Primal Data Center

Those of us in the Primal Data Center have seen this:

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At the following time, we experienced technical difficulties wherein certain players on the Primal data center Worlds were disconnected from certain instances.

We are pleased to announce that the issue has been addressed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

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For the past 8 days in a row. It started on February 24 and has been at least once a day since then. The issue is obviously NOT addressed. Please don't placate us by telling us that it is. Do what you need to do, just get it fixed. Permanently.

I know Primal is not the only one seeing this but it does seem that we are seeing more than anyone else.

/ventoff

Here's to the guaranteed instance server crash tonight. :)

This hasn't happened to me yet (fingers crossed) but I have seen it happen to so many people. The other night I was in a primal run (forget which) and four people dc'd at once. AT THE SAME TIME. We watched them drop like flies. It was terrifying.

It IS terrifying! I just hope I never see loot that gets server swallowed.

yeah no kidding, this is so annoying. i have 13 days left of my free month and this is putting me off from subbing. the fact that i get booted from a dungeon after being disconnected for 2 seconds while using the duty finder, is absolutely insane. this has happened several times now where im at the end of a dungeon or fighting a boss and i get disconnected to come back to find myself not in a group anymore and in town. a if i had to wait in a long ass queue like the dps do and this happened to me, i would be absolutely livid. it is such a waste of my time, and soon to be a waste of money if i sub. if u guys are going to have crashes so often, u need to make it so i can pick up where i left off in a dungeon. otherwise im just going to be put off from doing dungeons in fear that ill just get disconnected and waste an hour + of my day. i havent even mentioned having loot always be "unable to be obtained"...

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Originally Posted by WendyDarling

i havent even mentioned having loot always be "unable to be obtained"...

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That just means that no one rolled on it.

The maintenance last night was presumably to fix these issues but we will see tonight. That said, aside from the instance crashing my connection has been a lot better than before these past couple of weeks as I have gone from Good connection to Excellent on the login screen and I no longer have the hours of stuttering disconnects every few seconds. Maybe whatever fixed that issue caused new problems.

This is the problem with fixing something (especially with a server), you fix/plug one thing and it either breaks again either due to the fix not working or stress.

Its something you simply adjust/fix until it stable 'till the next problem crops up.

Think of it like an ageing car. You replace the brake pads, then the clutch starts the break, replace that, the turbo burns out, replace that, then the tyres need replaced.
Constantly having to adjust/replace/fix it until its in a working condition again.

FYI If you got dungeon booted during a DC that was the choice of the remaining people in the instance or moreso whomever randomly got handed leadership when you entered. That or everyone in the instance got kicked. This continuing issue makes me think they may have inadvertently got a virus in that cluster that is being extremely persistent in corrupting network settings. Perhaps though Primal just needs its Legacy servers to shed some weight through transfers.

Isn't the issue with that data center was that Excalibur is so packed because so many legecy groups wanted to follow Blue Gartr be on the same server.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

Isn't the issue with that data center was that Excalibur is so packed because so many legecy groups wanted to follow Blue Gartr be on the same server.

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It's not just excalibur. Hyperion is overflowing with players too. They put the most populated servers in the same data center.

Just another Monday on Primal
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-%28Mar.-3%29

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Originally Posted by Zumi

Isn't the issue with that data center was that Excalibur is so packed because so many legecy groups wanted to follow Blue Gartr be on the same server.

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Ultros is also one of the most heavily populated new servers.

They need to fix our data center, the instance servers have crashes just about every day and usually on Mondays you can pretty much forget about doing any instanced content because the instance servers are generally fucked the whole day.

If only everything wasn't instanced.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

Isn't the issue with that data center was that Excalibur is so packed because so many legecy groups wanted to follow Blue Gartr be on the same server.

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It wasn't exclusively a mass exodus because of The Order of the Blue Garter.

But everything under the 'Primal' datacentre which is a short-clump of servers share the same instanced servers, therefore if an issue occurs with these it affects the entire Primal Datacentre.

I'm very pleased that they fixed the issue! Now, how does this explain our entire raid getting 90k'ed from Titan EX just now? Just askin

90k Full party in CT about 2 hours ago. Primal Data Center so the problem is still not fixed.

Oh hey, half our party DCed out of Turn 5 again. Like every Monday for the last 3 weeks.

Fix your goddamned data center, SE.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

If only everything wasn't instanced.

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Then certain areas get overpopulated and areas crash or people get locked out of it. Trading one problem with another.

