YouTube upload problems
Quote from: Bob So you toggle the setting to enable/disable PING response on the WAN interface? Along with the gateway hopping that's something else I struggle to see the point in if I'm honest
No. As I said in my original gaming thread which I linked you to above so that you knew what was going on and what I had been doing; I toggle the Ping Responder, Port forwarding in Gaming and Application, and Game Mode. Sometimes I may also toggle the router firewall (but I rarely do that one - haven't for a very long time actually), and gateway hopping. The point is, as I said in the thread and above is that doing either or both temporarily cures the problem - no gaming trouble for a short period, until the gaming problems start again, I check the log and find the errors. So I do the switching/hopping for another temporary cure, and on it has gone since I started playing the game months ago.
Quote Anyway, I concur with what ejs says. You're jumping to conclusions and assuming that the ICMP router entries are the cause of your problem. I very much doubt they are.
No, I am not jumping to conclusions. I have never once said the entries are the cause of the problem. What I have said is that when I encounter problems in the game, the entries are there. I know they are going to be there before I even look in the router log because I can tell by the way the game is behaving. Naturally, and most especially as the 216x IP address belongs to the game developer, I know these entries are therefore connected to the game and relevant to my problems. Whatever is causing the entries to appear is the cause of my problem with the game. I conclude thus far that it's either the router or the PN service or both because it's happened with every router and randomly and the only sometime cure I can get is to toggle the settings and/or hop gateway. They are not un[/]connected.
Quote ... there's practically zero chance you've been supplied with multiple faulty routers.
And no doubt the same could have been said to me about the whistling routers when PN didn't even believe one whistled, that anybody had, and I had four. Besides this, what I am suggesting and what many others have and do suggest on this forum is that the PN supplied router is faulty. I've read many posts on this forum about that. It is often referred to. A prime example would be disabling the router doesn't actually disable the router. Another would be that it doesn't remember or ignores settings. Time and again such things are brought up in this section.
Quote Why not pick up a cheap router on eBay to help prove/disprove the theory? You can probably get one for peanuts.
I have had this in mind but am reticent to spend any money on changing router/cabling, whatever, if the basic fault is with the PN service itself, especially when I have noted other users with similar problems and who do use different routers. This is what I have been trying to establish right from January this year when I was just dropped in my original thread, finally ignored, brushed under the carpet - like so many on this forum who STILL have gaming problems. I can name one for whom it's been going on for two years.
Quote We were waiting to see if the line elevation helped, which it doesn't seem to have. I'll get somebody to check again but if we don't see the errors (we didn't last time) then we may have to rethink the approach.
So how do you account for all those errors showing in the router stats? They can't just magically disappear. Or you can't just discount them just because some other test you do shows nothing. Clearly something is wrong. Why else would the router indicate such errors?
Quote Would be good to actually check your line whilst you're having the problem and whilst you're gaming. Is there ever an occasion when you're gaming during the working day and have problems?
I have problems every time I game, except once yesterday. I'll come to that. It depends. Suffice to say that I often game day and/or night and certainly have played the last couple of days up to around midday.
I have to say that for the first time yesterday, you will note several disconnections very close together. I got stuck on a diabolical PCL-AG03 and tried several times to get off it. When I finally succeeded, I got on to:
Quote Info Jul 31 10:56:09 PPP CHAP Receive challenge (rhost = PCL-AG01)
I had a great gaming session from then (winning match after match) with no gaming problems and not a single error message in the log. So something was working for once.
Anyway, with this I am still no closer to determining the exact cause of the concomitant YT uploads problem, which also continues (tested again yesterday).
Quote from: Razer
Quote Anyway, I concur with what ejs says. You're jumping to conclusions and assuming that the ICMP router entries are the cause of your problem. I very much doubt they are.
