Frequent high ping post-merger

[MacDaddy62]

I am on a campus network that seems rather lacking in its ability to handle large numbers of connections.  Before the merger of Lucan D'Lere into Crushbone, my ping would often spike high for several seconds after I zoned.  However, if I stood still for a short while after zoning, my ping would usually settle down to an acceptable level, even during periods of high network usage.Ever since the merger, however, I often experience pings that remain consistently very high, regardless of whether I wait after zoning or re-log, particularly during periods of high network usage.  During periods of low network usage, my ping sometimes remains acceptably low.  I have been in communication with the administrators of my network regarding the line quality issues of their network, which issues I have phrased in general terms, not specifically with respect to EverQuest II, as I feel that phrasing my complaint specifically with respect to an online game might prompt them to not care about it.  However, the admins nevertheless have not been particularly responsive thus far.  Of course, I will continue to pester them, but I am now also seeking solutions elsewhere.I suspect that the contrast between my pre-merger and post-merger experiences may have something to do with the nature of the connection that the EQ2 client forms with the older hardware on which I understand LDL ran versus that which it forms with the newer hardware on which I understand Crushbone to run.  I don't think the problem is rooted in my hardware because I do not have these high ping issues using the same hardware on other connections.  Is there anything that either I or the support team can do to address my issue?  Thanks.

[TSR-JoshuaM]

I've got a test you can run that should give us much more information with what is going on with your latency.

You will need to open a command prompt as an admin (Start > Programs > Accessories > Right-Click Command Prompt and select Run as Admin).

Now, in the open Command Prompt window, you will need to run the following commands, 1 at a time, top to bottom.  These commands will pipe the results to a file created on your C drive, in the root folder.  You can cut and paste the contents of that text file in to a PM to me.

So, all set? Here’s the commands:    ipconfig /all > c:eq2info.txt    tracert unrest.everquest2.com >> c:eq2info.txt   tracert najena.everquest2.com >> c:eq2info.txt   tracert befallen.everquest2.com >> c:eq2info.txt   pathping unrest.everquest2.com >> c:eq2info.txt   pathping najena.everquest2.com >> c:eq2info.txt   pathping befallen.everquest2.com >> c:eq2info.txt

[MacDaddy62]

I'm bumping this post because progress with my IT department has been slow and because I may have new information. My problem appears to occur only on certain servers.  I created characters on Unrest and Antonia Bayle, for example, and had no lag problems aside from the spike that often occurs after zoning, which I described previously as having experienced pre-merger.  On Crushbone and Oasis, however, I get the persistent lag.  What is going on?  I have to believe you guys can address this issue if it is only occurring on certain servers.

[Wingrider01]

Azleya@Lucan DLere wrote:

I'm bumping this post because progress with my IT department has been slow and because I may have new information.My problem appears to occur only on certain servers.  I created characters on Unrest and Antonia Bayle, for example, and had no lag problems aside from the spike that often occurs after zoning, which I described previously as having experienced pre-merger.  On Crushbone and Oasis, however, I get the persistent lag.  What is going on?  I have to believe you guys can address this issue if it is only occurring on certain servers.

post the tracert information to those two servers and for unrest for comparision. The data packet maybe routed a different way to CB and Oasis an one of the border routers on the internet could be having issues.

Need to remember, just because you are using the same ISP for all the servers, the way the data paths for the internet to get to and from a location may not be the same, especially if the servers are coloc'd at differnet data centers

[MacDaddy62]