I'm just worried this will still be an issue, or if anything, a much bigger problem when 2.2 hits. Hopefully SE can catch the source of the issue beforehand.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

Then certain areas get overpopulated and areas crash or people get locked out of it. Trading one problem with another.

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It was more a jab at the lack of open-world things to do, but we can agree on this needing to be fixed.

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Originally Posted by Shioban

Think of it like an ageing car. You replace the brake pads, then the clutch starts the break, replace that, the turbo burns out, replace that, then the tyres need replaced.
Constantly having to adjust/replace/fix it until its in a working condition again.

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Buy a new car, so therefore with this logic, SE needs to buy a new data center. (hue hue)

I guess behe got spared from the onslaught...xD

Been in T1/2 and CT twice tonight. Didnt even notice a problem until I had logged for the night...

I do wish they would fix primal tho...We were hit pretty hard last week, from what I remember..:I

Not only in the primal server I am afraid. Im on Odin, which is not from that data center as far as I know. Been getting it for 3 days now. In CT, just walking around in Uldah. Everywhere!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU44zSlJQag

7 months later, this still holds water. Well, at least for primal data center.

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Originally Posted by Ulathskullsplitter

It's not just excalibur. Hyperion is overflowing with players too. They put the most populated servers in the same data center.

Just another Monday on Primal
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-%28Mar.-3%29

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Why would you ever think this is a good idea SE?

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Originally Posted by Dedayius

Why would you ever think this is a good idea SE?

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Yeah because SE looked into their crystal ball and knew what servers would be most populated before the game was even out.

They didn't arrange the servers into data centers until at least a few months after release(I took a break from Oct - Feb so I'm not sure on the exact length of time). So, they had a pretty good idea of how populated servers were.

Confirming bullshit on this problem being fixed, as it happened clearly at least 4 times last night, one of which cost my raid group coil drops, this needs to be fixed.

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Originally Posted by Kimura410

Yeah because SE looked into their crystal ball and knew what servers would be most populated before the game was even out.

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Actually there was a sign up sheet on the internet and we all picked where we wanted to go. SO they kinda did know in advance how many would be on each server. Servers were so locked by just legacy that many of our new friends couldn't even get on at start. SO I think they knew.

First thing I saw when I logged in.

http://i.imgur.com/QWvu9nR.png

Everything is ok.

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Originally Posted by Vies

They didn't arrange the servers into data centers until at least a few months after release(I took a break from Oct - Feb so I'm not sure on the exact length of time). So, they had a pretty good idea of how populated servers were.

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Sandboxing servers doesn't fix the problem it only puts it in a smaller place. Same issues just a smaller box to have them in. I would have assumed that with this they would also increase server capacity. I think I heard they did but cannot find a link to confirm. If not that is a problem onto itself. Without sandboxing more servers would see the same fate as primal. I truly hope they do one big thing to fix this problem Spend some more money on capacity because it is not working right now.

You want to know silly?

Last night queued up in DF for a WP run to cap tomes. All languages selected, in progress selected, ONLY WP selected, and seeking on WHM.

I think I waited maybe 5 min and I get a in progress run. These are hit or miss lately. Missing DPS, or missing tanks. So sitting on the black loading screen I'm going "Please say Light Party, Please say Light Party." There was nothing. Then when the game loaded I was in WP... ALONE. No one else. Zone looked as if nothing was pulled (the group of kneeling monks or whatever just outside the entrance were there).

Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

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Originally Posted by WHS

Sandboxing servers doesn't fix the problem it only puts it in a smaller place. Same issues just a smaller box to have them in. I would have assumed that with this they would also increase server capacity. I think I heard they did but cannot find a link to confirm. If not that is a problem onto itself. Without sandboxing more servers would see the same fate as primal. I truly hope they do one big thing to fix this problem Spend some more money on capacity because it is not working right now.

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That's not really what I was talking about, but either way I thought I read that the main reason for the data centers was to lower DF wait times(might be wrong, though). Either way, I agree. These maintenances are apparently only bandaid fixes. Hopefully they're working on a true solution to the problem.

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Originally Posted by Cadmar

-It started on February 24-

/ventoff

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It came from outer space...



/jokeoff



No really. Might I add February 24th was the beginning of the Phase 1 PS4 Beta test... ;)

They'll get it fixed. Don't you worry.

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Originally Posted by Rex

No really. Might I add February 24th was the beginning of the Phase 1 PS4 Beta test... ;)

They'll get it fixed. Don't you worry.