No, I am not jumping to conclusions. I have never once said the entries are the cause of the problem. What I have said is that when I encounter problems in the game, the entries are there. I know they are going to be there before I even look in the router log because I can tell by the way the game is behaving. Naturally, and most especially as the 216x IP address belongs to the game developer, I know these entries are therefore connected to the game and relevant to my problems. Whatever is causing the entries to appear is the cause of my problem with the game. I conclude thus far that it's either the router or the PN service or both because it's happened with every router and randomly and the only sometime cure I can get is to toggle the settings and/or hop gateway. They are not un[/]connected.
It's mainly Brotherhood we're talking about, yes? And it's the PC version? We did identify some issues with a few of the traffic flows when playing (we have a PC copy here that we've tested with) and have submitted the necessary captures to Procera who are the vendor of the new traffic management switches. It shouldn't make a difference to you though, you were put on a 'Pro' traffic profile some time ago and you're still on it. This means we could be completely misclassifying a game and it shouldn't affect you.
After speaking to a few of the gamers here, one's suggested asking whether or not you have the Da Vinci add-on? To paraphrase from the conversation I've had with them:
Quote It had quite an impact at the time as (on 360 anyway) you had to have separate content specifically installed for the multiplayer which they kept updating, without the da vinci add on i think it got to like animus version 1.8 but with the add on it went to 2.0
Gobbledegook to me but it might make sense to you?
Regarding the 216 address, it looks to me to be a dedicated/virtual server hosted by these folk. Worth noting the geographical location. It this the only server you tend to play on? Can anyone join games on this server?
Quote from: Razer
Quote ... there's practically zero chance you've been supplied with multiple faulty routers.
And no doubt the same could have been said to me about the whistling routers when PN didn't even believe one whistled, that anybody had, and I had four.
We spent a *lot* of time trying to get to the bottom of that particular problem. It doesn't really have any bearing on what you're seeing here. FWIW I couldn't hear the whistling either when there was one sat in front of me
Quote from: Razer Besides this, what I am suggesting and what many others have and do suggest on this forum is that the PN supplied router is faulty. I've read many posts on this forum about that. It is often referred to. A prime example would be disabling the router doesn't actually disable the router. Another would be that it doesn't remember or ignores settings. Time and again such things are brought up in this section.
Not sure what you mean by 'disabling the router'. There are some nuances with the GUI, certainly older revisions of the router/firmware but not to the extent where I would expect it to cause problems with yours or anyone else's gaming.
Quote from: Razer
Quote Why not pick up a cheap router on eBay to help prove/disprove the theory? You can probably get one for peanuts.
I have had this in mind but am reticent to spend any money on changing router/cabling.
If it helps put your mind at ease then I'll happily apply a month or two's credit to your account to cover the cost of a cheap router from eBay. Hardly protocol but I'd much rather we got to the bottom of the problem and ruled out as many things as we can.
Quote from: Razer ... if the basic fault is with the PN service itself, especially when I have noted other users with similar problems and who do use different routers. This is what I have been trying to establish right from January this year when I was just dropped in my original thread, finally ignored, brushed under the carpet - like so many on this forum who STILL have gaming problems. I can name one for whom it's been going on for two years.
If there was an inherent problem with gaming/YouTube on our network then we'd be flooded with complaints. Yes, there are a few on this forum but the very nature of a discussion forum means that people are far more likely to complain than come here to share the fact that everything's working as it should. I'm not saying there isn't a problem specific to your line or service, but hopefully you can understand how difficult diagnosing single user issues like this is?
Quote from: Razer
Quote We were waiting to see if the line elevation helped, which it doesn't seem to have. I'll get somebody to check again but if we don't see the errors (we didn't last time) then we may have to rethink the approach.
So how do you account for all those errors showing in the router stats? They can't just magically disappear. Or you can't just discount them just because some other test you do shows nothing. Clearly something is wrong. Why else would the router indicate such errors?
The remote tests we run only show if the line is erroring at a particular moment in time. They wouldn't flag a handful of errors that occurred hours/days ago. When we tested your line after my preceding post, I'll not lie to you, it looked perfect
Quote from: Razer
Quote Would be good to actually check your line whilst you're having the problem and whilst you're gaming. Is there ever an occasion when you're gaming during the working day and have problems?