Obviously, the fact that my Crushbone traceroute appears to be unable to complete is highly suspicious.  However, my Oasis trace does complete, and yet I experience similar connection performance issues on Oasis as I do on Crushbone.  On closer inspection of the various traceroutes, the routes used to Crushbone and Oasis appear to be highly similar, while the one used to Unrest, on which I experience good performance, is markedly different.  However, I'm not sure what I can do to address the situation.  Is there some tool I can use, from my end, to force my connection to use a different route?  Can Sony effect such a change in data route from its end?  Are there other potential solutions?  Bear in mind that I have persistently been attempting to address this issue through my IT department, with no success thus far.Crushbone:Tracing route to ableq2-03-01.everquest2.com [199.108.202.97]over a maximum of 30 hops:  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  10.250.12.2  2     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.251.5.5  3    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.251.1.31  4    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  porter.vnet.wnec.edu [198.7.235.1]  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.  6     2 ms   184 ms   185 ms  host-198-7-226-65.oshean.org [198.7.226.65]  7     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  gi1-3.ccr01.pvd01.atlas.cogentco.com [38.104.178.21]  8     8 ms     8 ms     7 ms  te4-1.ccr01.hpn04.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.2.1]  9     9 ms     9 ms     9 ms  te0-2-0-6.ccr21.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.24.241] 10     9 ms     9 ms     9 ms  te0-2-0-0.mpd22.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.25.149] 11    16 ms    15 ms    15 ms  te0-3-0-6.mpd22.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.41.29] 12    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  te0-3-0-5.mpd22.iad02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.41.254] 13    18 ms    16 ms    17 ms  192.205.35.105 14    18 ms   185 ms   123 ms  cr2.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.122.134.170] 15    18 ms    18 ms    17 ms  cr84.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.123.10.250] 16    17 ms    17 ms    17 ms  12.122.134.1 17    19 ms   185 ms   123 ms  12-122-254-98.attens.net [12.122.254.98] 18    19 ms    18 ms    18 ms  mdf001c7613r0004-gig-12-1.wdc1.attens.net [63.240.193.14] 19    19 ms    19 ms    19 ms  vl20.ashaens-2.sonyonline.net [199.107.70.74] 20     *        *        *     Request timed out. 21     *        *        *     Request timed out. 22     *        *        *     Request timed out. 23     *        *        *     Request timed out. 24     *        *        *     Request timed out. 25     *        *        *     Request timed out. 26     *        *        *     Request timed out. 27     *        *        *     Request timed out. 28     *        *        *     Request timed out. 29     *        *        *     Request timed out. 30     *        *        *     Request timed out.Trace complete.Oasis:Tracing route to ableq2-06-01.everquest2.com [199.108.202.193]over a maximum of 30 hops:  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  10.250.12.2  2     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.251.5.5  3    <1 ms    <1 ms     1 ms  10.251.1.31  4    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  porter.vnet.wnec.edu [198.7.235.1]  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.  6     1 ms   185 ms   185 ms  host-198-7-226-65.oshean.org [198.7.226.65]  7     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  gi1-3.ccr01.pvd01.atlas.cogentco.com [38.104.178.21]  8     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  te4-1.ccr01.hpn04.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.2.1]  9     9 ms     8 ms     8 ms  te0-2-0-6.ccr21.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.24.241] 10     9 ms     8 ms     8 ms  te0-2-0-0.mpd22.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.25.149] 11    15 ms    16 ms    15 ms  te0-1-0-3.mpd22.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.6.5] 12    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  te0-3-0-5.mpd22.iad02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.41.254] 13    16 ms    16 ms    16 ms  192.205.35.105 14    18 ms   185 ms   123 ms  cr1.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.122.135.162] 15    19 ms    18 ms    18 ms  cr83.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.123.10.110] 16    17 ms    17 ms    17 ms  12.122.135.1 17    18 ms   185 ms   123 ms  12-122-254-98.attens.net [12.122.254.98] 18    18 ms    18 ms    18 ms  mdf001c7613r0003-gig-10-1.wdc1.attens.net [63.240.193.10] 19    18 ms    18 ms    18 ms  vl10.ashaens-1.sonyonline.net [63.240.201.58] 20    18 ms    18 ms    18 ms  ableq2-06-01.everquest2.com [199.108.202.193]Trace complete.Unrest:Tracing route to sdkeq2-05-01.everquest2.com [199.108.12.161]over a maximum of 30 hops:  1     2 ms     1 ms     1 ms  10.250.12.2  2     3 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.251.5.5  3    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.251.1.31  4     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  porter.vnet.wnec.edu [198.7.235.1]  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.  6     1 ms   185 ms   185 ms  host-198-7-226-65.oshean.org [198.7.226.65]  7     3 ms     3 ms     3 ms  gi1-3.ccr01.pvd01.atlas.cogentco.com [38.104.178.21]  8     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  te4-1.ccr01.hpn04.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.2.1]  9     9 ms     9 ms     9 ms  te0-2-0-6.ccr21.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.24.241] 10    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  te0-1-0-3.ccr21.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.126] 11    42 ms    42 ms    42 ms  te0-3-0-7.ccr21.atl01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.42.194] 12    42 ms    42 ms    41 ms  te0-0-0-6.ccr21.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.29.2] 13    78 ms    78 ms    78 ms  te0-2-0-3.ccr21.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.44.242] 14   119 ms   214 ms   208 ms  te3-2.ccr02.lax05.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.6.230] 15    78 ms    78 ms    78 ms  192.205.35.5 16    83 ms   186 ms   184 ms  cr2.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.84.218] 17    82 ms    82 ms    82 ms  cr2.sd2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.31.9] 18    82 ms    82 ms    82 ms  gar3.sd2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.109.69] 19    82 ms    82 ms    82 ms  mdf1-gsr12-2-pos-7-0.san2.attens.net [12.122.255.206] 20    82 ms    82 ms    82 ms  mdf001ffxmrs0002-eth-6-1.san2.attens.net [63.241.1.222] 21    86 ms    86 ms    86 ms  vl20.sdkollsw-2.sonyonline.net [63.241.6.50] 22    86 ms    86 ms    86 ms  sdkeq2-05-01.everquest2.com [199.108.12.161]Trace complete.

