Throttling...

Hi Guys,

I am posting this from the ISP Throttling main thread. The original post is NOT my own. I hope the original poster doesn't mind me quoting it:

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Originally Posted by Asuka-Hykiri

Hey guys, a few of us at Plusnet in the UK have identified that there is defiantly a throttling issue on our side. Running wiresharks we have found that our Ellacoya traffic management system is picking up the connections as Peer-to-Peer usage due to how the launcher operates to download updates ect. We have passed this internally to our network team who are dealing with it.

For others that think this is an issue, you can easily determine if it is incorrect throttling by running a wireshark capture.

If you see the IP of 199.91.189.74 or similar numbers, the priority will show as (Differentiated Services Field: 0x00) which is basically the lowest priority.

Me and a few others have asked our networks team to get this amended again as we had corrected the system for the original V1 release but appears to have returned as the servers will have changed.

If SE can confirm if all IPs from 199.91.189.XXX are from the FFXIV servers (or the static IP range that the servers use) it may help us to contact our ISPs and ask them to re-adjust the traffic management systems.

If you need any more info please let me know.

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I have just used this method and it has helped me to KNOW that the issue is with an ISP throttling me rather than SE's server's per se. Sure, the issue is something SE would need to resolve by contacting my ISP, but I feel better knowing that my issue is throttling rather than blatent server lag, so perhaps the maintenance cannot fix this until SE get their butt in gear and contact our ISP's.

Once again, this is NOT a fix for the issue, but if your like me, you may get some solace from knowing where the problem actually lies.

I would appreciate if people reply to tell me whether they do get priority 0x00 or some other priority on FFXIV traffic, that way we can at least narrow down if there are 2 separate lag issues or just the 1 (ISP Throttling).

I am sure throttling from certain ISP's is indeed an issue, but I don't think it is the sole reason for ALL of the lag issues players are currently experiencing. I think that throttling is only one of many issues SE needs to deal with atm. I say this because I have these crazy lag issues like everyone else, have contacted my ISP, and have been reassured that I am not being throttled in any way.

Same, have contacted my ISP who assured me no throttling at their end.

My ISP have told me the same, however when I run the test, it shows otherwise, ISP's are liar's I guess.

Could you explain how to run the test?

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Originally Posted by svann

Could you explain how to run the test?

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Sure,

1) Download Wireshark - http://www.wireshark.org/download.html and install it.

2) When you load wireshark the splash screen has an option to Start under the capture section. Simply select the interface you use to connect to the internet (Local Area Connection, Wireless Network Connection, Network bridge etc, pick the one that matches your connection).

3) Once this is running load up FFXIV

4) After about 1 minute (this should be more than enough time) or so you can stop the capture by pressing the red Square on the wireshark window.

5) Under the destination column in your capture you will have an ip that looks like 199.91.189.xxx (xxx will be different depending on which server you are on), that is the entry you are looking for. Highlight this entry.

6) In the bottom box you will have a bracket called Internet Protocol Version 4 (or maybe 6 for some users). Click the + icon beside this.

7) Approximately the 3rd line down will say 'Differentiated Services Field' the number beside this is what matters. If it says 0x00 you are being throttled by your ISP.

I hope these instructions are clear, if not, let me know and i'll do my best to clarify.

Heya Will. I dl this and the start under capture is greyed out can't click it and interfaces tells me theres none to be done, can't run the thing and all the wiki links won't load, /shrug

lol nevermind, had to run as admin ><

Hi, thanks for the info. I have this issue, and I'm with Plusnet. I asked about it on their forums yesterday, didn't get any reply of any use really. But I tried the Wirershark guide and on the example it showed it said this:

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4. Analysing The Data

The following information shows you how to interpret the data that has been captured by Wireshark.

The screenshot below is a packet capture taken just before and during a http download of a Linux ISO from mirror.ac.uk.
We need to locate a packet that has been sent from the download source to your computer. It is important that we capture traffic that is traveling in this direction (to the customer) as upstream traffic will not have been marked by the Ellacoyas.
Look at the line highlighted in green that shows a packet that has been sent from the IP address 194.80.135.25 to the IP address 192.168.1.2.
192.168.1.2 is a local IP address; 194.80.135.25 is the IP address for mirror.ac.uk as we can see from nslookup:

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My connections from 199.xxx are all high priority, but all my connections TO 199.xxx are lowest priority. Why would the guide say to ignore the upoad ones? Is this what's causing lag issues? I tried forwarding ports earlier today, and it wasn't as bad tonight, it may well be coincidence though.

