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[Fixed] Network and loading weirdness

Discussion in '*** Bug Report Archive (After R75) ***' started by Justiciar, Apr 10, 2021.

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  1. Thor99Plyr

    Thor99Plyr Avatar

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    I'm experiencing the same issues as described; PELICAN error, infinite loading screen, loads but in "ghost" mode. Today it won't get past the infinite loading screen. I have to Ctrl-Alt-Delete, task manager and "end task" to get out.
     
  2. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    Can you guys check and confirm your Firewall Settings all have the following ports open and available to the game https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=19

    Besides the system specification to run the game, the following firewall ports must be open for the Launcher and Game Client to run properly.

    Launcher:
    TCP 5074
    UDP 3544
    UDP 6881

    Game Service:
    UDP 5054
    UDP 5055
    UDP 5056
    UDP 5057
    UDP 5058
    UDP 5059

    It almost seems that some of these errors might be related to that?
     
  3. dogfacedmenace

    dogfacedmenace Avatar

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    No joy for me.
    When this initially started happening I added SOTA to the Apps allowed through the firewall.
    Just to be sure though I added each individual port but i'm having the same issues.
     
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  4. Justiciar

    Justiciar Avatar

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    @Anpu , Hi. If it was a firewall error, the blocking would be constant (at least for whatever functionality that port is required for), not intermittent.
    All, I've added both SOTA and SOTA Launcher to the firewall exception list, allowing them universal port and protocol access but it still doesn't help.
    Could the developers please check to make sure they have code to deal with UDP lost packets? I call UDP "Unreliable data protocol" since it essentially guarantees lost packets. It is up to the developer to make sure that missed packets are noticed and retried. I would guess that sometimes important packets are being lost and not retransmitted. The problem is that if you do this too often you can get repeated packets or flood the server while if you do it too in frequently you end up waiting.
    I hope the developers did not implement 2 finite state machines (client and server) that use UDP for communications. That would be a recipe for disaster. Microsoft tried that with DCOM in 2000 and ended up going back to TCP to fix its mess.
    What's weird is that this only occurs on Coordinating Data and the initial login screen. What's so special about these two things? Is it possible that only those particular items have no retry mechanism?
     
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2021
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  5. Echondas

    Echondas Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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  6. dogfacedmenace

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    @Echondas thanks for the link but this all started on/shortly after the patch a couple weeks ago.
    However, I did rollback MS Updates and no joy.
    I wasn't even able to logon today.
    Tomorrow I plan on logging on to a different rig at a different household. If there's still issues then it's definitely not on my end.

    Cheers,
     
  7. Justiciar

    Justiciar Avatar

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    @Echondas , I've taken a look at the items and the issues seem to be with the vGPU affecting frame rates in single-player games. I see nothing in the posts indicating it is affecting networking which would affect MMORPG games such as WoW. I also suggest someone take a look at why CPU usage goes up drastically every time the game needs to perform network activities.
    That being said, it is obvious that something significant has changed. The game goes into Windows "waiting" circle-cursor which it didn't before. There are also times when it goes out of full-screen mode for perhaps 100ms and then back.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2021
  8. farmhadCrafter

    farmhadCrafter Avatar

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    ill post my ping to your network on discord
     
  9. Echondas

    Echondas Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    Oh well - it was worth a try.. was a shot in the dark since that article was referring to FPS and such not network issues (like Justiciar mentioned)
     
  10. farmhadCrafter

    farmhadCrafter Avatar

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    Might be a shot in the dark but i do remember a altcoin mining website which had a lot of disconnects to the miners... it was due to the host providers firewall settings
     
  11. Justiciar

    Justiciar Avatar

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    In this case we cannot say that there are any "disconnects" since UDP is connectionless. There are no "connections" to terminate, just packets that are filtered out, and since UDP packets can simply hit congestion and be destroyed there's no way to know what the exact cause of it is, or for that matter where it is between client and server. All we can say is that packets may be getting lost and/or SOTA Client may be using the wrong ports and/or SOTA Server may be sending packets to the wrong ports. One other thing is with UDP, why are there all of these "the connection to the server has been lost" messages? There is no connection to the server, and if you are using UDP, packet loss is the developer's responsibility (unless your framework/package does the detection and retransmission for you).

