Character-specific lag spikes leading to 90k within 5 minutes of login

[roippi]

General Description: around 0100 EST Sunday morning I was first disconnected from an instanced dungeon with a 90k error. Every subsequent time I now log into that character, I receive increasingly large lag spikes which eventually lead to a 90000 disconnection. The longest I have been able to stay in-game is approximately 20 minutes; the shortest, about 2.

Notably I created a character on a different server and it does -not- have this issue.

Time: 0100 EST, Sep 01 2013 to current time
Frequency: Always
World name: Adamantoise
Character name: Roippi Izricle
NPC name: None
Monster name: None
Class/Level: All classes/levels on my character. Switching to a different class does not ameliorate the issue. Originally occurred on 43 BRD.
Party or solo: Solo
In-game time: n/a
Area and coordinates: All areas
Steps:
1. Login to character
2. Wait. No movement is necessary
3. Lag spikes - up to 30s of non-updating from the server, followed by a burst of "catch-up" behavior.
4. 90000 disconnection.

Connection Specs
- Type of internet connection/provider: RCN Cable, 20 Mbit/s down
- Modem maker/model number: Linksys E1200

Thank you for your attention. I know you guys are swamped at the moment.

[roippi]

Followup:

Did some diagnostics on my connectivity.

Pinging Google:

Ping statistics for 146.115.8.113:
    Packets: Sent = 2000, Received = 1999, Lost = 1 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 4ms, Maximum = 42ms, Average = 9ms

Pinging my world server:

Ping statistics for 199.91.189.44:
    Packets: Sent = 2000, Received = 1932, Lost = 68 (3% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 38ms, Maximum = 113ms, Average = 45ms

Packet loss appears to be an issue. I opened up wireshark to try and capture what was going on. Here's a quick graph of a "no-lag" section:


And one where there was sufficient lag to produce a 90k error:


The red impulses are TCP errors - namely, TCP Retransmission, TCP Dup ACK, and TCP Previous segment not captured. So this is indeed a connectivity issue - just one out of my immediate control. I have the wireshark log saved if anyone is interested.

I have enough knowledge to get this far but past this I run out of resources. Pinging google is sufficient to show that my immediate ethernet is not malfunctioning, but there are a lot of stops in between me and the world server, and any one of them - including the world server - could be dropping packets.

I will keep this thread updated after the server maintainance to let interested parties know if that helps the connection quality. If it does, great, thread closed; if not, I'll start combing through the traceroute to my world server to try and pin down who is dropping packets.

[roippi]

Second followup:

Packet loss issue not resolved. However, determined that it is happening before SE's servers.

Tracing route to 199.91.189.44 over a maximum of 30 hops

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.1
  2     6 ms     7 ms     7 ms  bdl1.nwt-ubr1.sbo-nwt.ma.cable.rcn.net [10.16.144.1]
  3     8 ms     9 ms     8 ms  bvi200.aggr2.sbo.ma.rcn.net [10.65.92.101]
  4    20 ms    21 ms    19 ms  tge0-0-0-0.core1.sbo.ma.rcn.net [207.172.15.131]
  5    22 ms    21 ms    21 ms  tge0-0-0-1.core1.nyw.ny.rcn.net [207.172.19.219]
  6    21 ms    23 ms    21 ms  tge0-0-0-2.core1.phdl.pa.rcn.net [207.172.19.223]
  7    21 ms    22 ms    21 ms  tge0-0-0-2.core1.lnh.md.rcn.net [207.172.19.227]
  8    24 ms    20 ms    19 ms  tge0-1-0-6.border1.eqnx.va.rcn.net [207.172.19.7] <-------
  9     *        *       30 ms  equinix-was12.ip.tiscali.NET [206.126.236.19]
 10    45 ms    45 ms    44 ms  xe-1-0-0.mtl10.ip4.tinet.net [89.149.185.41]
 11    42 ms    45 ms    42 ms  ormuco-gw.ip4.tinet.net [216.221.156.110]
 12    45 ms    45 ms    45 ms  192.34.76.2
 13    42 ms    43 ms    43 ms  199.91.189.234
 14    42 ms    43 ms    44 ms  199.91.189.44

The arrowed node is dropping somewhere around 10-20% of my packets. This is obviously not SE's fault. I will get on the phone with my ISP and see what can be done.

Ticket can be closed; thank you for your attention.