I have problems every time I game, except once yesterday. I'll come to that. It depends. Suffice to say that I often game day and/or night and certainly have played the last couple of days up to around midday.
If there's a morning during the week that you're definitely going to be playing then let me know and we'll try and stick a monitor on the line to catch what's happening in real time.
Quote from: Razer I have to say that for the first time yesterday, you will note several disconnections very close together. I got stuck on a diabolical PCL-AG03 and tried several times to get off it. When I finally succeeded, I got on to:
Quote Info Jul 31 10:56:09 PPP CHAP Receive challenge (rhost = PCL-AG01)
I had a great gaming session from then (winning match after match) with no gaming problems and not a single error message in the log. So something was working for once.
Going back to what I said earlier about the traffic management classification both PCL-AG01 and PCL-AG03 are on the new Procera kit. All the PCL gateways are. So is PTW-AG01/03. At the time of writing, all the other gateways are still on the old Ellacoya kit.
Edit: Just realised most of that is completely off topic and has nothing to do with your YouTube problems
I'd like to rule the router out as the next step for that one. In the meantime it wouldn't hurt if you could provide a Wireshark packet capture of a slow/failed upload.
Quote from: ejs Perhaps we should go back to the basics: are you connected using an extension socket?
Perhaps the current downstream snr margin of 3 is too low.
Aside from a change of room, there's been no change of setup with my wiring, and certainly not in the last month. I've had the 3db snr for months (aside from a brief period when testing was done on my line and it was reset back to 6db, which I wasn't happy about because it reduced my synch).
Quote from: Bob It's mainly Brotherhood we're talking about, yes? And it's the PC version?
Yes and yes.
Quote We did identify some issues with a few of the traffic flows when playing (we have a PC copy here that we've tested with) and have submitted the necessary captures to Procera who are the vendor of the new traffic management switches. It shouldn't make a difference to you though, you were put on a 'Pro' traffic profile some time ago and you're still on it. This means we could be completely misclassifying a game and it shouldn't affect you.
Which pertained to traffic for the 216x IP address not being identified. Dave said he'd put a temporary fix on himself until (I can only now surmise) Procera got the signature done properly for the game, neither of which has seemed to help me at all.
Quote After speaking to a few of the gamers here, one's suggested asking whether or not you have the Da Vinci add-on? To paraphrase from the conversation I've had with them:
Quote It had quite an impact at the time as (on 360 anyway) you had to have separate content specifically installed for the multiplayer which they kept updating, without the da vinci add on i think it got to like animus version 1.8 but with the add on it went to 2.0
Gobbledegook to me but it might make sense to you?
I'm not sure if this 360 issue can be applied to PC versions. As far as I'm aware the DaVinci extra isn't a separate executable. Either way the DaVinci level, like other DLC specials run in the single player version anyway, which is a different executable to the multiplayer.
Quote Regarding the 216 address, it looks to me to be a dedicated/virtual server hosted by these folk. Worth noting the geographical location. It this the only server you tend to play on? Can anyone join games on this server?
As I understand it, no player of the game plays on an Ubisoft server. It is the players who host individual matches. The Ubisoft server(s) seem simply to provide the initial link up of who is online and searching games, and the relaying of messages/notifications, as far as I can tell, and this seems to be the 216 address. When I first started playing the game, from my punkbuster logs I was able to ascertain punkbuster at least connected to one or more of these:
Quote 66.36.231.175
master1.evenbalance.com
master5.evenbalance.com
204.15.228.214
master2.evenbalance.com
master6.evenbalance.com
ACB1.EVENBALANCE.COM
216.240.146.139
master3.evenbalance.com
master7.evenbalance.com
66.180.170.20
master4.evenbalance.com
master8.evenbalance.com
And listens on port 12000. If it can't get one, it tries another, but there is usually only one entry in the punkbuster logs for whichever IP address it's using. Aside from the usual 216 address, I don't know if punkbuster AND the game do and need to connect to the other addresses. I never see any error entries for them in my router log. It's almost always the usual 216 address, except for recently, where there may very occasionally be one or two entries for 216.98.51.133 out of twenty or thirty entries for the usual 216 address. However, as you've seen there are persistent problems with the 216 address in my router logs (which is never reflected in the punkbuster logs) and these coincide with not getting linked up with other players and/or being disconnected from the game, terrible lag if I do get into a game, messages not getting through etc.
