How many of you get stuck "waiting on zone server" or randomly dropped to character select?

[Juravael]

Hello everyone,

How many of you get randomly stuck "waiting on the zone server" when trying to zone in or out of an instance, house, guildhall or open world location?

How many of you get randomly dropped to the character select screen when trying to zone in or out of an instance, house, guildhall or open world location?

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I have asked this in game several times and have seen quite a few people say that they have. I know there are quite a few guild members of ours that are repeatedly dropped (both of the above) when zoning. I have read other posts on these forums where people say that they are having the same or similar issues.

I thought I would ask here to find out what the players who do use these forums have say.

[faydh]

Me. And it is annoying 

[tunnelassembler]

I know this happens to me occasionally. The most recent time was yesterday, logging on a character who was last in the guild hall. The upkeep on the hall came due since my previous login, and selecting that character brought me straight back to character select. The second time I tried to log that character in, I was at the guild hall's front door (where I should have been).

I've also noticed that if you pay upkeep on a house or guild hall and reasonably quickly try to enter, you are bounced back out as though the upkeep wasn't paid, or bounced to character select. It's better to wait several seconds before trying.

But I suspect this is a different problem than just zoning and being bumped back to character select. This has happened to me, though I don't remember when the last time was. That's not because the game's been working right that I know of - I had been traveling for a few weeks and wasn't able to log in. In this type of event, I get that annoying message about already having a character in the world and that I need to try again in a few minutes.

[hexalobular]

Oh, I just love getting randomly dropped to the character select screen.

No, seriously!

Because most of the time the game locks up, some sort of memory error, often four or five, and then the memory error popups lock up and I have to fight with Window's Task Manager to get it to close the game so I can start over from scratch. If there's only one I can sometimes close it and keep going.

Just about every other time I zone to the guild hall, slightly less often zoneing from the guild hall and occasionly when I turn around too quickly or just randomly.

Sometimes the game keeps running but I can't interact with anything, fun when it happens in the middle of a fight, often I notice it at the bank, I drag an item to the bank but it won't "stick", then it sometimes goes to the character select if I leave it alone.

I used to get stuck on the loading screen, not waiting for the Zone Server just waiting for it to finish, the loading bar would go up to 100 % and just stay there. But that happens very seldom now.

After a crash I sometimes "lose" all my recipies, they always come back eventually but it's annoying if I'm in the middle of a tradeskill quest, come to think of it, that hasn't happened recently, maybe that's been fixed?

When I pay my upkeep I always close the window and click on the door again, I think I'll stick with that rather than trying to wait long enough, I'm no good at waiting long enough.

[Bhael]

Oh yeah, this happens to me at least 3-5 times a day, depending on how often I'm zoning that day. It probably works out to about every 5-10 zonings. I hate it. Its incredably frustrating. I haven't really tried to keep track of if. I just know it happens pretty much evey day, usually multiple times a day. I don't know if it happens more often to or from a certain type of zone, ie. home vs. dungeon instance vs public zone etc.

[Onurissa]

Yes i have been dropped a few times going to GH, thats where it hits me most. Ive had a few going into instances but mostly to GH. Many of my guiildies also drop going to GH and housing, some as much as 8-10 times before they finally make it to said GH or house.

[Juravael]

I appreciate the replies so far folks.

If either of the above has happened to you I would like to hear about it from you all. The reason that I am asking for others to post if they are getting stuck "waiting on zone server" or just randomly being dropped to character select is because I have /petitioned about this quite a bit but I am always told that it is something on MY end that is causing this. I have been posting (to help keep track of things and to help troubleshooting) in the support forums about this since December and have got some advice there but I also noticed that I am not the only one that this is happening to since I started to keep track of things.

Quite a few of our guild members get dropped or hung up zoning on a daily basis. Some more than others but it is pretty consistant. These issues started for me roughly late November, early December of last year 2011.

I've asked in the open chat channels at random times if this happens to others and usually I will get quite a few replies in open chat and private /tells all saying that this happens to them. Some say it happens a lot and others just once in a while.

