Unbearable server lag since yesterday

[eaudaemon]

Update on my end, Today is lag free.

I play on the playstation so I can't say if that is a factor, but after 5 days of consistent lag, today was smooth sailing

[Zeyphersan]

Update on my end, Today is lag free.

I play on the playstation so I can't say if that is a factor, but after 5 days of consistent lag, today was smooth sailing

For whatever reason it’s been the same for me. Last night it was so bad I gave $3 to the vpn mudfish just to have some fun, tonight it’s been flawless. Primal/Ultros and I’m in Northern California and using Comcast so it’s definitely going through that ntt server. Here’s hoping it holds...

[Arkzeraaaa]

Im from Brazil, always played on Hyperion with no issues at all, since yesterday the game is unplayable at night, know some people with the same issue.
This definitelly is a problem with SE servers.

[_Babble_]

I'm in San Diego County and I have Cox. Your tracert looks a lot like mine, only the 8th hop is pretty consistently a problem for me. I'm happy for those who didn't have problems last night, but I was on during the day and was rubberbanding or worse until 5 or 6pm when I gave up.

[Onikae]

Well, I tried. I spent an hour on the phone with Comcast customer support and they kept insisting that all of us just need to replace our modems. I also had multiple back-and-forth emails with SquareEnix support, and their answer is that it's being caused by antivirus software.

I guess real customer support is dead and we're all just going to have to find a workaround to this issue on our own. Good luck everyone.

[Mykll]

Well I know one thing. I bet I won't see the nightly lag at the same time tonight.

[_Babble_]

FWIW, Onikae, I turned off McAffee, closed all my browsers and discord. Literally, nothing running except FFXIV. I uninstalled CurseForge. None of that had any effect on my game. Still laggy and tracert still shows it's an NTT issue. I have Cox and haven't called because its not their issue. It's SE and their provider.

[Onikae]

FWIW, Onikae, I turned off McAffee, closed all my browsers and discord. Literally, nothing running except FFXIV. I uninstalled CurseForge. None of that had any effect on my game. Still laggy and tracert still shows it's an NTT issue. I have Cox and haven't called because its not their issue. It's SE and their provider.

Yes it's NTT, but more specifically, it's the interconnect or routing rules between NTT and other ISPs. My parents live down the road from me and they are Verizon Fios customers. I have a VPN server set up in their basement and when I VPN my traffic to it, the lag problem immediately goes away. I only experience it when I'm connecting directly from the Comcast network. It's not affecting everyone on every ISP.

[Mykll]

New patch day, same lag smell. Working fine until about half an hour ago, as per the norm. Started to see the signs while in a dungeon. Me and the people started to warp around some, skill animations would go off, but the next Combo Action skill would not light up, like the first one never really landed, per the server. Fun times!

[Cori_Xaayr]

For me, this issue has been going on for almost two weeks. Every night, between 5-6pm Central until well into the evening (mostly on Tuesdays - reset days) the lag is so bad I can't maintain a connection to this game. Just like everyone else, I have tried multiple VPNs, clearing the dns cache, restarting the computer, resetting the router/modem, and contacting my local ISP.

The issue was so bad today I had to cancel our scheduled savage prog night because two people (me and our OT) are affected by this outage. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to not be able to run group content in a game that was designed for group content.

The VPNs I attempted to use are:
mudfish
ExitLag
Cloudflare
Hotspot Shield

Of those four, ExitLag was the only one that made any different at all, but it still did not solve my problem. In the span of 10-20 minutes, I experienced 4-5 disconnects.

The tracert results match exactly what other people have been experiencing. I do not use Comcast or AT&T. I am on an independent service provider in my local community. I have provided two attempts. The tests below were completed WITHOUT having any VPN services running.

Tracing route to neolobby02.ffxiv.com [204.2.229.9]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 8 ms 7 ms * (REMOVED FOR PRIVACY)
2 8 ms 7 ms 8 ms (REMOVED FOR PRIVACY)
3 10 ms 13 ms 13 ms (REMOVED FOR PRIVACY)
4 11 ms 10 ms 11 ms (REMOVED FOR PRIVACY)
5 21 ms 23 ms 21 ms cr2.nsvtn.ip.att.net [12.123.129.74]
6 * 22 ms 22 ms attga22crs.ip.att.net [12.122.2.41]
7 * 21 ms 22 ms attga402igs.ip.att.net [12.122.117.121]
8 15 ms 20 ms 17 ms 192.205.36.158
9 17 ms 19 ms 17 ms ae-16.r22.atlnga05.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.5.57]
10 31 ms 38 ms 38 ms ae-4.r25.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.116]
11 72 ms * 82 ms ae-2.r25.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.154]
12 75 ms 74 ms 74 ms ae-5.r24.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.146]
13 73 ms 76 ms 74 ms ae-4.r00.scrmca02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.7.57]
14 73 ms 74 ms 73 ms xe-0-1-0-1-1.r00.scrmca02.us.ce.gin.ntt.net [192.80.16.2]
15 73 ms 73 ms 76 ms 204.2.229.234
16 75 ms 75 ms 74 ms 204.2.229.9

Trace complete.

==============================================

Tracing route to neolobby02.ffxiv.com [204.2.229.9]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

(first four hops removed for privacy)
5 22 ms 23 ms 22 ms cr2.nsvtn.ip.att.net [12.123.129.74]
6 18 ms 23 ms 23 ms attga22crs.ip.att.net [12.122.2.41]
7 21 ms 24 ms 21 ms attga402igs.ip.att.net [12.122.117.121]
8 17 ms 15 ms 15 ms 192.205.36.158
9 18 ms 19 ms 18 ms ae-16.r22.atlnga05.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.5.57]
10 31 ms 33 ms 29 ms ae-4.r25.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.116]
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 73 ms 73 ms 79 ms ae-5.r24.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.146]
13 73 ms 73 ms 73 ms ae-4.r00.scrmca02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.7.57]
14 73 ms 78 ms 73 ms xe-0-1-0-1-1.r00.scrmca02.us.ce.gin.ntt.net [192.80.16.2]
15 74 ms 75 ms 74 ms 204.2.229.234
16 75 ms 74 ms 75 ms 204.2.229.9

Trace complete.

Pinging neolobby02.ffxiv.com also shows these results:

Reply from 204.2.229.9: bytes=32 time=74ms TTL=51
Reply from 204.2.229.9: bytes=32 time=75ms TTL=51
Reply from 204.2.229.9: bytes=32 time=74ms TTL=51
Reply from 204.2.229.9: bytes=32 time=75ms TTL=51
Reply from 204.2.229.9: bytes=32 time=74ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 204.2.229.9: bytes=32 time=75ms TTL=51
Reply from 204.2.229.9: bytes=32 time=75ms TTL=51
Request timed out.

This issue is not with my ISP. I am able to browse the web, watch youtube, and play other games without problems. This -only- happens when I play FFXIV. It would be nice to know what SE is doing to work with NTT and correct this issue.