What Causes Zone to Character Select?

[Obadiah]

<p>One of the most annoying glitches in the game that has existed since RoK (at least) is zoning into an instance to be greeted with "This instance has expired." It's a known glitch and as far as I can see a fix isn't on the horizon, but you can almost always avoid this by having one person zone in first. Most people seem to just accept it as part of the game's "character".</p><p>Fine. Whatever.</p><p>The next most annoying glitch in the game, IMO, is zoning to character select. This has been around longer. I'll go a month without it happening and then have it happen 3 times in one night. I don't think I've EVER seen a full raid of 24 people go from, say, Tomb to Palace without losing players to character select. Even a group running all 3 EF instances will probably lose someone at some point. Sometimes you can come back in still in group, sometimes not.</p><p>So ... given the amount of zoning that's done in the game, are there any tips for preventing this? Any idea what makes one more or less susceptible to this? Always zone out while facing South by Southeast? Stop the [Removed for Content] downloads while zoning? It doesn't seem to happen any more on my beefy machine than it does on my, um, chickeny? machine. Doesn't seem to happen more on the box that's connected via wireless vs. the one that's plugged into the router. [Removed for Content]? Anyone?</p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p>Turn off "Stateful Packet Inspection" on your router.</p><p>SOE packets look viral for some reason. /shrug</p><p>Fixed it for me anyway, every other zone was to char select.</p>

[TSR-KenC]

<p><cite>CoLD MeTaL wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Turn off "Stateful Packet Inspection" on your router.</p><p>SOE packets look viral for some reason. /shrug</p><p>Fixed it for me anyway, every other zone was to char select.</p></blockquote><p>Very interesting, CoLD MeTaL - I'll check into that further.</p>

[ashen1973]

<p>I believe that the 'this instance has expired' and crash to character select bugs are two different things</p><p>Sometimes when you zone into an instance, you will get the onscreen message 'this instance has expired' and then be zoned back out to the parent-zone (i.e fro ToMC back to Commonlands).</p><p> In my experience, this tends to happen if someone resets their persistant-timer while in the parent-zone and then trys to enter the instance. This doesn't tend to happen if you ensure that everyone resets timers while in a different zone, then enters the parent-zone, then enters the instance.</p><p>I.e if you are in commonlands and reset the timer, then enter ToMC, you may get kicked back out.</p><p>if you go to your GH, clear timers, then go to CL then enter instance, you don't get kicked out.</p><p>for crashes to desktop while zoning, I find I get less of these if I ensure my character has stood still for a few seconds before trying to zone. It happens very frequently if you run up to a zone-door and click right away. My guess is that something on the server takes a second or two to correctly store your exact location, and if this isnt stored correctly before zoning, you get the crash.</p>

[Obadiah]

<p>They are DEFINITELY two different things. I just felt the need to whine about one while asking about the other. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> It bothers me to have issues like this that everybody knows about linger.</p><p>I don't think the 'instance has expired' relates to resetting zone timers though. I say that because it also happens when no one has to reset the zone timer at all. For example, no one in our raid force Tuesday had been to Venril Sathir's Lair in months, so no one had to reset their zone timer at all. But we were antsy and careless and we all zoned together when we zoned. Poof. Expired.</p><p>Last time it happened to us (prior to Tuesday) was on a Thuuga run, for which, again, no one had a timer that needed to be reset. I think it was correctly identified as something that occurs when multiple people zone in simultaneously, or near simultaneously. The solution of having one person zone in to make sure it's all good while everyone else sits outside almost always seems to work. Having a workaround makes it less annoying, sure, but it doesn't make it OK.</p><p>I don't crash all the way to the desktop while zoning, I just zone to find myself back at the character selection screen. And then of course have to wait a bit before logging back in because the game still thinks I have a character in the world. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p><p>As for standing still, one of the two times it happened to me last night was when I used my call to GH, so I was standing still for 30 seconds (or whatever) while it cast. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /> The other time it happened was zoning into PR, for which I was standing still at least long enough to right click and select which of the two options to zone into. That being said, I've noticed the same phenomenon you mentioned .... it DOES seem to happen more frequently when running up to a zoneline spamming/hitting the 'f' key on the door.</p><p>Unfortunately I don't see an option for disabling/enabling SPI on my router though. Drag. I gues I could always try plugging one machine directly into the cable modem again to see if that lessens it on that machine in any way.</p>

[TSR-DanielH]

<p><cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>They are DEFINITELY two different things. I just felt the need to whine about one while asking about the other. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> It bothers me to have issues like this that everybody knows about linger.</p><p>.....</p><p>Unfortunately I don't see an option for disabling/enabling SPI on my router though. Drag. I gues I could always try plugging one machine directly into the cable modem again to see if that lessens it on that machine in any way.</p></blockquote><p>As you mentioned, the 'instance has expired' is a game bug and not something we handle through the tech support department.  You have probably done so already, but I would advise submitting a /bug report on the issue.</p><p>The crashing to character select problem definitely sounds like a router issue, though.  If you can then I would definitely suggest bypassing it temporarily so that we can see if it clears up the issue.  If the problem stops at that point then we'll need to look at configuring that router to work better with the game.</p>