Oddly enough I never had similar troubles when playing EQ1, Vangard or Lord of the Rings Online. I only recently uninstalled EQ1 and Vangard as part of my "clean" reinstallation of EQ2, which did not seem to help any. I still play LoTR pretty regularly and have never had any issues there.

I would like to hear from more of you if you don't mind taking a few moments to post a response.

Thanks

[SisterTheresa]

It happens randomly for me though not constantly to be irritating.  Usually in busy areas or during big events like Moonlight days and holidays.

[krul2k]

get this mainly when zoning into guildhall, but also get alorra memory errors loading into guild hall which is annoying as need to bring taskmanager up to shut down an start again just for it to crash again lol

[Luhai]

I had this happen to me quite often (haven't played much for the last days, though).

My personal best were 3 kicks to char select in a row right after zoning.

I logged into the game (guild hall) and dropped to character select. I logged back in and zoned to Skyshrine. Got kicked again. Then I zoned to the Underdephts and was kicked again.

All the game crashes and kicks to character select started for me around the same time when the launcher was bugged and switched to streaming by itself.

I think it was mid/end of April.

[Zehl_Ice-Fire]

Yes it still happens often (stuck zoning forever and have to X out), it's annoying.

[thesiren]

Both do happen to me, the hanging at zoning screen mainly whenever I try zoning into Gorowyn (it's been happening since SOE put a city festival there once every six months so it's nothing new), and the getting bumped back to character select only rarely (usually on busy weekends).

I'm mainly on Freeport and have been since its Alpha, so I can't speak for other servers.  But it hasn't been worse or better recently; more like always the same.

[Cyliena]

I got this a lot shortly after GU63 released. It's not quite as bad now but it does still happen. I usually have to kill the process on my task manager and each time I do that I see that EQ2 is consuming a crazy amount of memory.

[Missbee]

It happens to me quite often mostly zoning to the GH or a house. Totally random. It has happened on first try to enter and sometimes after a few zones.  Sometimes not for couple days, sometimes several times a day. I play eq on one of 4 different computers (4 different setups 4 different manufacters) so the chances of it all being on my end is very remote. Seems to be happening more often last couple weeks.

[Yimway]

Missbee wrote:

It happens to me quite often mostly zoning to the GH or a house. Totally random. It has happened on first try to enter and sometimes after a few zones.  Sometimes not for couple days, sometimes several times a day. I play eq on one of 4 different computers (4 different setups 4 different manufacters) so the chances of it all being on my end is very remote. Seems to be happening more often last couple weeks.

I know people that it happens to everytime they zone from GH to skyshrine.

[deadcrickets2]

Cyliena wrote:

I got this a lot shortly after GU63 released. It's not quite as bad now but it does still happen. I usually have to kill the process on my task manager and each time I do that I see that EQ2 is consuming a crazy amount of memory.

Could you post any recent content of alertlog.txt into Tech Support if you have a memory leak please? It'll help them track down which files are causing it.

[SiegaPlays]

The last month or so I have been crashing to character select rather often, zoning to guild hall or housing and a few times zoning elsewhere - working on my final exam, so I am on mostly zoning between the crafting in guild hall and the house that has my apprentices.

Having to wait a couple of minutes to zone back in because my char is still in game can be annoying :p

[Brigh]

There is already at least one thread in the support forums about this that is a few months old.

It is annoying to see that message and have to click the Exit (Drums/Profit) and restart the game.

[decator666]

It's been happening to me nearly everyday.  It seems to only happen when i'm going into my house.  I noticed it only happens on my 5s house in frostsea.

When it happens I always get waiting for zone and it just never does anything else.  I have let it sit for like 15 minutes before and the game is stuck.  I just have to con alt del to close everquest and then wait wait wait for the not responding notice and then close it out and restart the game.  I have never been bumped to character select.

I was just showing a friend the game yesterday and it happened to him too when doing a tour on a 5s house.  I don't know if it's related to the city housing but it seems to be where it's happening.