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Originally Posted by Will01

Sure,

1) Download Wireshark - http://www.wireshark.org/download.html and install it.

2) When you load wireshark the splash screen has an option to Start under the capture section. Simply select the interface you use to connect to the internet (Local Area Connection, Wireless Network Connection, Network bridge etc, pick the one that matches your connection).

3) Once this is running load up FFXIV

4) After about 1 minute (this should be more than enough time) or so you can stop the capture by pressing the red Square on the wireshark window.

5) Under the destination column in your capture you will have an ip that looks like 199.91.189.xxx (xxx will be different depending on which server you are on), that is the entry you are looking for. Highlight this entry.

6) In the bottom box you will have a bracket called Internet Protocol Version 4 (or maybe 6 for some users). Click the + icon beside this.

7) Approximately the 3rd line down will say 'Differentiated Services Field' the number beside this is what matters. If it says 0x00 you are being throttled by your ISP.

I hope these instructions are clear, if not, let me know and i'll do my best to clarify.

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Ok your instructions were clear enough I could follow. But I dont know how this would be evidence that I could show my isp to say "See, this shows that you ARE throttling", or even know in my own mind that that is what it means. I also dont understand why the ip is different from the one that people have been saying is my server's ip (184.107.107.176).

Thanks for the guide and now the most important question is: Now what ? continue to waiting ?

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Originally Posted by Will01

Once this is running load up FFXIV.

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Like this? If so I guess I'm not doin too good ><

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...ireshark01.jpg

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Originally Posted by svann

Ok your instructions were clear enough I could follow. But I dont know how this would be evidence that I could show my isp to say "See, this shows that you ARE throttling", or even know in my own mind that that is what it means. I also dont understand why the ip is different from the one that people have been saying is my server's ip (184.107.107.176).

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184.107.107.176 isn't a game server... that's a webserver. It's the old IP for www.eidos.com, among other sites (a lot of the games in their library point there as well). The game client connects to IP's starting with 199 if using the Canadian data center.

What if the pipe that my cable provider has running to my house can support a 40mb download speed but I am only paying for a 20mb download speed...wouldn't I always appear to be throttled?

Hi, interesting information here...

I thought I'd give it a try, and the result: "Differentiated Services Field: 0x00 (DSCP 0x00: Default; ECN: 0x00: Not-ECT (Not ECN-Capable Transport))"

Ping test shows pretty constant 131ms latency though, so I'm not sure...

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Originally Posted by mayonnegg

My connections from 199.xxx are all high priority, but all my connections TO 199.xxx are lowest priority. Why would the guide say to ignore the upoad ones? Is this what's causing lag issues? I tried forwarding ports earlier today, and it wasn't as bad tonight, it may well be coincidence though.

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That's a fair comment actually, not ALL ISP's actually throttle your upstream so if your ISP only throttle's downstream (received info rather than sent info) checking for your activity where source is your server IP rather than destination would work for more people. In my case, I get throttled up and down so it doesn't matter so much for me.

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Originally Posted by svann

Ok your instructions were clear enough I could follow. But I dont know how this would be evidence that I could show my isp to say "See, this shows that you ARE throttling", or even know in my own mind that that is what it means. I also dont understand why the ip is different from the one that people have been saying is my server's ip (184.107.107.176).

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It would be difficult to get your ISP to believe you, I find when I ring my ISP I tend to know more about my network than the person I am speaking to, so I feel your pain. In re of the server IP you quote that is not the correct IP, the easiest way to find the correct ip is as follows:

1) Load up FFXIV and connect to your server.
2) Press your start button and go to run
3) In the run box type resmon and press enter
4) Go onto the Network tab and tick the box beside FFXIV
5) Highlight the FFXIV field and the bottom box will show your server IP under the remote address column, this is your server IP.

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Originally Posted by SCUBA_DIVER

Thanks for the guide and now the most important question is: Now what ? continue to waiting ?

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Well some people have reported that by contacting their ISP's with the information they have got their ISP to look into it, I know my ISP are looking into it:

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...on/m-p/2004742

so perhaps by contacting them with the extra info you might get your ISP to sort the problem before SE get onto it.

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Originally Posted by Maza

Like this? If so I guess I'm not doin too good ><

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...ireshark01.jpg

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Yeh thats it, try it using the src as 199.91.189.74 and dst as 192.168.1.2 though, it might show better that way for the reason stated in my first quote.