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The worlds under the Virtual Primal Data Center are located on the Physical NA/EU Data Center.

The PS4 Phase 1 Beta Test worlds are under its own Virtual Data Center which is located on the Physical Japanese Data Center.

PS4 Phase 2 Beta could cause potential issues as everyone will have access to every world. Character Creation Limitation being the only thing to stop them making new characters on certain worlds.

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Originally Posted by Nayto

Buy a new car, so therefore with this logic, SE needs to buy a new data center. (hue hue)

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I guess it depends on the issue they're having.

If it's buckling under the pressure, yes replacing the hardware might be an option (albeit a very very expensive one, hundreds of thousands of dollars).

If it's simply an issue with malignant code causing errors/conflicts then a 'Shiny new server' won't fix it sadly.

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Originally Posted by WHS

Sandboxing servers doesn't fix the problem it only puts it in a smaller place. Same issues just a smaller box to have them in. I would have assumed that with this they would also increase server capacity. I think I heard they did but cannot find a link to confirm. If not that is a problem onto itself. Without sandboxing more servers would see the same fate as primal. I truly hope they do one big thing to fix this problem Spend some more money on capacity because it is not working right now.

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That is very, very, expensive and takes a long time.
Simply because on a Moday/Tuesday you hit your capacity, doesn't provide enough of an incentive to shell out a couple of hundred thousand dollars and months of preperatino.

A quote from the beta which explains it best;

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1.) Data Centers are expensive to operate. Over estimating could cost a company hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary costs.

2.) Data Centers are time consuming to expand. It's not as simple as installing Windows 7 on your desktop. You need to prepare hundreds of discrete operators, and then link them together, and then link that cluster to the larger server network. This takes a lot of time.

Should there have been more server capacity? Yes, but it's too easy to say that now when it's needed. But a cursory look at the load issues show pretty clearly that they started about two days after the game went live. Square probably noticed that they were approaching their limits during early access, and were working to get new clusters spinning since then. But again, this isn't a "call up godaddy" situation.

Look I'm annoyed, too. I'm betting my return to MMO gaming on FFXIV, and I was massively impressed by what I saw in beta. But a little maturity goes a long way here.

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There are other potential solutions but these would take a rather long time to prepare and would require a hefty amount of down-time.
Transferring (lets say) Excalibur and Hyperion to a different data-centre pending how it's set-up could take days if not even weeks to prepare, set-up and test.

I was just shocked to see the 5 "Recovery from Primal Data Centre Technical Difficulties" announcement when I open the launcher...all within 5-6 hours.
And even worse, how can they put this sentence in every single one of the them: "We are pleased to announce that the issue has been addressed."

Last night, in my daily high level roulette, I get Amdapor keep (ilvl 81 Paladin) and I think, "Wow, an easy one.". Well, two members were new and in their artifact. No biggie. We wipe on the first boss once and on the second boss once. All in all we spent about 45 minutes getting to the area right before the last boss. I get 90Ked and go right back into the game and I'm sitting in RT... for some reason, in that instance, it booted me from the party entirely. No tomes for my time.

Yes, this needs to be fixed ASAP. I'm tired of wasting my time like this.

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Originally Posted by Kimura410

Yeah because SE looked into their crystal ball and knew what servers would be most populated before the game was even out.

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um? the data center feature wasn't in at launch, it came around december, they chose to group certain servers with each other

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...center_option/

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Originally Posted by ReplicaX

The worlds under the Virtual Primal Data Center are located on the Physical NA/EU Data Center.

The PS4 Phase 1 Beta Test worlds are under its own Virtual Data Center which is located on the Physical Japanese Data Center.

PS4 Phase 2 Beta could cause potential issues as everyone will have access to every world. Character Creation Limitation being the only thing to stop them making new characters on certain worlds.

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Lol I knew someone would call me out on this. I am aware they are on different data centers. I was just pointing out the likely coincidence.

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Originally Posted by Rex

Lol I knew someone would call me out on this. I am aware they are on different data centers. I was just pointing out the likely coincidence.

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Not really a call out as I did want to mention Phase 2 could cause an impact, we will see when the time comes though.

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Originally Posted by Cadmar

For the past 8 days in a row. It started on February 24 and has been at least once a day since then. The issue is obviously NOT addressed. Please don't placate us by telling us that it is. Do what you need to do, just get it fixed. Permanently.
/ventoff

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Zooming out camera doesn't help?