In the last few months, there has been a change in the punkbuster logs, so that it still tries to contact:
Quote ACB1.EVENBALANCE.COM 204.15.228.214
MASTER5.EVENBALANCE.COM 66.36.231.175
MASTER7.EVENBALANCE.COM 216.240.146.139
MASTER8.EVENBALANCE.COM 66.180.170.20
But resolves addresses to:
Quote 192.155.198.210
master1.evenbalance.com
50.62.76.68
master2.evenbalance.com
50.23.100.138
master3.evenbalance.com
50.62.81.163
master4.evenbalance.com
50.63.136.194
master5.evenbalance.com
119.81.16.194
master6.evenbalance.com
5.153.14.146
master8.evenbalance.com
Either way, the 216 address seems still to be crucial for the game itself. I don't know how crucial it is to punkbuster.
Quote We spent a *lot* of time trying to get to the bottom of that particular problem. It doesn't really have any bearing on what you're seeing here. FWIW I couldn't hear the whistling either when there was one sat in front of me
No, it doesn't, other than my basic point that saying there's 'zero chance' of having more than one faulty router isn't a statement that can hold water. I did have four whistlers and it took many more members posting with the same problem after pushing for exposure of the issue before PN really got into looking into it and getting 'proof'. Prior to that you or anybody could easily have said 'there is zero chance you'd have four faulty routers', but I did have.
Quote
Quote from: Razer ... A prime example would be disabling the router doesn't actually disable the router. ...
Not sure what you mean by 'disabling the router'. There are some nuances with the GUI, certainly older revisions of the router/firmware but not to the extent where I would expect it to cause problems with yours or anyone else's gaming.
Excuse me, Bob. I didn't write what was actually in my head. I meant to type 'router firewall' in both instances, instead of just 'router'.
Quote If it helps put your mind at ease then I'll happily apply a month or two's credit to your account to cover the cost of a cheap router from eBay. Hardly protocol but I'd much rather we got to the bottom of the problem and ruled out as many things as we can.
That's very kind of you. I wouldn't know where to begin so suppose I would have to open a thread to seek advice on what would be a good buy. Before taking that step, however, I would far rather us perhaps getting a better idea of where the problem lies and we'll come to that with doing a monitor as I play. I tend to think that at least that way you may well see where the block is coming from in a way that I can't. If something can be seen from your monitoring that perhaps indicated something not being set up right with the router or my line well then it would save spending money on another router (whoever is paying).
Quote If there was an inherent problem with gaming/YouTube on our network then we'd be flooded with complaints. Yes, there are a few on this forum but the very nature of a discussion forum means that people are far more likely to complain than come here to share the fact that everything's working as it should. I'm not saying there isn't a problem specific to your line or service, but hopefully you can understand how difficult diagnosing single user issues like this is?
I do, Bob. I'm just a cynic who, after doing all he can, can only see the problem as being with PN or the PN router. I am, however, always open to having my mind changed!
Quote The remote tests we run only show if the line is erroring at a particular moment in time. They wouldn't flag a handful of errors that occurred hours/days ago. When we tested your line after my preceding post, I'll not lie to you, it looked perfect
And there was I thinking these magical tests would show any fault on the line. Well, at least a 'live monitoring' I would hope will do a better job and hopefully show up any routing, bottleneck, timeout [insert any jargon word here] type error/problem that may explain things.
Quote If there's a morning during the week that you're definitely going to be playing then let me know and we'll try and stick a monitor on the line to catch what's happening in real time.