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Originally Posted by spankybus

What if the pipe that my cable provider has running to my house can support a 40mb download speed but I am only paying for a 20mb download speed...wouldn't I always appear to be throttled?

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That's not a throttle, thats a speed cap, they are different, a throttle is where an ISP inspects your traffic and limit's your speed on specific traffic, i.e. downloading from uTorrent at peak times will be slower than say downloading a file from a website, ISP's do this to manage network congestion.

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Originally Posted by Tam3n

Hi, interesting information here...

I thought I'd give it a try, and the result: "Differentiated Services Field: 0x00 (DSCP 0x00: Default; ECN: 0x00: Not-ECT (Not ECN-Capable Transport))"

Ping test shows pretty constant 131ms latency though, so I'm not sure...

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Latency would be different I think, as stated above throttling affects how fast you can download a certain type of traffic, not how that traffic is routed, the routing of the traffic control's the latency, whereas throttling control's how fast that traffic can be sent/recieved.

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Originally Posted by spankybus

What if the pipe that my cable provider has running to my house can support a 40mb download speed but I am only paying for a 20mb download speed...wouldn't I always appear to be throttled?

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When it comes to the bandwidth your paying your ISP monthly for. The ISP sents a config file to the cable modem which sets the downstream and upstream rate to what you are paying for. If you want the full 40 then you will have to pay for it.

Some of the ISP's do throttle when in the prime time of the day. But of course if you call them and ask about it they will of course tell you no. It's either they don't know the answer and just tell you no. Also could be they are not telling you the truth and don't care.

Cause they know in some cases they could be the only form of broadband internet in your area. Placing throttle on stuff when in prime time use for there network is more easy. Then spending money to upgrade there cable network infrastructure. Not too long ago my ISP just upgraded our area to DOCSIS 3.0.

My ISP is the only cable internet I can get and it's docsis 3 and they have told me, the tier 2 techs, that I do not have a throttling problem and yet the problem exsists and there is nothing I can do about so far. It's like buying a new car and then finding out you have to walk 10 miles to get tires to put on it to drive it, hey if you want to drive your new car you have to work on it first..... /shrug

Im with a cable company. I got to the 2nd tier tech support, and talked to them. They don't throttle, but I got the same readings on wireshark....199.91.181.xx...reading...0x00...


Im running 10mbps and tested speednet at 11.43 mbps running FFXIV at the same time. The entire network is full blast as he put it, Brighthouse Networks/RoadRunner does not throttle anyone at this time, ever.

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Originally Posted by Haystack

Some of the ISP's do throttle when in the prime time of the day. But of course if you call them and ask about it they will of course tell you no. It's either they don't know the answer and just tell you no. Also could be they are not telling you the truth and don't care.

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Call me sceptical but this everytime. I have had many ISP's in my time working as a computer tech, I have also had many tell me they do not throttle or that they offer 'Totally Unlimited' Broadband (i.e. no throttle, in the whole time I have had broadband since the days when the first 512Kbps connections came along) I have found ONE isp who truly did not throttle.

Given that in the UK we have 10's (maybe even close to 100) different ISP's, one ISP that does not throttle is a very small number.

This website gives a much better rundown than I ever could of why having an ISP that does not throttle is a myth:

http://www.kitz.co.uk/isp/unlimited_ISPs.htm

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Originally Posted by Will01

That's a fair comment actually, not ALL ISP's actually throttle your upstream so if your ISP only throttle's downstream (received info rather than sent info) checking for your activity where source is your server IP rather than destination would work for more people. In my case, I get throttled up and down so it doesn't matter so much for me.

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Well I've asked on the Plusnet forums and they say that 0x00 for upstream is normal, as it's what the computer sets, and that once it gets to the point where it could be managed it's past the bottleneck (home to exchange) anyway.

Where is that quote from in the opening post? I don't mean which thread, I mean who said it, what context etc.

That quote is originally from the main throttling thread square made, its on approx page 123 IIRC.

I mean, who originally said it? Is 'Asuka-Hykiri' a Plusnet employee? Or have they got the quote from somewhere else and pasted it here?

I know nothing more than the original post says mate, so unsure either way.

That's fair enough, I only ask because asking Plusnet myself gives conflicting answers. It's frustrating not knowing whether I'm going to be able to go into a dungeon or not. :/

It is like this for everyone all over the world because that is how the client is programmed. ISP has nothing to do with it.

