So I'm getting every connect error under the sun

[MrSinnyPants]

90002, 90001, I swear I saw a 90006, I keep getting the 2002 as well.

I've gotten tonnes of connection errors within less than an hour, and those brief moments that I do get in to the game I get to play 5-10 minutes tops then the game disconnects me again, one time even resulting in one of those "Your character is still logged in" message.

One time I logged in, and the moment I realized none of my attacks were doing anyhting to a monster and it wasn't responding, jsut standing there, I knew exactly where that was going, I disconnected twenty seconds later. Sometimes i log in and i see clear lag.

I noticed a thread in the resolved section that mentions all these issues in similar fahsion, but it doesnt look like they actually had their problem resolved either.

My connection is with Bt Broadband, I play on Aether, Jenova server. (I chose Aether because I play more with my online american buddies than anyone else)

My connection is not the issue, it responds well on other programs, I downloaded a 2gb item on steam just to test how fast it would go. No problems whatsoever. No problems streaming videos from any location, but just trying to load or play XIV is becoming a chore in and of itself.

[worldofneil]

My connection is not the issue, it responds well on other programs

Unfortunately it might be, the Internet isn't located in a single place and it might be the destination you're trying to get to has bad routing on the way. You'd need to do a trace route to be sure, but basically the way your ISP sends your traffic might be the cause of your problems. For example a common problem with people accessing Aether is because their ISP sends them via Level 3 Communications who in turn lose packets/cause network latency/disconnects, but this doesn't affect players who ISPs don't route them via Level 3.

Although I've not personally heard of someone outside of the Americas having an issued caused by Level 3, it is entirely possible and you'd have to do a traceroute to be sure (and if it does goes Level 3 then that's probably your issue and you need to to shout at your ISP/request they route you another way).

Apparently Jenova's IP address is 199.91.189.27, you'll need that for the trace route!

[MrSinnyPants]

How drastic would you call 'drastic' in numbers? On mine it initially it goes from 1 to 10 in an initial jump but further down the line it jumps to about 78 average and rises from there to 92 at the last once it reaches the Jenova server.

[MrSinnyPants]

Good grief how am I supposed to make sense of that? >_< What even is Level 3 communications? How do I even tell what results are good or bad when I've run the command?

[worldofneil]

Yes sorry, that's how SE link to it (here), so I figured if they could get away with doing that...

Level 3 is (putting it very basically) a middleman for transporting Internet traffic. They're acting as a sort of agent to carry traffic part way across the world (via their network). Some Internet providers have agreements with them to transport data to some destinations by them.

When you run the traceroute it shows each step of your connection across the Internet to the destination server starting with your own router and then your Internet providers and then various other companies until you get to Square Enix's servers.

Next to each are 3 times (usually in milliseconds) which is how long it took to talk that that step and get back (round trip time), usually all three will be about the same. When that number drastically jumps from the previous stage, you know something is (probably) up. Although this can be normal if it's when it's crossing the Atlantic etc. There's a bit more to it than that, but that's the basics and hope that's of some help?

[worldofneil]

Well we'd need to see your traceroute to be sure (there's nothing really confidential in it as at most it tells us what ISP you use and you already said that), but the 1 to 10 is probably where it switches from your to your ISP, the jump to 78 is likely where it crosses the atlantic and then everything after that is crossing to the SE servers. Here's mine with some added explanation notes:

Tracing route to 199.91.189.27 over a maximum of 30 hops

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  router [192.168.0.254]

Leaving my home and jumping to my ISP:

  2    10 ms    10 ms    11 ms  losubs.subs.dsl6.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.84.27]
  3    10 ms    10 ms    10 ms  ae1-133.cr2.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.86.133]
  4    10 ms    10 ms     9 ms  ge-2-0-0-0.cr1.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.41]

Transferring from my ISP to GTT:

  5    10 ms     9 ms    11 ms  xe-8-2-2.lon10.ip4.gtt.net [77.67.66.225]

Crossing the Atlantic still using GTT (lon above = London, mtl below = Montreal):

  6   101 ms    96 ms   100 ms  xe-9-0-0.mtl10.ip4.gtt.net [141.136.105.162]
  7    96 ms    96 ms    96 ms  ormuco-gw.ip4.gtt.net [216.221.156.110]

Transfering from GTT to Ormuco:

  8    96 ms    96 ms    99 ms  192.34.76.2

Still within Ormuco's infrastructure, but now entering into Square Enix's network (under the EIDOS name):

  9    98 ms    96 ms    97 ms  199.91.189.234
 10    96 ms    96 ms    98 ms  199.91.189.27

Trace complete.

Each time the domain name changes (the last part of the name of each node) then generally you're connection is moving to a different company.

Ideally you want to try and do a few traceroutes when you are having problems and see what happens then. Something else you can try is using the pathping tool (literally "pathping 199.91.189.27" from the command prompt) and it'll run repeatedly and give you results over a period of time (so perhaps try this when you start to have problems and let it run to completion - default is just over 4 minutes). Or you could just use pathping anyway while playing and see if you're having packetloss somewhere even if you're not really noticing it.

It'll output something like this:

Tracing route to 199.91.189.27 over a maximum of 30 hops

  0  GARUDA [192.168.0.11]
  1  router [192.168.0.254]
  2  losubs.subs.dsl6.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.84.27]
  3  ae1-133.cr2.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.86.133]
  4  ge-2-0-0-0.cr1.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.41]
  5  xe-8-2-2.lon10.ip4.gtt.net [77.67.66.225]
  6  xe-9-0-0.mtl10.ip4.gtt.net [141.136.105.162]
  7  ormuco-gw.ip4.gtt.net [216.221.156.110]
  8  192.34.76.2
  9  199.91.189.234
 10  199.91.189.27

Computing statistics for 250 seconds...
            Source to Here   This Node/Link
Hop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address
  0                                           GARUDA [192.168.0.11]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  1    0ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  router [192.168.0.254]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  2    9ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  losubs.subs.dsl6.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.84.27]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  3   11ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  ae1-133.cr2.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.86.133]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  4   13ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  ge-2-0-0-0.cr1.th-lon.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.41]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  5   10ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  xe-8-2-2.lon10.ip4.gtt.net [77.67.66.225]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  6  100ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  xe-9-0-0.mtl10.ip4.gtt.net [141.136.105.162]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  7   96ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  ormuco-gw.ip4.gtt.net [216.221.156.110]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  8   98ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  192.34.76.2
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
  9   97ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  199.91.189.234
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 10   96ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  199.91.189.27

Trace complete.

If you are getting any sort of packet loss, it'll show up (you won't get 0%) and you'll also know where it's originating from.

Sorry this post got a lot larger than I expected, but hope it's been some help!