quick observations about the event:

- Exit from WL Realm not immediately obvious.

- Once the WL Realm kicks you to your zone, you're place off the map. My best guess of why this is happening: Your location is saved mid-teleport-off-the-map somehow, corrupting it.

- Occasional waves of fog in the WL realm seem to be hitting players with lower-end hardware worse than ones with higher-end hardware, making it more difficult for them to spot the secondary monsters.

- Present "preparation timer" causes a massive gathering of players running toggles. This may cause players with lower-end hardware/connections to suffer greatly, or be unable or unwilling to participate and risk a crash.

- Presents seem to be spawning strangely-leveled mobs.

- If a second instance of the WL Realm spawns, it produces an error: "Unknown command: enterscriptdoor

If you just installed City of Heroes for Mac from the retail DVD, and it either freezes or refuses to patch upon launch, try this:

- Make sure you're installing using an account with administrator access (do not use the Guest account)

- Open Safari and select Empty Cache from the Safari menu.

- Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and type or paste "dscacheutil -flushcache" (without the quotes of course) and press Return.

- Go to Users > (your name) > Library > Preferences and throw the City of Heroes Preferences in the trash.

Then launch CoH again and see if that works.

Also, email support anyway - this problem seems to be becoming a lot less rare than it should be, and I want them to be able to track it.

I'm going to see if I can pass this procedure along to Support, it seems to be becoming way too common an issue.