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Originally Posted by Will01

My ISP have told me the same, however when I run the test, it shows otherwise, ISP's are liar's I guess.

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Well not necessarily, the person that told you that probably thought they were telling the truth, just often with big companies not all the information actually gets passed down to the customer services people so they're still telling people what they know, unaware that things may have changed. Worse, with some companies they only train their staff on current products so if someone rings up about something from the past (which that customer still has) they have no idea about it and don't even think it exists (not their fault either!). I only mention this because of the BT Internet throttling only being on older accounts who hadn't changed to a newer contract and I'm sure other ISPs probably do something like that too so potentially newer staff wouldn't know about older things like that. If any of that makes any sense?

While im not an IT Networking specialist i do know a thing or two. Id like someone more knowledgeable to explain how throttling can affect gameplay? Most of games have barealy noticeable transfer bordering few Kb/s so even if you stayed online 24/7 over a course of month you wont have 50 GB clocked both ways.
Secondly Thorttling is a common practice used by ISPs and a vast majority of them at that now its first time a company throws the blame at them.

50% people having issues must be your ISP then its not SE its for sure not overloaded backbone network cause we all connect to same Datacenters whether were NA/EU and theres no traffic congestion.
Delays/full instance servers people getting 90k errors its not us its your ISP so give us your ISP name and we....yes what they can do? Pretty much nothing ISP wont bend over to some company just because.
It does sound to me like they are trying to wash their hands clean and shift the problem to the other side.

The ISP is biggest problem, they will not told you technical information about their inftrastructure.

Anyway, FFXIV uses high numbered ports (above 50000) which are often used for P2P activity (eg. torrents). ISP tends to block that. There are some countries (Europan Union, Japan, Chille and some others) which forces network neutrality (ISP is forbbiden to filter/modify/limit/prioritize any kind of network activity, with exception in EU - if something is limited, you must be informed about it and sign it)), and as I am reading wiki articles about the situation in US and Canada, you need to pay extra for this feature... (what the hell?)

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Originally Posted by Vagdal

While im not an IT Networking specialist i do know a thing or two. Id like someone more knowledgeable to explain how throttling can affect gameplay? Most of games have barealy noticeable transfer bordering few Kb/s so even if you stayed online 24/7 over a course of month you wont have 50 GB clocked both ways.
Secondly Thorttling is a common practice used by ISPs and a vast majority of them at that now its first time a company throws the blame at them.

50% people having issues must be your ISP then its not SE its for sure not overloaded backbone network cause we all connect to same Datacenters whether were NA/EU and theres no traffic congestion.
Delays/full instance servers people getting 90k errors its not us its your ISP so give us your ISP name and we....yes what they can do? Pretty much nothing ISP wont bend over to some company just because.
It does sound to me like they are trying to wash their hands clean and shift the problem to the other side.

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This. Any one of us can create a character on a low population server, and play lag free 99% of the time. Why are our ISP's not throttling THAT connection? Because throttling doesn't do anything to a connection using so little bandwidth it's barely noticeable. I can play FFXIV, stream videos on my PC, and my wife watch netflx at the same time, and still speedtest 40Mb/sec speed. How am I being throttled? My bandwidth is fine.

The problem is and always has been server congestion, and SE haven't done anything to fix it. Anyone wonder why we just started noticing the problem when they increased server capacity shortly after launch? That's when I started noticing lag. Before that when there were only 5000 connections, it ran smooth, even if you couldn't get in most of the time.

On the other side of the coin, I've seen people post that they and their roomate play from the same apartment, and one is lagging like crazy and the other isnt. This would suggest it's not a server problem, but also not an ISP problem...

Regardless of what is causing the issues, SE refusing to comment or offer help to those affected is piss poor business practice. Most subs won't stick around long if things don't improve. I'm waiting til PS4 before I decide, as I think my problems have as much to do with PS3 as the server.

Is there any way to check this thru a PS3? I guess not?

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Originally Posted by Ramzi

This. Any one of us can create a character on a low population server, and play lag free 99% of the time. Why are our ISP's not throttling THAT connection? Because throttling doesn't do anything to a connection using so little bandwidth it's barely noticeable. I can play FFXIV, stream videos on my PC, and my wife watch netflx at the same time, and still speedtest 40Mb/sec speed. How am I being throttled? My bandwidth is fine.

