Lag must stop

I got error 007 in the middle of HA, lucky it was HA with my guild.

I wish it had worked for me - I had one file to defrag and that was it -_- Meaning that again mine must be elsewhere in the mess.... I still need to try tracert - I guess I will log on now to try that -_-




Errm I did the "C:\Program Files\Guild Wars\Gw.exe" -diag ... I would so post what it said if I could read the damned thing >_> It looks like a ton of pretty numbers to me >_< (I'm sure given some time and rest I could get it, but I had a long day at the dress shop and numbers are the last thing I want to look at right now).

Ok, does that or does that not show it's not Guild Wars, but instead is the provider or the backbone over which the data travels? Or the provider? I just glanced at the trace, but honestly, so many many times, we look at the records and the problem is external to Guild Wars. Nobody wants to believe that, they think we're trying to cover up game errors. But in fact more often than not, it's getting to us, and not within our system, that is the major problem. We cannot reach out and nab your connection -- it has to go through all the jumps. And when you see timeouts in the jumps, then you really cannot honestly blame Guild Wars.

I am sorry if I sound like I'm making excuses, but that fact is, I'm really sad that people keep insisting we "fix the problem!" when the problem sometimes lies outside our network.

Yes, all non-Guild Wars fixes.
Are they nearby? Do they use one of the few backbones into the game servers? Could be us, yes, and could be external to us. Fill out a support ticket. Send in the requested data that you obtain from one of two programs. They will help you, if they can, if it's Guild Wars that is the problem. Guild Wars uses more of your system requirements than most other applications, so you cannot say "Everything else is fine, it's the game!" In fact, it may still be the computer, a computer that is struggling to run a game that wants to make the most of the resources available to it.
Actually, we ask that people run a utility or two and send us the resultant reports. We don't mind if it's one person or one hundred, we really do want to help, and those reports provide the means to do so, as they help us pinpoint the source of the problem. If we need to tweak programming we will. If we need to ask others to tweak theirs, we will.
Don't we wish! Are can put some pressure on our ISPs and so forth, but I don't think many of the major backbone providers are too sympathetic to our concerns. I could be wrong -- maybe they're as responsive as Mary Poppins. But my overall feeling is that they don't exactly hop to help us. We really do want to work on this to the best of our ability and will do what we can when it's internal to our data centers, and will work with our providers to affect improvements, too. We just need that information, that proof of where the problem is so we can fix it or say "See, here's the bug in your system" and get it fixed!
Thank you very much!! If it's us, we'll work on it. If it's someone we're paying, you can be sure we'll lower the boom!

I'm just saying the symptoms are giving the distinct impression of being upstream from the end-users.

A wide geography is affected, ruling out (most likely) individual PC issues. Users located in other areas, regionally located, are experiencing no issues.

There might be a clue to this in that.

The problem began at the start of the previous weekend event, before the GWFC.

There might be a clue to this in that.

Multiple people are often affected at the same time. Partied or Unpartied, Different Chapters, Different Guilds.

There might be a clue to this in that.

Things are pointing upstream at either a backbone issue, or an Anet datacenter issue. Hopefully, it'll be found soon, where ever it is.

Haven't had many problems with lag but have a lot of Error 7 disconnects in the past few days. I've had about 6 in a period of 2 days and before that, I've only had 2 error 7 since I bought the game. And I bought Guild Wars when prophecies first came out!

This was pointed out before, but, the problem could very easily be on your computers, all of your computers.

This thread has some reasons why:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10037429

I suggest EVERYONE (even those with no problems) Defrag their Gw.dat file, as shown in the thread.

Thanks to Gaile for telling us a little more of whats going on on ANets end of it!
Heres my tracert to the same IP Seut used

Its pretty obvious its NOT my PC, but a ways down the line where the trouble starts. Sure defragging might help, but wont get me a shorter hop.
Its a little better now

They are from multiple parts of the world Gaile. I've filed a support ticket, which seemed to go bust, and the whole "people on opposite sides of the continent disconnecting at the same time" was ignored by PlayNC. And I am fairly fluent in computers, so I am 99.9876% sure its not my system.

I'm sorry, but the likelyhood of everyones gw.dat file being corrupted at the same time, is much less than there being a network problem on GW's end. And yes, I tried that. Still lag, still error 7ns, and it was only 80 files fragmented.

I love seeing people who have no clue about how the internet works saying big words like "traceroute" and "backbone". Here's a little experiment: try tracerouting to a bunch of different places on the internet such as google, amazon, guildwarsguru.com, etc. See how on many of them traceroute just stops working after a few lines? Go a dozen hops away on the internet and traceroute and the like stop being reliable. The packets are being dropped because of strange TTLs (which can indicate all sorts of things including internet attacks), not because no routes exist.

