Constant lag and disconnects

My boyfriend and I have been having issues with constant lag and disconnects since about Christmas. At first we assumed it was on our end, especially since I've not been able to find anything too recent from anyone having similar issues.

We've been in contact with our ISP and even updated the wiring and whatnot. ISP assured us there should be nothing wrong on their end. I found some posts from the 10th or so with similar issues, but not much since. I've not heard anyone really complaining in game either. But everything else runs smoothly for us, it's only issues with FFXIV it seems.

We can't do anything in game without severe lag or disconnecting, instance or not. Got into a game of Rival Wings and we both disconnected about 5 times in the first 10 minutes. Dungeons are just as bad. Can't even properly test skills on a striking dummy without lag. Was just curious if anyone else is having these issues, it's making the game literally unplayable.

I haven't had any issues other than when my internet itself goes out.

What is your ISP and where are you located?

Comcast and Illinois. However we are on the highest package, have reset signals, updated wiring etc.. They've assured us there has been no outages or anything of the sort. And everything else we do(Overwatch, WoW, random other MMOs, browsing) is fine. It's only an issue with FFXIV.

probably a routing issue. 90% of the time it is. run a tracert to find out where the issue is.

If it was the game servers, more people would be having issues and you'd see a bigger mess on the forums.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VampericKitteh

Comcast and Illinois. However we are on the highest package, have reset signals, updated wiring etc.. They've assured us there has been no outages or anything of the sort. And everything else we do(Overwatch, WoW, random other MMOs, browsing) is fine. It's only an issue with FFXIV.

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I'm having the same problem tonight. Also Illinois, also Comcast.

The pathping I ran showed that the Comcast network was working fine, but SE's ISP's network not so much. They dropped 19% of my packets over the whole route.

FFXIV handles packetloss VERY poorly, so when you're getting that much of it you're going to have an unplayable game.

Whatever it is, I'm leaning toward Comcast or a bad network line somewhere because it's not just misbehaving with FFXIV, it was even interfering with a couple games on my phone earlier today. I'm in Tennessee though. I've been randomly getting a series of nasty lag spikes to the point of R0s and warping of people/me/mobs going on and then everything is fine for a little while before it all goes back down the toilet again.

Comcast, Illinois here.

You are not the only one. We hit some terrible nodes on our way to the California servers. We cannot avoid them, and this lag will happen every night between 8pm CST to about 11pm.

SE blames our ISP. Our ISP blames SE.

The only way this problem will be fixed is if the servers move to a more central location in NA. Otherwise, there is nothing anyone can do about it. It's downright sad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kerwin

Comcast, Illinois here.

You are not the only one. We hit some terrible nodes on our way to the California servers. We cannot avoid them, and this lag will happen every night between 8pm CST to about 11pm.

SE blames our ISP. Our ISP blames SE.

The only way this problem will be fixed is if the servers move to a more central location in NA. Otherwise, there is nothing anyone can do about it. It's downright sad.

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It's exactly the same problem we were having when the server was in Montreal, just in the other direction. Sweet.

Alright so I get all that..however it only just started happening. Why's that? I'm not like super excellent with understanding all this crap..I understand basics..but I don't get why it would of only just started happening to us :o

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VampericKitteh

Alright so I get all that..however it only just started happening. Why's that? I'm not like super excellent with understanding all this crap..I understand basics..but I don't get why it would of only just started happening to us :o

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network Hardware failure

Same problem. Very recent.

COX Communications, Oklahoma

About a half a second delay to everything.

It was never like this before.

No Router my computer goes straight to my modem.


More that might help shed some light:
Ping statistics for 204.2.229.91:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 56ms, Maximum = 106ms, Average = 69ms

Ping statistics for 204.2.229.91:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 88ms, Maximum = 750ms, Average = 365ms

Ping statistics for 204.2.229.91:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 56ms, Maximum = 271ms, Average = 162ms

Ping statistics for 204.2.229.91:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 56ms, Maximum = 318ms, Average = 122ms

Tracing route to 204.2.229.91 over a maximum of 30 hops
1 93 ms 109 ms 13 ms
2 247 ms 100 ms 55 ms
3 10 ms 10 ms 16 ms
4 22 ms 20 ms 19 ms
5 52 ms 25 ms 37 ms
6 119 ms 269 ms 54 ms
7 20 ms 21 ms 21 ms
8 60 ms 59 ms 59 ms
9 282 ms 64 ms 103 ms
10 270 ms 58 ms 59 ms
11 274 ms 186 ms 189 ms
12 61 ms 61 ms 61 ms
13 62 ms 57 ms 557 ms 204.2.229.91

Trace complete.