The problem is and always has been server congestion, and SE haven't done anything to fix it. Anyone wonder why we just started noticing the problem when they increased server capacity shortly after launch? That's when I started noticing lag. Before that when there were only 5000 connections, it ran smooth, even if you couldn't get in most of the time.

On the other side of the coin, I've seen people post that they and their roomate play from the same apartment, and one is lagging like crazy and the other isnt. This would suggest it's not a server problem, but also not an ISP problem...

Regardless of what is causing the issues, SE refusing to comment or offer help to those affected is piss poor business practice. Most subs won't stick around long if things don't improve. I'm waiting til PS4 before I decide, as I think my problems have as much to do with PS3 as the server.

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And you completely miss the problem. Your ISP thinks the data heading to SE's servers... AND ONLY the data heading to SE's servers is P2P traffic so ONLY THAT traffic gets filtered. This is how packet shapers work. They have rules set to only trigger when certain things are met. It is not perfect. Things will get slowed that should not be. And this is whats happening with FFXIV. While some of the moderate lag might be the connection overseas. The heavy throttling (especially when it happens at dead on specific times) is crap done by your ISP.

Also blaming SE for issues that are outside their network is just a stupid thing to do. They have no control over it. Period. People need to stop doing this.

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Originally Posted by necrosis

And you completely miss the problem. Your ISP thinks the data heading to SE's servers... AND ONLY the data heading to SE's servers is P2P traffic so ONLY THAT traffic gets filtered. This is how packet shapers work. They have rules set to only trigger when certain things are met. It is not perfect. Things will get slowed that should not be. And this is whats happening with FFXIV. While some of the moderate lag might be the connection overseas. The heavy throttling (especially when it happens at dead on specific times) is crap done by your ISP.

Also blaming SE for issues that are outside their network is just a stupid thing to do. They have no control over it. Period. People need to stop doing this.

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It's also possibly not just throttling at play here. There have been a lot of problems tied to congestion in routing that may not be a result of traffic shaping (throttling and such). Off and on periods of high packet loss has been tracked on network segments either passing through certain regions or managed by certain companies.

Keep in mind this also falls in-line with the angle of issues resulting from the dramatic increase in the player numbers on the servers as well. You can run into a bottleneck at the routers just as easily as you can at the server. Any networking device can become a choking point if it is overloaded. Not flatly saying there aren't potentially problems for SE to address at the server level (we can speculate and make educated guesses that likely are correct, but can't actually prove it 100%). However, people can and have identified choking points in route to the servers. These are a real issue, and can and will cause some of the problems people are experiencing. Even if SE is able to set things up on their end to run perfectly, the problem will still exist for those experiencing such issues in route.

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Originally Posted by necrosis

And you completely miss the problem. Your ISP thinks the data heading to SE's servers... AND ONLY the data heading to SE's servers is P2P traffic so ONLY THAT traffic gets filtered.

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No I think you missed what he was saying. He is saying that if you play on a low pop server then you dont see the lag. If that is true then the throttling explanation makes no sense. Why would your isp throttle a connection to a high pop server but not a low pop server? It wouldnt.

It's not necessarily a fair comparison though. Lets say the low population server is a JP vs CA one. Also, it's possible that the problems may actually not be taking place on the player's ISP's segments, but somewhere else down the line. Also, you may be switching into a region that simply knows how to handle heavy loads better in general. So, if you are now routing over to asianet instead, you may completely bypass any congestion all together (not just servers, but all devices along the way that can potentially get knackered under load... lets face it, that region REALLY works on their Fiber).

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Originally Posted by Raist

It's not necessarily a fair comparison though. Lets say the low population server is a JP vs CA one. Also, it's possible that the problems may actually not be taking place on the player's ISP's segments, but somewhere else down the line. When you are routing over to asianet instead, you may completely bypass the troubled segments, (lets face it, you are then going into a region that REALLY works on their Fiber).

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The quality of the fiber routing would have no effect on the question of whether the isp is throttling, which is the dispute that brought up the issue of low vs high pop server.

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Originally Posted by svann

The quality of the fiber routing would have no effect on the question of whether the isp is throttling, which is the dispute that brought up the question of low vs high pop server.

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Actually, it does. They throttle because they can't afford to let people have all that bandwidth---most often because the infrastructure simply can't take the abuse. Again, it may not be someone like TWC that you pay for the internet who is doing the shaping---it could be a routing partner 8 hops away from you that is shaping to mitigate congestion. We in fact saw this phenomenon a couple years back with the BT/O2/Orange fiasco in the UK.

Greetings,

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