Is it my ISP or some other problem?

[Raist]

I'm also a TWC customer (SC, get routed up through Raleigh or Charlotte, depending on what they are doing to try to fix my issues... periodically I'll also get shot down to Atlanta).

Just wanted to encourage you to go after TWC with your issues, but wanted to make sure you had better information when you contact them. Some of us have leaned really hard on our ISP's about such issues in the past as well as now, and with good, detailed information you actually can make some headway. We managed to get escalation to investigate an issue with our headend that was only providing 6 downstream channels instead of 8, which was a MAJOR point of congestion for an entire region of residential customers in/around Florence. Just confirmed it tonight with my Zoom 8X4 modem that all 8 channels are now working again. Took 3 months of sticking it to them... but we eventually got it addressed. We also got them to put a fire under the collective arses of TATA, Cogent, and Level3 to address some routing issues we spotted coming through the east coast corridors, so we now can get a solid 70ms or less latency throughout the route--except for a primetime issue with our main CPE, it's the best it's ever been for this game and several other web services like Netflix, Hulu, etc.

Those IP's you were given are a good "test for smoke" approach, but may not ultimately get you the resolution you need. Those IP's are NOT the data centers for XIV. They are websites hosted on servers in a different location, and run off a different ISP's backbone. Our problems are with reliably getting to servers hosted on Ormuco lines, and not i-web. That may seem trivial because they are both in Montreal, but in the mess that is the internet, a difference of just a few blocks distance between two points can mean a world of difference depending on how the routing data is managed. In the case of TWC, it is FUBAR beyond belief, and some of their routing partners are just as bad if not worse. I have seen my routing shoot out to Missouri, up to Chicago then back (NSA scan, YAY!), then all the way out to LA, Up to Seattle, around British Columbia, across to Toronto, and then FINALLY to Montreal. I live in Florence, SC...which actually has a major fiber trunk that runs from Columbia to Myrtle Beach, major segments through NC, VA/DC, etc. on up to Montreal... so such outlandish routing errors should NOT be occurring from my point of origin. There are FAR better routes along the EAST COAST for me to take--or even the Midwest for that matter. I should NEVER have to go to Southern California, up through Washington, then around BC and back across Canada to get to Montreal. But, nevertheless... it can and DOES happen because of shoddy pathing on the part of either TWC or their routing partners. This kind of crap goes on all the time with TWC, and we have been giving them h3ll about it for some time trying to get such errors resolved. You can see lots of conversations about it over at the TWC forums.

Anywho... when you contact Time Warner (or anyone else contacting their ISP for that matter), you need to push for one very specific thing. Just how you get there may differ, as many have these @#$@#$ automated menus you have to wade through before you talk to a live person... power cycle this, power cycle that, reset your TCP/IP settings and flush DNS... all that BS that usually has absolutely NOTHING to do with your problem because it often resides upstream, typically in another state or possibly even another COUNTRY for that matter (and yes, it has left a bitter taste in my mouth over the years).

What you need is Tier3 support. PERIOD.

Accept NOTHING LESS for addressing your problem. These are the guys who actually know wtf a tracert can be used for, and actually may stand a chance of isolating your problem and getting the proper people involved in researching and <hopefully> fixing your problems. If they balk at you, ask for a supervisor... ask for escalation... whatever it takes to get to someone of higher authority until you find someone that gives you a means to send them some data about your connection problems. In most cases, you don't need to keep resetting local hardware or keep waiting for technicians to come verify your wiring is OK.

Those repeated on-site visits are really only necessary if a signalling issue is suspected locally---and this can usually be gleaned from the modem's logs and signal pages, which you have access to yourself as noted earlier. Print them out when you see a wide variance in the signal stats. Make sure to get snapshots of both "good" and "bad" states--copy/paste them into a document (or generate a PDF if you can) as well in case you want to forward them via email later. Make sure to get your log file as well, as it may provide more insight into whether fluctuating signal levels are impacting you enough to be causing your problems. There are sites out there to help you "print" a page to a PDF file (PDF995 has a cool tool you can install that does it--if you've used H&R Block Tax software in recent years, it's installed on your printers list). These reports can be very useful for narrowing down if there is a problem locally (like your wires or your modem itself), somewhere out on the poles, or deeper into their CMTS.

Secondly, you need to provide useful information about the games actual connections so they can follow the specific path(s) you are getting routed along to help them pinpoint where the problems are occurring. The tracert is a phenomenal report to that end--but you need to be hitting a proper IP so it shows the actual routing you are being assigned according to the registered geolocation of both your point of origin and the intended destination IP(s). On Win7/Win8 machines, it's pretty simple to do, as you can see what IP's the FFXIV is connecting to with Resource Monitor's TCP and/or Networking sections (run resmon.exe from your start/search box).

Unfortunately you don't have such simplicity on the consoles. We are, however in luck because so many people have been investigating this issue for a REALLY long time, so we know a lot of the IP's actually being used. There are also DNS names for servers embedded in the executables that can be used for testing DNS data as well. So, without further ado and more rambling from me, I will paste a list of some known DNS names and their currently resolving IP addresses, followed by some additional IP's I have noted for mine and other people's world and lobby servers. You can include some of this info with your communication with Tier3 (or higher if you get really lucky) so they can do more testing on their own.

***note that the servers in Montreal begin with 199, servers in Tokyo begin with 124. This is important because the client is in communication with BOTH countries for various tasks***

frontier.ffxiv.com 124.150.157.190
patch-gamever.ffxiv.com 124.150.157.126
neolobby01.ffxiv.com 124.150.157.158
neolobby02.ffxiv.com 199.91.189.74
neolobby03.ffxiv.com 124.150.157.157
neolobby04.ffxiv.com 199.91.189.93
neolobby05.ffxiv.com 124.150.157.156
neolobby06.ffxiv.com 199.91.189.94
secure.square-enix.com 124.150.158.110

199.91.189.74
199.91.189.60
199.91.189.38
199.91.189.36
199.91.189.31
199.91.189.25
(basically, a lot of IP's in this subnet--all of them used by the servers in Canada for the NA/EU subscriptions)

Patches appear to have been delivered via Akamai at times? A few particular IP's seem to come up routinely:
24.143.200.227
24.143.200.234
24.143.200.241

Several SE IP's in Japan routinely show up during activity requiring authentication (login and such), and may prove useful if issues are routinely during sign-on to both the mogstation and the game, as well as changing zones in the game:
124.150.158.110
124.150.158.117
124.150.157.126
124.150.157.190
(Again, there is a BIG subnet here owned by SE. And yes, that is both 157 and 158 in the 3rd octet. Some of the IP's in this group have been seen in use with other games in the past)