I appreciate this very much, Bob. I'll certainly be gaming this morning, once I've sorted something out. Maybe half an hour - one hour's time (though I doubt you'll be able to get to me this morning). Otherwise for next week I'm pretty certain I'll be gaming Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning. I can make a point of it if there is a day more convenient for you.
Quote Going back to what I said earlier about the traffic management classification both PCL-AG01 and PCL-AG03 are on the new Procera kit. All the PCL gateways are. So is PTW-AG01/03. At the time of writing, all the other gateways are still on the old Ellacoya kit.
I have to say it, looking over my notes over the last few days the worst performers for me have been the PCL and PTW gateways! I have several marked with a sharp and clear 'X' in expressing my anger at how bad things were. The only exception was the one I mentioned when suddenly everything went smoothly and not an error in sight.
Quote Edit: Just realised most of that is completely off topic and has nothing to do with your YouTube problems
I'd like to rule the router out as the next step for that one. In the meantime it wouldn't hurt if you could provide a Wireshark packet capture of a slow/failed upload.
If you would be pleased to move the gaming matter off into another thread, I have no objection - as long as the problem doesn't get brushed under the carpet again. As to the continuing YT problem, I'll do a capture over the weekend when I make another upload test.
Quote from: Razer
Quote from: ejs Perhaps we should go back to the basics: are you connected using an extension socket?
Perhaps the current downstream snr margin of 3 is too low.
Aside from a change of room, there's been no change of setup with my wiring, and certainly not in the last month. I've had the 3db snr for months (aside from a brief period when testing was done on my line and it was reset back to 6db, which I wasn't happy about because it reduced my synch).
I was going to suggest that as well
Quote from: Razer
Quote Regarding the 216 address, it looks to me to be a dedicated/virtual server hosted by these folk. Worth noting the geographical location. It this the only server you tend to play on? Can anyone join games on this server?
As I understand it, no player of the game plays on an Ubisoft server. It is the players who host individual matches.
That was kind of the point I was getting at. The IP address didn't stroke me as an Ubisoft server. I suspected (incorrectly?) it was a dedicated gaming server. Latency across the pond and back is never going to be great which is why I pointed out the location. Presumably you tend to play against those that are hosting matches in Europe/close to home?
Quote from: Razer The Ubisoft server(s) seem simply to provide the initial link up of who is online and searching games, and the relaying of messages/notifications, as far as I can tell, and this seems to be the 216 address. When I first started playing the game, from my punkbuster logs I was able to ascertain punkbuster at least connected to one or more of these:
Quote 66.36.231.175
master1.evenbalance.com
master5.evenbalance.com
204.15.228.214
master2.evenbalance.com
master6.evenbalance.com
ACB1.EVENBALANCE.COM
216.240.146.139
master3.evenbalance.com
master7.evenbalance.com
66.180.170.20
master4.evenbalance.com
master8.evenbalance.com
So it looks like all of those IP's are associated with Punkbuster's integrated anti-cheating system. I'll remember that one for future.
Quote from: Razer
Quote If there's a morning during the week that you're definitely going to be playing then let me know and we'll try and stick a monitor on the line to catch what's happening in real time.
I appreciate this very much, Bob. I'll certainly be gaming this morning, once I've sorted something out. Maybe half an hour - one hour's time (though I doubt you'll be able to get to me this morning). Otherwise for next week I'm pretty certain I'll be gaming Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning. I can make a point of it if there is a day more convenient for you.
If you can let me know roughly when this morning you'll be online then I'll see what we can do.
Quote from: Razer
Quote Edit: Just realised most of that is completely off topic and has nothing to do with your YouTube problems
I'd like to rule the router out as the next step for that one. In the meantime it wouldn't hurt if you could provide a Wireshark packet capture of a slow/failed upload.
If you would be pleased to move the gaming matter off into another thread, I have no objection - as long as the problem doesn't get brushed under the carpet again. As to the continuing YT problem, I'll do a capture over the weekend when I make another upload test.
