Disconnecting issues FFXI-4001 & POL-0250

[Ceons]

I have a disconnection issue that occurs about every 30-40 minutes. The S & R information bar on the right upper corner shows that my R spikes up to 1400 right before I lose my connection. Then I see the red dot on my character and my game is frozen. I am still able to move. I do not see others move. I do not see myself hitting the mob. on the small menu on the upper left corner, I see myself gain TP, lose HP but that is the only thing I that I see still shows a sign of me being connected to the game. This goes on for several minutes. I usually end up force quitting the game to be able to relog back quicker. During the several minutes on the upper right corner it shows the connection at 100%. S&R are still happening. I might as well be online with the exception of somehow my game looking for the large part frozen. If I stay and do not force quit, after several minutes, my connection starts to slowly go down to 0 from 100%. My R is then 0. After the connection reaching 0% I get an error. The most common being, first FFXI-4001 or 4002 then POL-0250.

I use to be able to play ffxi on this pc without dc'ing. I have not played the game in months. I just started again two days ago. I have not done anything different than usual.

I thought it might be my internet connection. So I tried to test that by running streaming movies and GW2 at the same time (with skype etc) only FFXI gets disconnected. It leaves me to think it is not my connection.

I have done all the standard fixes, including running a file check and repair for both FFXI and POL, checking my connection, adding exceptions to firewall, antivirus and even completely disabling them temporarily. I have also followed the following instructions from someone who had a similar problem. The instructions and the website are pasted below.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...-Three-Minutes

We can offer a few suggestions if you are experiencing any of the following:
• Have difficulty connecting to or staying connected to the PlayOnline Viewer or FINAL FANTASY XI
• Crash, receive a black screen error, or get stuck at the downloading data screen upon clicking your character handle or character select button
• See your the lag meter turn red
• Encounter increased lag or connection problems near crowed areas
• Have trouble accessing specific zone(s)
• Have trouble logging in with specific character(s)
• Receive any of these errors: 3113, 3100, 4001, 1160

Suggestions:
1. Check to make sure you have properly configured or turned off any of the following: Routers, Proxy Servers, NAT Servers, Internet Connection Sharing services.
2. If you are using any kind of software/hardware Internet Sharing service/device the following ports need INCOMING access to your PC: TCP 1024 - 65535, UDP 53, and 50000 - 65535. Also, check to make sure that the ports mentioned are not blocked by your ISP for INCOMING access. Proper configuration of any of the above items mentioned should be done by following the instructions in the software/hardware manual or calling the manufacturer's technical support.
3. If you are using a router, and have configured that router for port forwarding, temporarily bypass that router and connect directly to the modem.

Please take note of the following:
• Proxy servers, and satellite connections are not supported and do not work correctly with FINAL FANTASY XI.
• Your router may require that you use a PC to configure your network settings. For more information about how to configure your network settings, please refer to the instruction manual that came with your router or contact the manufacturer directly.
• If your Internet Service Provider (ISP) specifies a DNS server, you need to make sure to configure your settings to allow packets to pass through UDP Port 53 as well. For more information, please refer to the instruction manual for your router or the information provided by your ISP.

These did not work.

My PC is home build with intel i7 processor, 8gb of ram, windows 7 and my graphics card is a AMD 6950 flex. I have updated all drivers and software.

I have a DSL connection through KPN in the Netherlands. GMT+1
I've had this problem since I first logged in Friday 19th October all the way until today. And the issue continues. I did not have this problem previously playing the game on this same PC a few months ago. I would really appreciate some feedback on how to fix this. It really sucks losing my connection so frequently. I hope there is enough information.

Edit 1: I noticed when I switched areas from CN to BO that my Send and Receive numbers up on the right corner go beyond what I thought was the number which after I would disconnect. I noticed the receive going above 1500 without being disconnected so maybe it has nothing to do with the problem. Is that normal anyway? What kind of numbers do people have up there usually? I couldn't find much by googling.

[RAIST]

If you've tested it with bypassing the router or DMZ'ing your PC in your router and you are still getting thrown off, it may be issues on a segment between you and SE that is having issues. 1500 showing up in your S/R numbers in game is fairly common. I've seen it break 2k at times and not been thrown off.

You may need to get your ISP involved to run some traces to the SE servers to try to diagnose a failing segment. The catch is getting the IP's that are getting stuck in a wait state while you are having the connection issues.