I've been having the same problems since mid December, Comcast western PA here. Nothing else is having issues.

I live in IL also. I don’t have Comcast, but I am having occasional connection problems.
In regards to connection issues, I wonder if it’s the deep freeze we are in right now.
I usually notice connection problems while I am in the Golden Saucer.

If you don't want to wait for squeenix to fix it, you could sign up for 1 month (hopefully fixed by then) of a good VPN provider, and route through another US state.

Express VPN or nord VPN are both good, and add very little latency.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VampericKitteh

Comcast and Illinois. However we are on the highest package, have reset signals, updated wiring etc.. They've assured us there has been no outages or anything of the sort. And everything else we do(Overwatch, WoW, random other MMOs, browsing) is fine. It's only an issue with FFXIV.

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It is your ISP and routing issue, you need run a tracert. Ofc they will say nothing is wrong. FFXIV is more picky then other games so you will feel bad routing, etc.

You can also experiment with VPNs and game VPNs such as wtfast.

Last days I got a weird situation: all fine when in cities, maps and around, but heavy lags in duties, and no lag in potd (isn't that a duty too?).

Asked my duty mates there and they confirmed it was not just me.

Had an odd situation last night where I was constantly disconnecting while hanging out in a friend's FC room - whereas the entire day before that, and even a few hours of being in there, I had been perfectly fine and stable. But around 9pm CST I just started randomly dcing and not even in similar intervals; one time it was 10 minutes, another 5, another 3, then back to 5... etc. It was really frustrating and I finally just went to bed, but I don't understand why I suddenly started dcing so much after a perfect connection all day.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kerwin

Comcast, Illinois here.

You are not the only one. We hit some terrible nodes on our way to the California servers. We cannot avoid them, and this lag will happen every night between 8pm CST to about 11pm.

SE blames our ISP. Our ISP blames SE.

The only way this problem will be fixed is if the servers move to a more central location in NA. Otherwise, there is nothing anyone can do about it. It's downright sad.

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Turbine used to have similar issues, they contacted at&t (I think) and got routing changed to avoid a bottleneck. It was much better after that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bloodb

Tracing route to 204.2.229.91 over a maximum of 30 hops
1 93 ms 109 ms 13 ms
2 247 ms 100 ms 55 ms
3 10 ms 10 ms 16 ms
4 22 ms 20 ms 19 ms
5 52 ms 25 ms 37 ms
6 119 ms 269 ms 54 ms
7 20 ms 21 ms 21 ms
8 60 ms 59 ms 59 ms
9 282 ms 64 ms 103 ms
10 270 ms 58 ms 59 ms
11 274 ms 186 ms 189 ms
12 61 ms 61 ms 61 ms
13 62 ms 57 ms 557 ms 204.2.229.91

Trace complete.

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The problem is at the first hop. Bad network cable? Malfunctioning internal interface on the modem? Something wrong with your computers network stack? I'd start there.

Tracing route to 204.2.229.91 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 18 ms 8 ms 10 ms 142.254.146.81
3 30 ms 21 ms 29 ms ae62.flrnky1502h.midwest.rr.com [74.128.7.45]
4 17 ms 15 ms 15 ms be31.lsvmkyzo01r.midwest.rr.com [65.29.27.164]
5 25 ms 23 ms 23 ms be24.clmkohpe01r.midwest.rr.com [65.189.140.162]
6 36 ms 39 ms 39 ms 107.14.17.252
7 39 ms 39 ms 39 ms bu-ether11.chcgildt87w-bcr00.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.20]
8 32 ms 32 ms 50 ms 0.ae4.pr1.chi10.tbone.rr.com [66.109.1.66]

16 100 ms 99 ms 99 ms ae-4.r00.scrmca02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.7.57]
17 100 ms 97 ms 97 ms xe-0-1-0-1-1.r00.scrmca02.us.ce.gin.ntt.net [129.250.195.46]
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 107 ms 97 ms 97 ms 204.2.229.91

Trace complete.

