Time Warner Customer playing on east coast server?
By
BayBlast,
Posted on: 2009-11-22 22:15 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Quote:
From your post, I get the feeling that you have only gotten phone support from Time Warner and not in-home support? If that's the case, you really need to have a tech come out to see if line noise is the issue. |
Originally Posted by CuppaManga
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... |
Aside from that though, have you tried just replacing your Ethernet cable(s)? They are actually not very sturdy, and overbending them (or even stepping on them) can permanently impair them. Btw, do you have a hub connected after the modem?
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.Driver Sweeper * CohHelper * HijackThis * TweakCoH * CPU-ID
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I'm REALLY hoping that the East Coast server issue from about a month or so ago isn't back. I haven't been in-game much lately to experience it, and when I have, I have been playing my villains on West Coast servers.
*prays it isn't back*
Quote:
Phone support at least 7 times, and in-home support twice - once for a line check, and a 2nd time they brought a tester and tested indoors, at the ground link, and on the pole. They found 1% packet loss (during the day, when its at its lowest) and dispatched a neighborhood maintenance crew. That was over a week ago.|
Originally Posted by BayBlast
From your post, I get the feeling that you have only gotten phone support from Time Warner and not in-home support? If that's the case, you really need to have a tech come out to see if line noise is the issue.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by BayBlast
Aside from that though, have you tried just replacing your Ethernet cable(s)? They are actually not very sturdy, and overbending them (or even stepping on them) can permanently impair them. Btw, do you have a hub connected after the modem?
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Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Then it's looking like a problem with the hops beyond Time Warner.. which rather sucks. 
If you can show where the hiccup in your traffic to CoH is occuring, you might be able to get Time Warner to inquire with whoever owns that part of the backbone.
Hopefully Soul Train will chime in. You might want to send a request for ST to comment here?
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I'm in NY using Time Warner. I do see occassional lag and there are fluctuations of the "green grass" in netgraph, and some duplicate-in (I forget what it's called exactly) on Pinnacle. But I don't have extreme lag and rubberbanding.
If the issue only occurs for east coast but not west coast servers, I think your connection from your computer to the pole is fine. I don't think the cable from your computer to the pole is so intelligent as to tell if something is going to the east or to the west. As mentioned by others, this is probably something beyond the cabling on your side.
Quote:
I'm another TW customer on the West Coast. I saw the problem occasionally on Friday for the first time, but didn't play over the weekend. Not sure if it's an isolated incident or something new to report yet.
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Originally Posted by CuppaManga
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. |
Not having the issue here with comcast that I was having with all east coast servers. But when we were having that issue it was the PCCW connection hop that was causing all the problems.
Friends don't let friends buy an ncsoft controlled project.
This is not an issue with TWC. The packtes are being lost at servers that are out of TWC's control.
This is the same issue from a month or two ago, and calling TWC to get support is going to do you no good as there is nothing they can do about it.
Edit: It is infact the same PCCW hop that is timing out.
I'm a sexy pork-chop!!!! - Running strong since July of '04
"Thread closed; I'm leaving this thread visible for St0n3y's reply." - Mod5
Quote:
Well we've pretty much established that already.|
Originally Posted by St0n3y
This is not an issue with TWC.
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Quote:
| ...calling TWC to get support is going to do you no good as there is nothing they can do about it. |
I think the main problem here is what kind of documentation of the problem would be enough for TW to act on, and does there have to be a certain number of complaining customers before they will take action with other said company. Getting the answers to those kinds of questions is why I was hoping Soul Train would chime in.
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* Defraggler * Program Security Scan * PC Performance Scan *
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.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Quote:
Time Warner's level 3 support told me they're specifically forbidden to call other ISP's and complain.|
Originally Posted by BayBlast
I think the main problem here is what kind of documentation of the problem would be enough for TW to act on, and does there have to be a certain number of complaining customers before they will take action with other said company. Getting the answers to those kinds of questions is why I was hoping Soul Train would chime in.
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Maybe I watch the wrong forums, but I haven't seen Soul Train around in months. Might not be reading these forums anymore.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Quote:
Oh, Soul Train's still around and posting. Do a search if you don't believe me.