NOTE: this gets a bit detailed and may be more invovled than some may feel comfortable with, but sometimes is a necessary step to take to get the ISP's working on actually FIXING their networking issues. Sometimes you get lucky, and find a technician willing to watch your traffic while you are online and will do all this legwork for you...it is very rare though. Typically, if they are not already aware of the problem you will have to provide the info to get them investigating the issue.

You will need to be set up to run FFXI in windowed mode so you can alt-tab out of it without crashing. Have a DOS box open in the background. Go to Start>All Programs>Accessories, right-click the Command Prompt shortcut and run it as administrator (answer the security prompt to run it), then start up FFXI.

As soon as you start seeing the weirdness in FFXI, switch to that black DOS window and type the following command and hit the <ENTER> key:

netstat -a -n

This will spit out a list of all connections, and their current state. Make a note of all the IP's mentioning a wait state. These are your most likely suspects. Verify they are IP's leased to SE. They will be listed with a port address after them (208.93.140.190:80, the :80 at the end is the port address). You can simply google them and you will get links to details about the IP's (drop the port assignment when you google it, with the above example you would search for just 208.93.140.190). You will see various details about the IP, location, who the ISP is, possibly an actual server name that is registered in DNS. Some may be links to WHOIS or ARIN information--there will be clues for you to be able to tell if it is an address leased to SE. There are some known blocks that are leased to SE. Some have been posted here in the past...if I can find them I will edit them in. If you find addresses in your netstat list that fall within these known IP's, make note of them regardless if they are stuck in a wait state--you will want the ISP to diagnose these connections as well.

Now, you have a list of connections you can forward to your ISP to diagnose. If they are giving you grief about tracking this down, you can go one step further to provide more proof of the problem that might prompt them into action--providing tracerts showing stalls enroute tends to get them moving a bit faster sometimes.

You will need that trusty DOS box again to run a trace route to those IP's you've confirmed are with SE and are in a wait state when you are having connection issues. This is often where they will find the problem. If you did not have any SE connections in wait state because it is an intermittent issue, you will want to test the other connections that you noted were also in SE's range as well to see if one stalls on you. Type this command followed by the <ENTER> key, substituting the IP you want to test:

tracert 208.93.140.190

If it starts stalling on you (will show * instead of a ms rating in the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th column), this may be one of the routes your ISP needs to investigate. Make sure to let them know you are having issues maintaining a connection to this IP. You can even offer to email them the tracert showing the stall.

To copy/paste the results, click and drag your mouse cursor over the text in the DOS box so that it is highlighted, then press the <ENTER> key. This copies all the highlighted text into clipboard. Now you can open any text editor (notepad, word, etc.) or email program and use the paste command (<CTRL> V is a shortcut command for windows programs) to paste all that data into a document or email.

edit:
Found an older post that had a partial list of the IP segments SE uses. Was basically the same as this thread, giving how-to details for trying to track down connection issues in FFXI. It's a wall of text, as I was going through a gajillion things that could potentially be causing connectivity issues, might be worth a read though as it may cover something you haven't tried yet. Here's a link to the post, followed by a list of the IP's I posted in it:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...l=1#post307722

square-enix.com 202.67.53.202
SE DNS servers (dns1-dns4): 202.67.53.31, 202.67.53.95, 202.67.53.32, 202.67.53.96)
***note the 202.67.53.xxx subnet may be entirely owned by SE, I have not verified this though)

ffxi00.pol.com 124.150.154.122
c000.pol.com 202.67.54.52

IP's in the following ranges are confirmed to be leased to SE:

124.150.152.1 through 124.150.159.255
(note, I have seen a lot of UDP traffic on some of these)

202.67.54.1 through 202.67.54.255
202.67.62.1 through 202.67.62.255

[superguppie]

Sorry to respond to an old topic. But this one is closest to the problem I have.

Same ISP. (KPN) Same effects. (Disconnect after 35 minutes.) I'm on XBox, with a wired connection to the Experia box that is both modem and router. KPN says everything is alright. They did have the courtesy to switch me from ADSL to VDSL hoping that would solve the problem. It didn't.

I have played without much problem for over 10 years. Now I have moved. Stuck to the same ISP, since I was happy with it. However, ever since the move, a few months ago, I have this problem. So I know this ISP can make it work. Just (apparently) not on my new address.