    One thing I would like to know is how this "waiting for your character to leave the previous scene" thing works. I logged in to SOTA after a failed load and got "your character is still in the game" and it wanted me to resume at Outlander Welcome Center. Then it decided to load the Novia map instead of Outlander Welcome Center and went to "waiting for your character to leave the previous scene" for like 5-10 minutes. Why did it not just simply reload Outlander Welcome Center, or give me the option of going to the other zone or forcing a transition to the new zone immediately?
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2021
  12. Chris

    Chris Tech Lord Moderator Ambassador SOTA Developer

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    We're seeing higher pelicans and we don't see any reason on our end. The only common element we've seem is that they are all on Windows and started a few weeks ago. We're seeing about 70 Pelicans a day server wide from windows machines and less than 1 a day from OSX/Linux.
     
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  13. Echondas

    Echondas Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    @Vesper Just reported in Universal Chat that he logged in and was sent to the Overworld as a ghost -- I zoned to him, and he shows as a normal player, except naked, with 10 in each stat. He also said he is running Linux to try and circumvent the issue he was having with Windows and using a different ISP than usual (mobile hotspot on his phone).

    [​IMG]
     
  14. Vesper

    Vesper Avatar

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    04/22/2021 13:01
    Title:
    Reproduction Rate:
    Blocker?
    Details:
    Steps to Reproduce:
    User Specs:
    OS: Linux 5.4 Linuxmint 20.1 64bit
    CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor (16) System RAM: 32097
    GPU: GeForce RTX 3080/PCIe/SSE2 GPU RAM: 10240
    SotA.Linux.64.1376.Date.04.09.21
    Area: Novia
    Area Display Name: Novia
    Loc: (152.7, 13.0, 69.0)
    Debug: Tm92aWF8fCgxNTIuNzA4LCAxMi45NjgsIDY4Ljk3MSl8KDAsIC0wLjg3LCAwLCAwLjQ5NCl8MzcuODQxNzl8NDcuMDUyNzN8MjA=

    Same issue as always. Installed Linux, likely circumstance but connectivity is worse than the last attempts under Windows.
    Ive disabled firewalls, bypassed my router, tried tethered to my phone. All the same issues.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2021
  15. Tyredas

    Tyredas Avatar

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    I have posted a ping in discord screenshots. Your packet loss is coming from cogentco.com

    This is not a windows issue this is a provider issue

    please look into this. Thanks
     
  16. Chris

    Chris Tech Lord Moderator Ambassador SOTA Developer

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    Packet loss based on a specific routing could explain it. Doesn't seem to be happening for everyone but again, might just be some people are getting routed through a bad hop. We have a small enough mac/Linux player base that they just might not be on a bad route and not showing up. Investigating and I'll reach out to cogentco if I can come up with some hard data.
     
  17. Chris

    Chris Tech Lord Moderator Ambassador SOTA Developer

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    I looked at your tracert and it is taking a different path than mine. I just ran 1000 pings with zero loss but you're losing packets at the last hop which is different than mine. I've filed a ticket with Cogent, our main network backbone, and expect a response within 24 hours.
     
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  18. Echondas

    Echondas Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    @Chris
    If you have a linux box - try 'mtr' my traceroute - it is a useful combo.

    On Windows, the 'pathping' command is similar.

    If you're looking to add on to your monitoring, check out smokeping.
     
  19. Justiciar

    Justiciar Avatar

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    As for Linux, Europe is very Linux while North America is very Windows. Not sure about Asia.
    My last 2 pathping hops are
    te0-3-0-19.rcr51.b043596-0.aus02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.24.58.62] then
    te0-0-1-0.nr11.b006630-0.aus02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.24.52.174]
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2021
  20. dogfacedmenace

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    Just a little sitrep.
    Earlier in the week I tested my account from a different household on a different machine and there were no connection/loading scene issues.
    Thursday I wiped my hdd and reinstalled Win 10 but still had the same issues, was ready to permanently uninstall.
    I was logged in for the stream (it took a few attempts) but I was hopeful to hear the problem was being looked into.
    I relogged a little after the stream and haven't had a connection issue since.
    I'm hoping the issue is resolved and thanks to whomever had a hand in fixing it.

    Cheers,
     
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