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Originally Posted by CuppaManga
Maybe I watch the wrong forums, but I haven't seen Soul Train around in months. Might not be reading these forums anymore.
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TargetOne
"If you two don't work this out RIGHT NOW, I'm turning this invasion around and going home!" - Emperor Cole
Quote:
Take this from someone that knows first hand, if it is outside TWC's network there is nothing they can do. No ammount of calling and complaining will change that. As long as you are able to connect to the internet, there is nothing wrong with your TWC services. Wanting TWC to fix a problem that isn't their's is like asking Microsoft to fix your Nintendo Wii, just not going to happen.
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Originally Posted by BayBlast
Just because that part of the backbone is not directly under TW does not mean the TW won't do anything about it. If they pay to use a part of the backbone that then starts having consistent problems, you'd better believe they will be contacting whoever does own it.
I think the main problem here is what kind of documentation of the problem would be enough for TW to act on, and does there have to be a certain number of complaining customers before they will take action with other said company. Getting the answers to those kinds of questions is why I was hoping Soul Train would chime in. |
I'm a sexy pork-chop!!!! - Running strong since July of '04
"Thread closed; I'm leaving this thread visible for St0n3y's reply." - Mod5
Quote:
So you're saying there's nothing that can be done by anyone and I should just live with it? That's kind of a bleak forecast. I guess I should be thankful it's not a complete outage for weeks that no one can fix like some Comcast customers had.
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Originally Posted by St0n3y
Take this from someone that knows first hand, if it is outside TWC's network there is nothing they can do. No ammount of calling and complaining will change that. As long as you are able to connect to the internet, there is nothing wrong with your TWC services. Wanting TWC to fix a problem that isn't their's is like asking Microsoft to fix your Nintendo Wii, just not going to happen.
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Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Quote:
I meant in this particular forum. Threads in the tech issues forum tend to attract flame wars, so he might have given up posting here. I almost did too. |
Originally Posted by TargetOne
Oh, Soul Train's still around and posting. Do a search if you don't believe me.
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Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Quote:
No, what I am saying is there is nothing TWC is going to be able to do. They do not support anything past their network. Since this is an issue outside of the TWC network, nothing will be done on the part of TWC because your services with them are working fine.|
Originally Posted by CuppaManga
So you're saying there's nothing that can be done by anyone and I should just live with it? That's kind of a bleak forecast. I guess I should be thankful it's not a complete outage for weeks that no one can fix like some Comcast customers had.
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It should be NCSoft contacting the owners of the servers where the issue is happening.
I'm a sexy pork-chop!!!! - Running strong since July of '04
"Thread closed; I'm leaving this thread visible for St0n3y's reply." - Mod5
Quote:
There's always hope. At most companies, there are people willing to go beyond their official job description and do what's needed. Hopefully someone like that will hear about this and take a second look to see whose fault it really is.
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Originally Posted by CuppaManga
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. |
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Quote:
Unfortunately NCSoft says their ISP has already fixed the problem and it's Time Warner's fault.
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Originally Posted by St0n3y
It should be NCSoft contacting the owners of the servers where the issue is happening.
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Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Quote:
Time Warner and other ISPs purchase their access to the parts of the backbone that they do not own. Your statement seems more akin to saying that a landlord doesn't have to fix a leaky roof that effects only a handful of tenants out of many? |
Originally Posted by St0n3y
Take this from someone that knows first hand, if it is outside TWC's network there is nothing they can do. No ammount of calling and complaining will change that...
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If you have direct knowledge of why TW will not act like maybe because of internal polices or contractual restrictions, then please offer that instead of your deliberately cryptic and unhelpful statement of "Take this from someone that knows first hand..".
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LOL I used to do tech support for TWC, and they SUCK! XD
EDIT: forgot to mention this part. I'm on Freedom and have been experiencing lag abnormally, but I'm also in Canada and go through Roger's, who ALSO SUCKS XD
I'm here, just haven't been following these forums much.
OK. Here's what we DO know.
1) This only happens with some servers, not all, so we know it's not the client/ISP connection that is faulty. Else everywhere would show the same symptoms.
2) It does not occur with a secondary ISP, therefore the problem is not within NCSOFt's server farm or outbound connection.