Had to cut out a lot for the char maximum

I love this game, but it's become almost unplayable the past few months. I disconnect in Dungeons almost religiously, and the lag outside is pretty noticeable as well. I did everything that SE tech support suggested, tweaking IE and such, but to no avail. Only started happening around the release of SB sadly. But it's to the point I'm wanting to walk away. I can't enjoy the game if I'm constantly fearing my WHM is gonna drop and get my party wiped EVERY time I'm in a dungeon :-(

Not playing in NA, but after 4.1 my boyfriend and I kept getting utterly random dcs only in XIV, and it got worse before Xmas.

After trying all the voodoo we could with the router, we bit the bullet and bought a pretty expensive Asus router, and used our old router as a modem. The dcs stopped after that.

Our theory is that SE changed how the game sends packets and our old router was ill-equipped to handle it.

If you got spare cash, this is worth trying. Good luck.

For me since near the start of Stormblood (shortly after) I get an extra 100-120 latency to the servers on top of my normal 100 in the afternoon (HST). The problem is entirely on NTT since my network is unaffected. I tested a vpn and it reported up to a 60% connection improvement as the latency shoots way back down and even prevents the occasional packet loss from NTT.

Always the same period of the day. Maybe not the exact same start/end and duration but it happens every single day.

Kinda sad when I can lag more from Hawaii to California than eastern Canada.

For those getting disconnected, I was in your boat when the data center was in its old location. US internet just plain sucks (and is almost certainly that awful San Jose node)

Seems to be a problem on SEs side, since we have thread for us EU players where different people from different countries and providers had problems since at least 4.15. If so many people from different providers have these problems I kinda doubt that this is on our side, especially since everything else seems to run fine.

Hope they fix that because its honestly destroying the game a bit for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

network Hardware failure

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Is it maybe something to do with net neutrality?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

Is it maybe something to do with net neutrality?

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unlikely, as that hasn't actually repealed yet.

Comcast in Michigan here

I will say this: Ive been a customer of comcast for almost 5 years now and I've never had this lagging garbage until AFTER SE decided to move the game's servers to California (I forgot where it was before, but wasn't it in a more centralized location...?)

Overwatch runs fine, Elsword is fine,warframe, GW2, OSU, etc etc. It only affects SE and when I ran a tracert, my ping was dropping a noticeable amount of packets on its way to the servers. So, whatever ISP SE is using, they either need to drop it in favor of another one or move the servers back towards a centralized location. I'll take 3 days of downtime over lagging every night from 10 pm est to about 1 am est any day. I even thought it was comcast and upgraded my internet to the fastest package they could give me just last week :/

This makes raiding unbearable...I shouldn't have to tether my computer to my phone for stable internet

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Akimori

Comcast in Michigan here

I will say this: Ive been a customer of comcast for almost 5 years now and I've never had this lagging garbage until AFTER SE decided to move the game's servers to California (I forgot where it was before, but wasn't it in a more centralized location...?)

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It was in Montreal. They moved from the far eastern side of the continent to the far western side.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Callinon

It was in Montreal. They moved from the far eastern side of the continent to the far western side.

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I miss when it was there. I use to be able to actually enjoy the game without having to worry about rubber banding, lag, or disconnects during raid :x

Makes healing 100000x harder than it should be

While it's not ideal, you could try testing out a VPN service like Pingzapper or such. Usually very cheap and it's solved any lag on my end (Michigan, Comcast). I've been pinging better going straight to CA now that the servers are moved but up to Montreal I was an unfortunate member of having to route through Level 3.

It's SE's chosen ISP partner NTT. They are the issue in almost all of the circumstances (where it's not a global ISP outage/hardware, which is not many). SE needs to lean on them to get them to clean it up for us, like numerous other companies have done for their users in the past. NTT will not do anything for us individually as we are not their customers, SE is.

If you can't wait for that to never happen, you can use mudfish. The free trial easily lasts a raid night or two, and I put $5 in it, and I've used maybe 40 cents over the last 4 months of gametime.