[QuestingCrafter]

<p>Z2CS [Zone to Character Select] comes and goes for me -- it can happen ten times in a row one day, and then not again for weeks. Or one-half to one-third of the time for an afternoon session, but then it's fine come raid time.</p><p>Even more odd, sometimes if I let it sit at character select for 2-3 minutes (to clear my linkdead toon from the world), I can log back into said toon (or another) just fine; other times, I can't get back in whether I wait 2-3 or 5-10 minutes.</p><p>I had presumed it was an issue with the robustness of networking code from the client app -- but I'll also check for SPI, and consider bypassing.  =)</p>

[Wingrider01]

<p><cite>QuestingCrafter wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Z2CS [Zone to Character Select] comes and goes for me -- it can happen ten times in a row one day, and then not again for weeks. Or one-half to one-third of the time for an afternoon session, but then it's fine come raid time.</p><p>Even more odd, sometimes if I let it sit at character select for 2-3 minutes (to clear my linkdead toon from the world), I can log back into said toon (or another) just fine; other times, I can't get back in whether I wait 2-3 or 5-10 minutes.</p><p>I had presumed it was an issue with the robustness of networking code from the client app -- but I'll also check for SPI, and consider bypassing.  =)</p></blockquote><p>curious - is this on a wireless connection? Have seen wireless connections get overloaded on a UDP packet storm and just go into a soft reset which could cause what you indicate. Been a long time since I looked but seem to recall that a lot of EQ2's data transfer is UDP. Wired tends to be a little more forgiving then the wireless</p>

[Obadiah]

<p><cite>TSR-DanielH wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>They are DEFINITELY two different things. I just felt the need to whine about one while asking about the other. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> It bothers me to have issues like this that everybody knows about linger.</p><p>.....</p><p>Unfortunately I don't see an option for disabling/enabling SPI on my router though. Drag. I gues I could always try plugging one machine directly into the cable modem again to see if that lessens it on that machine in any way.</p></blockquote><p>As you mentioned, the 'instance has expired' is a game bug and not something we handle through the tech support department.  You have probably done so already, but I would advise submitting a /bug report on the issue.</p><p>The crashing to character select problem definitely sounds like a router issue, though.  If you can then I would definitely suggest bypassing it temporarily so that we can see if it clears up the issue.  If the problem stops at that point then we'll need to look at configuring that router to work better with the game.</p></blockquote><p>Plugged right into the cable modem ... still crashed to character select when I called to GH last night. And twice more on other zonings before my night was over. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Gladiolus]

<p>As far as I'm concerned, this is just the way EQ2 is written. I don't know anyone who has never had this problem, which has existed all the time I've played the game, but has got worse as time as passed. Crashing when going to the guild house is another one. Some guildies don't even want to go there any more because their crash rate is up to 100% since the last update. Another one is the Application has run out of the memory thing. The problem's been there forever and I can't see it ever being fixed.</p>

[QuestingCrafter]

<p><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>QuestingCrafter wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Z2CS [Zone to Character Select] comes and goes for me -- it can happen ten times in a row one day, and then not again for weeks. Or one-half to one-third of the time for an afternoon session, but then it's fine come raid time.</p><p>Even more odd, sometimes if I let it sit at character select for 2-3 minutes (to clear my linkdead toon from the world), I can log back into said toon (or another) just fine; other times, I can't get back in whether I wait 2-3 or 5-10 minutes.</p><p>I had presumed it was an issue with the robustness of networking code from the client app -- but I'll also check for SPI, and consider bypassing.  =)</p></blockquote><p>curious - is this on a wireless connection? Have seen wireless connections get overloaded on a UDP packet storm and just go into a soft reset which could cause what you indicate. Been a long time since I looked but seem to recall that a lot of EQ2's data transfer is UDP. Wired tends to be a little more forgiving then the wireless</p></blockquote><p>100% wired, router doesn't even have a wireless option. SPI *is* in the WAN menu.</p><p>So after six weeks, I've found merely turning SPI off has greatly reduced the occurence of this issue. It seems like SOE sends out an odd packet if the connection is briefly lost, and this packet is what was setting off the SPI detector, and severing the connection. I still lose connection at times, but most of the "long pauses" don't result in disconnection any more.</p>

[TSR-DanielH]

<p><cite>QuestingCrafter wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>100% wired, router doesn't even have a wireless option. SPI *is* in the WAN menu.</p><p>So after six weeks, I've found merely turning SPI off has greatly reduced the occurence of this issue. It seems like SOE sends out an odd packet if the connection is briefly lost, and this packet is what was setting off the SPI detector, and severing the connection. I still lose connection at times, but most of the "long pauses" don't result in disconnection any more.</p></blockquote><p>That's interesting and it might explain people reporting issues like 'EQ2 closes my whole internet connection'.  Thank you for keeping us informed regarding the issue.</p>