I'm reviewing this with a coworker (god I love working with networking eggheads) and we're thinking this might be symptoms of a blackhole router 'tossing' packets that are too large (and therefore fragmented). Try setting MTU lower on your NIC, say, 1000 bytes, as a test, then 500 if the problem doesn't clear. This will result in more packets, but less will be broken up in transit (and thus potentially lost, because if a piece of a fragmented packet gets lost, then the re-transmit request goes for the whole packet, not just the piece.)
Another test you can do is to tracert to the target IP/host, take note of the last device that sends a reply, then PING to that host using larger and larger packets, until such time as you start noting lost packets. Set your MTU to this packet size, or lower, and see if you're still noting issues.
A caveat: pinging lots of large packets can sometimes cause ISP's to get upset at you - I'd not recommend setting pings higher than 14400 bytes.
Definitely take your results to TWC, and let them know this is LIKELY either their edge router or a device directly connected to it - if they try and tell you that it's 'off their network' then they can at the very least tell you the IP of the problem device, and you can then WHOIS that IP and contact the operator based on that. The tracert and ping test above should reveal this IP for you, so you won't necessarily have to put up with TWC's 'support' if you don't want to.
Just for grins, post output of your tracert here - we'll be able to see where that 'last hop' is and perhaps lend some insight.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
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
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Well the assumption is that the problem is on the network, not at the client. The test was to find out where things would 'break down' - it matters not which client you're using, you SHOULD see the same symptoms on both.
And TWC is bullshitting you - if they receive enough complaints from customers for a specific site, subnet, or backbone connection, you can be SURE their Network Operations staff will call the responsible party. The trick is getting past their 'customer service', which is only concerned with getting you onto and through their network. Kind of sad for an 'Internet Provider', that all they support is their network, but at the same time, if the problem is off their grid, they can neither fix it nor guarantee service for it, so I can see why they'd want to say no in regards to inquiries.
IN regards to the traceroute data, this is your last hop:
63.218.83.242 = [ 63-218-83-242.static.pccwglobal.net ]
(Asked whois.arin.net:43 about +63.218.83.242)
OrgName: Beyond The Network America Inc.
OrgID: BNA-42
Address: 450 Springpark PL
Address: Suite 100
City: Herdon
StateProv: VA
PostalCode: 20170
Country: US
NetRange: 63.216.0.0 - 63.223.255.255
CIDR: 63.216.0.0/13
NetName: BTN-CIDR5
NetHandle: NET-63-216-0-0-1
Parent: NET-63-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS.CAIS.COM
NameServer: NS2.CAIS.COM
Comment: ADDRESSES WITHIN THIS BLOCK ARE NON-PORTABLE
RegDate: 1999-12-09
Updated: 2004-11-12
OrgAbuseHandle: PAD13-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: PCCW AUP Department
OrgAbusePhone: 1-703-621-1637
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse.ops@pccwglobal.com
OrgNOCHandle: PUN6-ARIN
OrgNOCName: PCCW US NOC
OrgNOCPhone: 1-703-621-1637
OrgNOCEmail: usnoc@pccwglobal.com
OrgTechHandle: CDO54-ARIN
OrgTechName: Downes Chris
OrgTechPhone: 1-703-621-1619
OrgTechEmail: cdownes@pccwglobal.com
OrgTechHandle: PUN6-ARIN
OrgTechName: PCCW US NOC
OrgTechPhone: 1-703-621-1637
OrgTechEmail: usnoc@pccwglobal.com
(This is from the WHOIS lookup at SamSpade.Org). I would say, your next call should be to the PCCW US NOC number, above. Cite ALL the symptoms you've seen so far, including the spikes in packet loss during certain times of day. If they object to an end user calling them directly, tell them that you tried to get your provider to assist, but they have a strict hands-off policy with support outside their network.
Also, I would grab a traceroute to the same target host on the provider that works (the DSL connection) to use as a comparison. If it goes through the same backbone provider, just a different system, then you can use that to illustrate your point. If it goes through the same SYSTEM, then the problem is at the divergence point between the two - it may be that TWC and the DSL provider connect to the same edge router, but one of them has a bad port on their connection, for example.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
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.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
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.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination