World of Warcraft Latency Issues

[#1]

Yes the traffic from the WoW server to my computer appears to be correctly marked as Titanium.
Would it be useful to actually provide you with a capture file at a time when the packetloss is quite bad (last night when I ran this things weren't too bad but Monday night was 1000+ latency at times)?

[#2]

I don't think it would hurt at all.
It would also be interesting to see a traceroute at that time to identify where the slowdown is, ie: whether it's within our network, core routers, or peering.

[#3]

Okay, I'll get it running next time the loss seems to be particularly bad and then post the results.
I do have an screenshot of the 24 hour pingplotter test I did a while back as well, if this might give any clues: http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb178/Huntmaster13/wwwgooglecom.png

[#4]

And here's a small capture of some WoW traffic when it was a little spikey last night, not the worst it's been, but maybe it will show something:
http://www.brooks247.plus.com/Wireshark%20Capture.pcap

[#5]

Okay tonight it was particularly bad at times - I captured some data which hopefully will be useful!
http://www.brooks247.plus.com/Wow%20Capture.pcap
http://www.brooks247.plus.com/wowserver.gif
and the basic tracert:
  1    1 ms    1 ms    1 ms  mygateway.ar7 [192.168.1.1]
  2    *      17 ms    22 ms  lo0.plusnet.thn-ag1.plus.net [195.166.128.101]
  3    90 ms  208 ms  256 ms  vl703.thn-gw2.plus.net [84.92.4.242]
  4    30 ms    21 ms    19 ms  ldn [213.248.84.197]
  5    15 ms    24 ms    14 ms  ldn [80.91.250.238]
  6    41 ms    22 ms    26 ms  prs [213.248.65.114]
  7    32 ms    40 ms    40 ms  ffm [80.91.249.46]
  8    34 ms    37 ms    43 ms  ffm [80.91.249.241]
  9    *        *        *    Request timed out.
10    *        *        *    Request timed out.

[#6]

Hi SBrooks,
Sorry it's been a while since this was picked up, I'm taking a look at it for you now.

[#7]

Hmm... apologies for incorrect previous reply, I had the streams the wrong way round.
In fact it is all being picked up as titanium so there's no issues there. This has got me stumped at the moment, will keep looking though.

[#8]

Any more thoughts on this please - things have been particularly bad the last couple of nights, tonight I'm experiencing latency levels between 1000 and 3000.
I took another Wireshark Capture: http://www.brooks247.plus.com/Wow%20Capture.pcap
Now I may be reading this wrong but to me it looks like packets going from my computer to the WoW server are being lost and having to be retransmitted.

[#9]

It does look like some of that is happening - I can see a few retransmissions and requests for missing segments which won't be helping with speeds but it shouldn't be having the impact that it is.
The traffic is definitely classed as titanium still so that can't be it. The only things I can think of are possible server errors (at the WoW end) though there's a few IP confirmation requests from the router to your PC as well - these seem to be happening every 10 seconds or so, perhaps it would be worth setting the IP for your PC there as a static? I believe on the D-Link it's in the Advanced -> LAN Clients section.
Hope that helps, please let us know - also, are you seeing any slow hops on a traceroute?

[#10]

I'll set the IP to static and report back if that makes any difference.
It's definately not a WoW server issue as the packetloss is noticeable on traceroutes to basically any IP I try and whilst this doesn't have so much of a visible effect on other internet applications - it's just gaming (WoW) and streaming video where the effect of the loss is extremely noticeable. Have a look at the pingplotter test I left running for 24 hours to a google IP address: http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb178/Huntmaster13/wwwgooglecom.png which clearly shows consistent packetloss at every single hop.

[#11]

Doesn't seem to have made a difference.
Here's another angle - pingplotter tracing www.google.com showing about ~10% packetloss and a wireshark capture of part of this:
http://www.brooks247.plus.com/google.png
http://www.brooks247.plus.com/Google%20Pingplotter%20Capture.pcap
Could it be something to do with all these 'time to live exceeded' entries?

[#12]

Any further thoughts on this please - with WotLK out the high loss is driving me a little insane.
A m8 I spoke too suggested it was likely a capacity issue at my local hub as the loss stems from hop 1 onwards and it's only really bad at peak times.

