Connection problems?

[Makilahy]

Is anyone else having connection problems today (23 Dec 2019)? I haven't been able to log in all day, and I've checked with both SE Support and my ISP. It seems like communication with SE is lagged and packets are being dropped. Sometimes I can't log in without a POL-0011 error, and other times I can get to the character select screen, choose a character, but then it hands on "Loading data" and finally fails.

I ran a tracert and the connection seems good up until the hop to Japan. I live in southern California.

Edit: Even posting this message took multiple attempts because it kept saying my connection was reset.

[Morovich]

You have a person in or my groups was saying they are having trouble connecting to the PlayOnline. This was earlier though so I don't know if it's correct itself now.

[Makilahy]

You have a person in or my groups was saying they are having trouble connecting to the PlayOnline. This was earlier though so I don't know if it's correct itself now.

So far it's been more than 12 hours, and still no improvement. I've done traceroutes from my own computer and from websites run by major backbone telecoms, and everything coming from at least part of the L.A. to Japan and Square Enix starts to drop packets after a couple hops. Of course, there's no one I can report this to. My ISP blames SE or the backbone companies, and SE blames my ISP.

Hopefully it straightens itself out soon. I really wanted to enjoy the game during the holiday break.

[Makilahy]

It's really frustrating because sometimes it gives errors logging in, and other times it logs in fine and menu navigation is nice and fast. But then when I select a character and try to connect, it goes to a black screen that just says "Downloading data..." and then nothing. Eventually it gives the error:

Error code: FFXI-3001
No response from the Final Fantasy XI server
Connection timed out.
Press OK to shut down.

[Makilahy]

I set up port forwarding, but that didn't help. Next I tried connecting through a VPN, and that did the trick. It seems to be a problem with my ISP (Spectrum), especially since they see the dropped packets when they try hitting SE from their end. Very odd...

[Sevrax]

have you been able to figure out why this is happening? this issue started for me too yesterday and today too, i also live in southern california with spectrum.

edit: i just reread the last post and saw you used a VPN, i hope spectrum fixes their system. i dont have a VPN x.x

[VoiceMemo]

I contacted Spectrum and gave them some of my network analysis. They also suggested to contact SE to see if SE changed anything, IE are filtering spectrum IP addresses.

[Sevrax]

so spectrum will need to change something on their end before it gets fixed? great i love talking to them -_-;;;

[VoiceMemo]

Well the other possibility is someone decided to start early on the stopping of the POL mail that was schedule on the 26th and messed something up. We'd need info from SE

[Morovich]

I just was able to get on I suppose the process was little longer than usual but I was able to log in.

[Pixela]

This happens once every 1-2 years with various ISPs, this time it's an issue with Spectrum it seems but most ISPs have it at some point. It can happen in the UK or US.

It lasts 1-2 days usually and then it's gone.

I don't know the exact technical reason this happens but supposedly it's something to do with how the companies the ISP use for the backbone infrastructure/ DNS lookup sort out refreshing of the IP addresses or something. They do some work at certain times of the year and change some IP addresses or something in the backbone infrastructure and it takes a while for that to go into effect and that causes the issues. Other than using a VPN there is nothing you can do about it yourself so don't buy new gear or do changes to your computer. You just have to wait.

Again I'm not an expert but I believe the problem is that FFXI tells the game to hook-up to an address like ffxi-server.com instead of the more modern way of doing it of saying connect to 64.233.160.0. The numbers are directions to the correct server, the name system instead has to be transformed into the numbers via DNS lookup and that's the issue because the DNS gives the wrong number due to recent changes.

Someone can correct me if I mixed up the technical parts but that's a general idea of what the issue is, it's giving the wrong address to the server and it takes a few days for the changes they made to populate the entire system is ISP uses. It's pointless to contact Square, it's pointless to contact your ISP and you're just wasting your time and phone money.

Just wait the few days it takes to rectify itself or use a VPN.

[VoiceMemo]

Appears that Spectrum has fixed the routing issue. Can others confirm and chime in.

[Alhanelem]

On specturm and have no issues. If you have been using a VPN by default, try not using a VPN.

But these things do happen occasionally and are generally temporary, caujsed by equipment failiures or poor configurations come to a head.