I have searched the web. Not found many similar problems. I am consistently getting disconnected after about 35 minutes. Often, the first thing I notice is that I can't give anymore commands. (For instance during a fight I can't use WS.) While the incominc connection keeps working. (The fight does continue. I keep swinging, and getting hit. After about a minute, that too stops. Then for a while I can see HP and TP changes but nothing else. Only after several minutes does my R drop to 0.)
Another thing I noticed is that when I get back to the POL Viewer, XBox also notifies me I was disconnected from messenger. Is that a clue?

Since I can play for 35 minutes, it is not a problem with the ports being open, or needing forwarding.
I also found a post about the IP address lease expiring. (This can cause a change in IP address, messing up open connections.) Checked it. IP address doesn't change for hours.

So, @Ceons: Did you ever resolve the problem. And if so, how?
@everyone: Have you seen this before? And if so, have you been able to resolve it?

[SE_Chris]

The issue you are describing potentially sounds like a hardware issue. If you are losing connection after 30-45 mins of play. It is possible your router is getting flooded, forcing a disconnect. You might want to try some of the fixes recommended in the following thread, however this might be something that can only be resolved by your Internet Service Provider.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...ping-flooding?

If you are unable to resolve this issue locally please consider opening a ticket to our Support Center's technical support directly. They may be able to troubleshoot this issue with a live contact . You can do so via the Square Enix Support Center webpage.

[Thegreatmonkey]

I would agree with Chris, it sounds like it is a hardware issue. I had the very same problem and it turns out that my router was dieing. Replace it and my problem went away. It might very well be that your xbox network card is dieing and your have to call MS to get that fixed.

[Sarick]

I worked with firewalls and found out about a secret long ago. There is an external connection TCP to playonline that keeps randomly calling out. This connection is separate from the actual game. If this connection fails a few times it'll see the connection auto dropped. Even though the game is still running smoothly the client and server DROPS the connection after a set number of fails.

The game runs on mostly on UDP packets. The sub intermittent connection is based on TCP packets.

What you have is most likely something in between dropping packets. It could be you local hardware or an in between WAN connection issue. I suggest you do a Traceroute and or pingpath to the SE game severs. This will most likely point you toward where the failures are at. You might also want to look at your modem and router logs to see if you have intermittent sync issues where the internet or encapsulation is failing from the errors.

It all depends on the type of connection you use. In a lot of cases if people are on a wireless network that's the 1st place to check. You could also try a free site this like this. If you really want to get serious connectivity help I suggest www.dslreports.com!

On a side note. I had an issue like this where it was a DSL line that had bitswapping turned on and the DSLAM was incompatible with it. What would happen is the line would connect fine but over the course of a few minutes the line would start building up errors until it went out of sync. When this happened the modem would drop sync and reestablish a connection. In normal web browsing thas was barely detectible because the modem would re-sync in a matter of seconds. The game would stay connected but the router would count these and after a few of them it's eventually cause the dynamic IP to change. When this happened the game wouldn't recover EVER.

After I made the minor DSL adjustment I rarely ever got disconnected. The connection became ROCK solid even during thunderstorms.

Hopefully you all do some research and testing on your end to narrow down the issue. I don't think its a cut and paste issue. The generic help in previous post didn't cover much at all other then the one from RAIST. I hope mine sheds some interesting light on the VDSL/ADSL side.

[superguppie]

Thank you all for the responses. And sorry for the late response from me.

I have connected a laptop to the wire that goes to my XBox. Used repeated pings to facebook.com to see if there was anything weird there. That kept working fine for hours. (I found a program somewhere that does a repeated ping and analyses the results. It does ping to facebook.com. There are weird peaks in the response times. But no packet loss.)

I also checked my connection to XBox Live. Right after the disconnect from FFXI, the connection to XBox Live is fine. So it's not the XBox itself getting disconnected.
I noticed the disconnect from messenger when exiting other games as well. This seems to be specific to messenger. And it happens upon exiting a game, no matter if it is an online of offline game, and no matter how long I have played it.
Is this possible when there is a hardware failure?

I looked at the flooding of the thread SE_Chris referred to. My modem/router (ZTE H220N) doesn't have any settings, or a log to look at. So I really have no idea if this is the problem, how to find out, and what to do about it?