[TSR-JoshuaM]

The timeouts might be an issue but could you get the pathpings done as well?

[MacDaddy62]

All my pathping requests from this location appear to get dropped before they can get out of the local network.  Please note the significantly different routes taken to Crushbone and Oasis, on the one hand, and Unrest, on the other hand.

[TSR-JoshuaM]

Packet loss before it leaves your internal network indicates a block or partial block is in place.  You need to configure your port forwarding and disable any firewalls.

Sony Online Entertainment does not support the use of firewalls and proxies, including cable/DSL NAT routers, campus and office networks, or any type of Internet connection sharing services. However, in an effort to assist you in configuring your systems on your own, we would like to provide the following information which may help you in setting up your firewall to work with EverQuest II

EverQuest II Station Launcher and Patch Servers:

A TCP connection is initiated from a Station Launcher client port greater than 1023 to patch.station.sony.com port 7000. 

A UDP connection is initiated from the Station Launcher client port greater than 1023 to sdlaunchpad1.station.sony.com and sdlaunchpad2.station.sony.com port range 3016-3021 and 9700-9703. 

EverQuest II Patch: 

A TCP connection is initiated from the EverQuest II client port greater than 1023 to patch.everqeust2.com, abepatch.everquest2.com, laepatch.everquest2.com, or amspatch.everquest2.com at port 7010. 

Everquest II Game Client:

UDP connections are initiated from the EverQuest II client port greater than 1023 to servers on UDP ports 9100, and UDP ports in the range 32800-33000 

Additionally, ICMP messages type 0 (echo reply), 3 (unreachable), 8 (echo request) and 11 (expired) should be permitted bi-directionally between the client PC and the EverQuest II servers. 

EverQuest II Servers Subnets:

There are multiple IP addresses for the Patch and Station Launcher clusters, and they may change as the network demands, so check often using a DNS lookup tool if you provide a specific firewall rule for these services. The EverQuest II server IP addresses are currently in these subnets: 64.37.158.*, 199.108.2.*, 199.108.12.*, 199.108.202.*, 199.108.203.*, 195.33.135.* 

[MacDaddy62]

If there is a block or partial block in place, why do I get good connection performance on Unrest and Antonia Bayle?You say you don't support the use of firewalls, but based on the above-indicated disparity between my connection performance on different servers, my issue may not relate to any firewall settings at all.

[TSR-JoshuaM]

The game is designed to use multiple ports as it is needed.  If a single port in the usable range is not functional, you may never actually run in to any issues.  Or you may have nothing BUT issues.  The only thing we can do to avoid the unexplainable is to ensure it is configured exactly how it should be or bypassed altogether since, as already stated, we do not support the use of a router.

Why do you get good performance on Unrest or AB?  I can only assume because your connection to those servers are fine, but you obviously have some type of block in place and this can and will eventually, in unforeseeable ways, cause issues.