[Narsikus]

It has started happening to me about 50% of the time I use my call to guild hall spell. It will get stuck at "waiting on zone server" or something like that. I have to exit the game and relog back in. It's really annoying.

[Juravael]

Brigh wrote:

There is already at least one thread in the support forums about this that is a few months old.

It is annoying to see that message and have to click the Exit (Drums/Profit) and restart the game.

Yes there is. I started that thread last December to log and keep track of how often this happens to me and to see what any of the TSR's would be able to suggest. I am still posting there every time that I get hung up waiting on the zone server and/or get dropped to the character select screen.

I started this thread to ask the playerbase that use these forums if they are experiencing the same thing that myself and many of my guild members have been. I've asked in the public chat channels in game and saw a lot of people say that it does happen to them too. I wanted to get a better feel for how widespread this is because every time that I have /petitioned about it all that I am told is that it is something on my end, ie : my computer, my anti-virus, my ISP and so on. I have a month and a half long /petition that I just updated again yesterday and I have tried everything that the TSR's have suggested with no improvement.

I just find it odd that so many people are experiencing the exact same problem(s) from around the world and while playing on different game servers from the looks of things.

Thanks again for the feedback folks, keep it coming!

[Netviper]

Both of these happen to me on a regular basis. It is very frustrating

[Laenai]

It happens to me daily. I usually play from US primetime until around 1AM CST each night and I drop at least twice a night. Usually it has to do with the guildhall (either zoning into it or from the guildhall to somewhere else)

Just last week my game crashed to desktop and apparently my character couldn't be found for over an hour as no matter how many times I attempted to log in, it said my password wasn't recognized. My password also "magically" wasn't recognized in order to log onto the forums for that time. A less than stellar time was had by all.

I also have been plagued with the 0.0 instance timer reset bug as I get it once every three times I try to zone into an instance. Once this bug strikes, EQ2's memory usage on my machine jumps from 1.1 to 1.99 or higher and I have to restart my client because the lag is so bad the game is unplayable.

[Katz]

Happens to me a lot sometimes, I don't even have to be zoning.   Other days it hardly happens at all.  I have no idea what causes it.

[Onurissa]

Had this happen to me today, was doing my dailies before patch, and got waiting for zone server then booted back to character select.

[Seidhkona]

I have this happen on zoning after I have zoned several times. I suspect htis to be a memory leak of some kind.

In raids in the underdepths where we fight the swarm of baby drakes, it drops me out of game (this I have been able to mitigate some by using "claymation" visual settings, zooming into first person view,and looking at my feet through the fight. It's annoying and my raid makes fun of me. /weeps impotent tears of rage!  This one is an inability of either my client or my video card to render the zillion things happening at once.

Skyshrine is my personal bugbear, though. It's laggy. I mean LAGGY! I wish they'd reset the instance threshold so that a new instance would spawn as soon as there's 50 people, not 100.  Also, removing some of the wandering "scenery" NPCs in this area would be good, get rid of as much movement in that center area as possible.

[Nightfang]

Happens at least once or twice a day when going in or out of one of my houses, I also sometimes get dropped to char select when camping between chars, so I am guessing its a case of it sticking when trying to log the second char into game.

[Katz]

I've been watching when it happens to me.  Sometimes it happens when zoning but I've found that it is in general related to doing anything.   If I start a fight with a mob, I can crash to screen.   Basically, when I'm doing one thing and then it changes to something else is when it crashes.   For example, when I'm harvesting for a while then get attacked and start fighting, it may crash.

It isn't every time, its random, but it seems to be timed to occur when I start something.   Start crafting, start fighting, start zoning, whatever.  

[Tylia]

I get stuck "waiting on zone server" quite often, especially when zoning in to my house or guild hall.  I get bored and start clicking randomly around my screen while "waiting" and it eventually goes through.  It does get annoying.

[Chronus1]

Waiting for zone server happens to me infrequently but usually when zoning to my house (2 walk of the dead indigo road). Less frequently when zoning to instances (happened to my entire group bar 1 person zoning to covenant district recently).