[#13]

Just to rule out the Plusnet piece - I play WoW faaaar too much, and my latency is fine (as are several people I know play WoW on Plusnet).  So, as you've probably worked out, it's not the traffic mgmt that's causing the lag...
Do you have anything weird like CPU utilisation% spikes on your machine?  Have you tried another network card if you have one lying around?  Another computer (have someone bring round a laptop) maybe?
Basically, troubleshoot it by eliminating all the other options...
0.  is it your phone line?  filters, etc
1.  is it your DSL?  do you get sync loss, etc
2.  is it your ISPs traffic management?  no (we know this part already)
3.  is it your game installation?  (though admittedly, reinstalling wow is a pain!)
4.  is it your OS?  ie is Windows broken?
5.  is it your hardware?  have you tried another machine, logging in at your mates, etc?
Mike

[#14]

Quote from: Gricey

Just to rule out the Plusnet piece - I play WoW faaaar too much, and my latency is fine (as are several people I know play WoW on Plusnet).  So, as you've probably worked out, it's not the traffic mgmt that's causing the lag... Do you have anything weird like CPU utilisation% spikes on your machine?  Have you tried another network card if you have one lying around?  Another computer (have someone bring round a laptop) maybe? Basically, troubleshoot it by eliminating all the other options... 0.  is it your phone line?  filters, etc 1.  is it your DSL?  do you get sync loss, etc 2.  is it your ISPs traffic management?  no (we know this part already) 3.  is it your game installation?  (though admittedly, reinstalling wow is a pain!) 4.  is it your OS?  ie is Windows broken? 5.  is it your hardware?  have you tried another machine, logging in at your mates, etc? Mike

0. No I have changed the filters (see earlier in the post), our previous ISP also had a BT engineer visit who confirmed there was no problem with our line.
1. How do I test for this please.
2. No.
3. No - the problem does not just occur for WoW, the packetloss is just a lot more noticeable there (for web-surfing it simply wouldn't be a problem as sites still load up pretty quickly, it's streaming video and gaming applications where it's a real killer).
4. No, a ping test run from the router itself indicates packetloss between Router and Internet (see reply #9 above), also the hop from my PC to my router reads 0 errors (see various pingplotter readings above).
5. See #4 with regards to my PC, I also have multiple PC's and problem is no different for any of them  - as for the router I'm afraid I don't have access to a second router to test - however with the problem occuring at peak times only I would need a very strong suggestion  from you guys that it could potentially be a router issue to shell out for a new one, I already wasted some ££ on new filters which made no difference.
I have relentlessly run every troubleshooting method I have been asked to by my previous ISP (Pipex) and yourselves, this problem is really spoiling WotLK for me - if a new router will solve the issues, just say and I will get one.

[#15]

Hello all
I've been having the same problems as the original poster, and all this happened very recently.
Here's my tracert and it looks quite similar to the one previously posted.

  1    50 ms    79 ms    99 ms  dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
  2    80 ms  107 ms    86 ms  lo0-plusnet.pcl-ag02.plus.net [195.166.128.39]
  3    90 ms    90 ms    94 ms  gi1-2-904.pcl-gw02.plus.net [84.92.0.141]
  4    79 ms    99 ms    73 ms  te2-2.thn-gw2.plus.net [212.159.0.190]
  5    96 ms    64 ms    91 ms  ldn-b4-link.telia.net [213.248.84.197]
  6    83 ms    73 ms    76 ms  ldn-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.251.18]
  7    96 ms    88 ms  115 ms  prs-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.254.209]
  8    89 ms    93 ms  141 ms  ffm-bb1-link.telia.net [80.91.249.44]
  9    97 ms    69 ms    65 ms  ffm-b4-link.telia.net [80.91.249.237]
10    *        *        *    Request timed out.
11    *        *        *    Request timed out.
12    *        *        *    Request timed out.
13    *        *        *    Request timed out.
14    *        *        *    Request timed out.

I've had 2 BT engineers over to see if it's a hardware problem, funny thing is, we did have a line problem. During with line problem, i could play wow brilliantly as long as no one else was on my network, despite being allocated 15kbps due to the line fault.
Now that the line is fixed, its gone down the toilet again, getting 1000ms+.
SBrooks did you send your tracert txt file to blizzard? i've sent them mine today for analysis and ill post here when i get a reply.
Is there anything else i can do? I've tried 3 routers, shorter cables - i've yet to get it installed on another machine but ill also reply once i've done that.
cheers