Sudden Lag & Packet Loss

[Massigon]

Just wanting to add my name to the pile, SoCal Frontier as well happening after 5 PM.

[Catumin]

9pm and still have around 20% packet loss.

[Machiren]

Adding myself to this list of SoCal, Frontier as the ISP. It's really feeling like something Frontier is doing. Getting the same levels of almost unplayable lag for my other mmos during the peak hours. We just upgraded to the 1gig fiber plan, too.

[Brygd]

Another Frontier victim.

I've been experiencing packet loss since Mid-July on Blizzard/Steam games, so I thought it was my own equipment. New router and ethernet cables arrived Wednesday, only to experience this. I'm so glad I'm not the only one suffering from this.

[sr7olsniper]

Another Frontier victim.

I've been experiencing packet loss since Mid-July on Blizzard/Steam games, so I thought it was my own equipment. New router and ethernet cables arrived Wednesday, only to experience this. I'm so glad I'm not the only one suffering from this.

That is what they want you to believe. They will always try to blame it on the equipment, even better if you are not using the router they provide you with. I literally had a rep try to blame it on my router because it was not the one they gave me, when the one they give you is shit to begin with. Anything to avoid doing the actual work of fixing their infrastructure / connection points.

[Miziere]

I caved and went in for a VPN in the event this isn't fixed by Savage. No packet loss. Hoping that they can fix it so I don't have to bother with the VPN, but hey, at least I have a back up just in case? lol

[Joker119]

I think some of us here are experiencing different issues.
I also have frontier, but am only experiencing this issue with FFXIV. There's a bunch of packet loss when the connection moves over to the NTT servers on the route to SE servers.
Outside of XIV servers, I have 0 issues with ping/packet loss/connection speed anywhere else.

Using my phones hotspot also does not resolve the issue, as it's connection is still routed through NTT.

Using a different ISP (my neighbor's wifi using comcast) also has the exact same behavior.

Also connecting to my VPN server does not resolve the issue, as it's still routed through the affected NTT servers in cali. (VPN is located in Las Vegas)

It's basically this issue, https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...NA-Data-Center
which has been stale for 4 years, but seems to have come back very recently (it's only been noticable the last 3-4 days for me).

[Joker@fedora ~]$ mtr -b neolobby04.ffxiv.com --report-wide
Start: 2022-08-27T21:59:46-0700
HOST: fedora                                                       Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1.|-- ???                                                          100.0    100    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
  2.|-- te1-5-0-0---0.lcr01.ontr.ca.frontiernet.net (172.102.108.48)  0.0%    100   11.8   6.9   3.9  11.8   2.3
  3.|-- ae8---0.scr02.lsan.ca.frontiernet.net (74.40.3.49)            0.0%    100    7.6   7.2   3.9   9.4   1.9
  4.|-- ae1---0.cbr05.lsan.ca.frontiernet.net (45.52.201.139)         0.0%    100    6.0   9.3   6.0  16.9   3.5
  5.|-- lag-101.ear2.LosAngeles1.Level3.net (4.16.30.129)            90.0%    100   21.2  21.2  21.2  21.2   0.0
  6.|-- 4.69.206.225                                                 90.0%    100   25.0  25.0  25.0  25.0   0.0
  7.|-- ae-28.r00.lsanca07.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.9.93)          10.0%    100   24.4  24.1  20.6  26.2   2.3
  8.|-- ae-6.r25.lsanca07.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.3.237)          90.0%    100   25.0  25.0  25.0  25.0   0.0
  9.|-- ae-3.r24.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.150)          18.6%    100   34.1  35.4  29.9  44.3   4.2
 10.|-- ae-4.r00.scrmca02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.7.57)           18.6%    100   39.0  35.8  33.3  39.0   1.6
 11.|-- xe-0-1-0-1-1.r00.scrmca02.us.ce.gin.ntt.net (192.80.16.2)    18.6%    100   36.6  36.3  32.9  40.1   2.6
 12.|-- 204.2.229.230                                                80.0%    100   37.1  37.0  36.9  37.1   0.1
 13.|-- 204.2.229.10                                                 18.6%    100   34.2  36.0  34.2  38.0   1.3

[Rhojin]

Another name for the list. Southern California Frontier customer who has been experiencing lag and packet loss since Thursday. Impossible to run dungeons or do anything else in game.

[Aestera]

EDIT: This was supposed to be in reply specifically to @Joker119's reply, whoops lol. Haven't used this site except to browse before, must have misclicked.

I'm glad you mentioned this!
I'm pretty new to the game, but my wife's been playing for years. I only started playing on 08/25, and had no issues up until probably around 11pm PST, 08/27, when the rubber-banding started. My wife isn't having this issue, and we know the PC I'm on runs the game fine, as it's what she used to play on. My ping, while not ideal, is fine also (averages around 45ms), so I've been at a loss. Game only rubber-bands every 5-10 minutes for me; sometimes when I try to eat, or use an Aetherite, but it just started doing it during overworld combat, and lasted around 45-90 seconds, causing the first actual consequence resulting from the issue.
Everyone in this thread is SoCal and using Frontier though, while I'm in WA and use Xfinity (Comcast), so seeing this makes me feel a bit more at ease that it lines up (sort of) lol. I (supposedly) don't have any packet loss according to the ping check I ran through CMD, which is odd, but the rubber-banding is a definite issue that makes the game unplayable, and I've been trying to figure out what is going on to cause it, since I know it is not a hardware or ping issue for me, personally (I double checked).

So let's add yet another name to list, but this time in WA, and through Xfinity.
I don't doubt Frontier has a hand in it for a lot of the people in this thread, but I would say it's within reason to assume the patch, or something else in-game, is largely at fault. Heres hoping it's fixed soon.

Ty again for mentioning this, it gives me more to look into, so I can hopefully figure something out, even if just a temporary fix!

[Joker119]

Unfortunately there isn't really a temporary fix for the issue at hand.

The issue seems to be the NTT server network that connects to the datacenter can't handle the traffic load players are putting on it (this likely only became a recent problem because many more people are playing with the 6.2 patch release than were playing before).
It won't affect everyone, as my friend in Asia can play on NA servers without any issue at all, because her route to the data center doesn't take the NTT network.

In simple terms

Think of the datacenter as an intersection with several roads (ISP networks) leading into it.
The intersection itself isn't to blame if one of the roads is only 2 lanes wide and backs up, when all the other roads are 4 lanes wide and have no issues.
Your route to the intersection (data center) will determine your connection issues (or lack thereof). Unfortunately it's not the responsibility (or even realistically possible) of your individual ISP to stop using the broken route. Nor is it possible for you yourself to change your route.
The people who maintain the road (NTT) need to widen it (increase network capacity) in order to resolve the issue, or take the affected server (since it seems to be caused by one specific NTT server along the route, currently) off the available route (close the road so people take the other, bigger ones that have less traffic).

However from what i've been able to gather, NTT doesn't seem to give half of a shit about the issue whatsoever, and are happy to just sit on their thumbs doing nothing.
Since the data center being served is SE's, they would need to be the ones to push NTT to a resolution, or work with their data center's ISP to take NTT off the routing list.

That being said, you *may* be able to work around (literally) the issue, by using a VPS located somewhere that isn't close to you - such as Northern Cali, WA, OR or elsewhere.

My VPN in NV has the same issue, however neither of my servers in MO do, so I'm probably going to setup a vpn server for myself on one of those to use.