Thanks, feel free to link me to those captures via PM and I'll take a look.
Quote from: Razer Bob, when I've gone through the forum I'm going to start trying to game. I don't know if you are going to monitor that. As for YT uploads, I did more testing over the weekend. I have three captures of different sizes. Let me know when you want one or all of them.
No harm in providing me with all of them.
Quote from: Razer I will be gaming again at some point today, but not sure if it will be this morning.
As above, if you can let me know when. I can't guarantee I'll be able to arrange for the monitor to be set up (depends on other people's availability) but I will try my best.
BTW, I had one of the guys in the support centre play AC: Brotherhood on PC last Thursday evening. They've since reported back to tell me they didn't encounter any problems
Hi Bob, thanks for your response; I appreciate the attention to this.
It depends when I play. Certainly when connecting to those across the pond it is worse or elsewhere at great distance - say, Hong Kong or Thailand. I can usually tell when a player is at greater distance, and sometimes tell who is hosting (though most of the time no player knows). There are certainly players, however, with whom I always experience the worst lag, even with them being in Germany, for example, and other players in Brazil have no lag when playing these players. Indeed we can be in the same match when I am getting terrible lag with the German player, whilst the player in Brazil isn't.
Remember those first addresses were the IPs exclusively used by Punkbuster from when I first started playing the game. Now it uses the other IPs I noted whilst still trying to connect to the original IPs I listed.
Evidently I haven't got round to gaming this morning. I will be having a whirl after this, and after sending you a PM with links to the YT nopeload captures.
Well as said, now it will be afternoon play today. Probably through to early evening, assuming problems don't make me rage again and give up early.
Which only makes me continue to think the problem is with my connection, somewhere along the line. Incidentally, the YT nopeload captures I've just uploaded to dropbox went with smooth speed, as dropbox uploads have continued to do throughout all this.
Quote from: Bob That was kind of the point I was getting at. The IP address didn't stroke me as an Ubisoft server. I suspected (incorrectly?) it was a dedicated gaming server. Latency across the pond and back is never going to be great which is why I pointed out the location. Presumably you tend to play against those that are hosting matches in Europe/close to home?
It depends when I play. Certainly when connecting to those across the pond it is worse or elsewhere at great distance - say, Hong Kong or Thailand. I can usually tell when a player is at greater distance, and sometimes tell who is hosting (though most of the time no player knows). There are certainly players, however, with whom I always experience the worst lag, even with them being in Germany, for example, and other players in Brazil have no lag when playing these players. Indeed we can be in the same match when I am getting terrible lag with the German player, whilst the player in Brazil isn't.
Quote So it looks like all of those IP's are associated with Punkbuster's integrated anti-cheating system. I'll remember that one for future.
Remember those first addresses were the IPs exclusively used by Punkbuster from when I first started playing the game. Now it uses the other IPs I noted whilst still trying to connect to the original IPs I listed.
Quote If you can let me know roughly when this morning you'll be online then I'll see what we can do.
Evidently I haven't got round to gaming this morning. I will be having a whirl after this, and after sending you a PM with links to the YT nopeload captures.
Quote As above, if you can let me know when. I can't guarantee I'll be able to arrange for the monitor to be set up (depends on other people's availability) but I will try my best.
Well as said, now it will be afternoon play today. Probably through to early evening, assuming problems don't make me rage again and give up early.
Quote BTW, I had one of the guys in the support centre play AC: Brotherhood on PC last Thursday evening. They've since reported back to tell me they didn't encounter any problems
Which only makes me continue to think the problem is with my connection, somewhere along the line. Incidentally, the YT nopeload captures I've just uploaded to dropbox went with smooth speed, as dropbox uploads have continued to do throughout all this.
No gaming this morning. Am just about to start now if anybody is going to be monitoring. Yesterday's was the worst yet and I generally hope it's not the same today, but if there is going to be someone monitoring, I hope it will be, only so that the problems can be seen. Cynic that I am I think that when someone does monitor there won't be any of the usual problems.