Tracert to the addresses in the thread RAIST referred to gives two results. Some of the addresses are ranges that are a bit large. I took the first one of each range.
Success looks like

C:\>tracert 202.67.53.95

Tracing route to dns2.square-enix.net [202.67.53.95]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 19 ms 1 ms 2 ms ...
2 27 ms 25 ms 29 ms ...
3 34 ms 35 ms 34 ms nl-asd-dc2-ice-ir02.kpn.net [213.75.14.34]
4 35 ms 35 ms 35 ms nl-asd-dc2-ice-ir02.kpn.net [213.75.14.34]
5 42 ms 28 ms 32 ms 30gigabitethernet1-3.core1.ams1.he.net [195.69.145.150]
6 33 ms 36 ms 35 ms 10gigabitethernet1-4.core1.lon1.he.net [72.52.92.81]
7 105 ms 115 ms 104 ms 10gigabitethernet10-4.core1.nyc4.he.net [72.52.92.241]
8 168 ms 173 ms 174 ms 10gigabitethernet12-2.core1.lax1.he.net [72.52.92.226]
9 179 ms 177 ms 181 ms pacnet.10gigabitethernet2-3.core1.lax1.he.net [216.218.223.206]
10 271 ms 270 ms 270 ms gi6-0-0.cr1.nrt1.asianetcom.net [202.147.61.166]
11 270 ms 269 ms 270 ms gi1-0-0.gw1.nrt5.asianetcom.net [202.147.0.178]
12 270 ms 271 ms 270 ms squareco.asianetcom.net [203.192.149.210]
13 274 ms 310 ms 275 ms 61.195.56.129
14 280 ms 292 ms 299 ms 219.117.144.70
15 278 ms 279 ms 279 ms 219.117.144.49
16 277 ms 277 ms 281 ms 219.117.146.129
17 280 ms 278 ms 278 ms 219.117.146.90
18 277 ms 277 ms 276 ms dns2.square-enix.net [202.67.53.95]

Trace complete.

Failure looks like

C:\>tracert 219.117.144.1

Tracing route to 219.117.144.1 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 2 ms 6 ms 3 ms ...
2 26 ms 31 ms 25 ms ...
3 27 ms 34 ms 35 ms nl-asd-dc2-ice-ir02.kpn.net [213.75.1.72]
4 29 ms 33 ms 35 ms nl-asd-dc2-ice-ir02.kpn.net [213.75.1.72]
5 34 ms 69 ms 41 ms 30gigabitethernet1-3.core1.ams1.he.net [195.69.145.150]
6 41 ms 36 ms 39 ms 10gigabitethernet1-4.core1.lon1.he.net [72.52.92.81]
7 121 ms 104 ms 103 ms 10gigabitethernet10-4.core1.nyc4.he.net [72.52.92.241]
8 166 ms 168 ms 171 ms 10gigabitethernet12-2.core1.lax1.he.net [72.52.92.226]
9 180 ms 177 ms 183 ms pacnet.10gigabitethernet2-3.core1.lax1.he.net [216.218.223.206]
10 271 ms 274 ms 276 ms po13-1-1.cr1.nrt1.asianetcom.net [202.147.0.161]
11 276 ms 295 ms 270 ms gi1-0-0.gw1.nrt5.asianetcom.net [202.147.0.178]
12 271 ms 276 ms 274 ms squareco.asianetcom.net [203.192.149.210]
13 * * 61.195.56.129 reports: Destination net unreachable.

Trace complete.

All failures stop at the same spot just beyond the first SE server. Failures occured on 61.195.48.1 and 219.117.144.1.

"Even though the game is still running smoothly the client and server DROPS the connection after a set number of fails."
That sounds like a plausible description of the effects I see.
The rest of the description seems to indicate POL is the problem, rather than FFXI. So I left my POL viewer logged in, without going into FFXI. After 36 minutes, I did get disconnected. (Tried it twice, with a stopwatch.) I was on the FFXI page in the POL viewer. It refreshed the menu. (It does that every 5 minutes. Mostly succesful. Just noticed it was refreshing when the problem showed.) I got POL-1300. "Page view certification failed. Please try again later or verify your PlayOnline password."
After a about half a minute I get POL-250 "No response from server." on top of the 1300. When I click the 250 away, the 1300 still shows.

When playing FFXI, I get FF error 4001 or 4002. (Forgot to write down the texts...) followed by either POL-512 or POL-250.

Searched the web for POL-1300. It seems rare, and no one ever got an answer, apart from it going away after it happened during a maintenance.
Does anyone know of a good list of descriptions of POL errors? That is, more than the text it already gives. Ideas about what the problem could be and how to resolve it?

Doing research and testing is important, especially since the help I did find was far from helpful. (ISP saying all is well. FF/POL saying it's the ISP. On the web it's all about port forwarding.) I just didn't really know where to start.

Often the question is not "What is the problem?" but "How do I find out what the problem is?" Nine out of ten times, once the problem is known, the solution is obvious.

[Thegreatmonkey]

Have you try running FFXI or PoL on your PC to see if you still have the disconnection problem? Seeing as how you also did a test with PoL and if you do not own a copy of the PC version then you can download PoL from SE site and install it on your PC. Just add your account and log in and do the same test you did on your Xbox with PoL. If you stay connected, then install the game and do the same test. If you have a friend with the PC version of the game, see if you can borrow there copy just to install it on your PC. If you still do not have a problem then something is wrong with your Xbox. If you do still have the problem then the problem is your router or your ISP.

Do you get this same problem with other games? Have you try playing other games online for more then 30 mins to see if you still get disconnected?

You could also try pinging your Xbox from your PC for about 30 mins (or how every long it takes before you start to disconnect). Just open the command promp and type ping [IP of XBox] -t That will keep pinging until you hit ctrl + c. You may get a few miss pings but if you get say 5 or more in a roll then something is wrong with your router or the Xbox.

You could also go to the store and buy a cable (or DSL) modem, connect your xbox up to it and see if you have any problems then. After your done with that test, return the modem.

Last thing I can think of to try is to do a 30 30 30 reset of your router.
With the unit powered on, press and hold the reset button on back of unit for 30 seconds
Without releasing the reset button, unplug the unit and hold reset for another 30 seconds
Plug the unit back in STILL holding the reset button a final 30 seconds
If you count the 30 seconds in your head, count by thousands (one-one thousands, two-one thousands, etc)
WARRING: This will reset any setting you have set in the router itself and put the router's default settings back. So wright down any settings you may have in the router before doing this.

[Eikoo]

Sorry to read this superguppie, it's like reading my own problem just that I'm on PC and d/c every 10~ mins. Now I cant download the updates before I get kicked out... I got this problem sept 2012 and kinda gave up + giving me a break from the game. I activated my account now and the problems are the same. But I blame 100% on the ISP, and I would assume the case is for you as well. Chance is that you'll find a ISP-consultant that are willing to and have enough knowledge to attack the problem properly is pretty small. So what are we gonna do...

Here's what significant in my case:
1. The problem started immidiately after changing ISP, from copper tech to fiber tech.
2. I have FFXI on two computers. Both disconnect at the same time - even with different logon time (say 5 min between).

What sucks with my ISP is that my Modem is also a router and a firewall (disabled tho). This box cannot be accessed through local webinterface or telnet. It has no console connector. So I have no control over it other than some simple configurations on wireless and routes. Yes, I have tryed opening TCP/UDP port 1 - 65535 on my computer with locked IP address (no DHCP). I tryed setting one of my computers as DMZ (I know nothing about DMZ unfort.) but THEN it looked fine - at least for that one computer.

So my guess is that your and my ISP has to configure a few routers nearby us (you mentioned you have moved to an different location). Configure what, enable/disable what, i dont know. But my network colleagues that works with routers every day sure has many commands in disposal. Interesting what Sarick said about Bitswapping. This might be one of those ISP gurus have to turn on :-)

I'm calling my ISP tomorrow. Good luck onwards.

PS. If you get a guest POL logon, try to logon Laptop + Xbox to see if you drop at the same time. This will kill the suspicion on bad hardware @ xbox.

[superguppie]

Good thing POL Viewer needs a separate download for Windows 7. Tested it on laptop. Exact same problem. So it's not my XBox. Also, XBox is wired. Laptop is on wifi. So the problem is really in the modem/router or beyond.
Reset to factory defaults of modem/router also done already. No result.

Now that I can reproduce it on PC, I'll see if I can use some other suggestions I found to close in on what the problem is.

Sad thing is, that I, as a common user have to tell either POL or my ISP (or both) what their problem is.