If you want to do serious end-to-end bandwidth and latency measurements, traceroute doesn't do it. Traceroute only (kinda sorta) shows the route. You don't care about the route, because you know that you can connect to GW. What you care about is bandwidth and latency. use a tool like pathChirp or netest. If you have lower end-to-end bandwidth to guildwarsguru.com than to GW's servers, then that there is your problem.

Of course knowing where the problem exists is only half the battle. If somewhere on the path between your computer and GW's servers some service provider is playing silly QoS games, you're basically SOL.

If half of the community is, then theres no lucky few. Theres a lucky half

ive had less lag as of late, but i have to download 2 ****ING MEGABYTES OF USELESS DATA EACH TIME I WANT TO CHANGE A CHARACTER OR GET BOOTED OFF!

Some stats. and NCSoft 1st response is update my video card driver... yeah sure thats the problem...

This was 9/1/06 around 1-3 am US / Eastern Time

[QUOTE]

Computing statistics for 15 seconds...
Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 (Removed for obvious reason)
0/ 4 = 0% |
1 1ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% dslrouter (Removed for obvious reason)
0/ 4 = 0% |
2 40ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% (Removed for obvious reason)
0/ 4 = 0% |
3 41ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% so-0-1-2-0.CORE-RTR1.CHI01.verizon-gni.net [130.81.16.248]
0/ 4 = 0% |
4 41ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% so-7-2-0-0.BB-RTR1.CHI01.verizon-gni.net [130.81.20.56]
0/ 4 = 0% |
5 41ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% so-6-0-0-0.PEER-RTR1.CHI80.verizon-gni.net [130.81.16.11]
0/ 4 = 0% |
6 41ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% ge1-14.fr1.ord.llnw.net [68.142.72.201]
0/ 4 = 0% |
7 41ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% tge1-2.fr3.ord.llnw.net [69.28.171.69]
0/ 4 = 0% |
8 95ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% tge2-1.fr3.dal.llnw.net [69.28.171.197]
0/ 4 = 0% |
9 106ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% tge1-2.fr3.phx2.llnw.net [69.28.171.129]
0/ 4 = 0% |
10 106ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% tge2-1.fr4.phx2.llnw.net [69.28.171.102]
0/ 4 = 0% |
11 106ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% tge2-1.fr3.phx1.llnw.net [69.28.171.89]
0/ 4 = 0% |
12 107ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% tge1-2.fr3.lax.llnw.net [69.28.171.82]
0/ 4 = 0% |
13 --- 4/ 4 =100% 4/ 4 =100% ncsoft.ge5-11.br01.lax05.pccwbtn.net [63.218.73.2]
0/ 4 = 0% |
14 --- 4/ 4 =100% 4/ 4 =100% 216-107-255-70.plaync.com [216.107.255.70]
0/ 4 = 0% |
15 106ms 0/ 4 = 0% 0/ 4 = 0% 216-107-246-36.plaync.com [216.107.246.36]

Bolded is the 100% packet loss aka the part where it's not talking.

Hop12 where the timeouts starts is named "ncsoft.ge5-11.br01.lax05.pccwbtn.net". It's probably some kind of firewall/ dispatcher/whatever from NCSoft that blocks ICMP packets (ping, traceroute and other programs use that).
My traceroute shows, that my connection up to NCSoft's area of influence might be a little high in it's round-trip, because i play on US server from europe, but it clearly shows it's not a problem on my side or the way to the first technical equipment that carries the name NCSoft on it (i didn't post my gw.exe -diag log that shows no packetloss).
Also as i have stated before: the lag spikes/disconnects are experienced simultaneously by people on 4continents in different regions of the game (meaning different instances that are probably hosted on different servers of Anet's network). It's either a problem on Anet's doorstep, or with the servers.

my personal background: i'm a Diplom Informatiker(fh) (that's a degree somewhere between bachelor and masters in the field of computer science) and i've financed my studies by working in technical support of a major company... trust me: i eliminate problems on my side first, before i go and blame others.

Traceroute uses UDP, not ICMP. Or, to be even more precise, it sends UDP packets with low TTLs, and uses the RFC 792 ICMP Time Exceeded Message the router sends on packet drops at 0 TTL to calculate the route.

It could well be that the router you mention is dropping packets without sending a TEM (which is, technically, a violation of RFC 792), but it could be any number of other reasons why the packet was dropped. Traceroute will give you no clue as to the reason.

unfortunately Microsoft programmers don't read RFCs...
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traceroute
The traceroute utility usually has an option to specify use of ICMP echo request (type 8) instead, as used by the Windows tracert utility.

Fine, but the end result is that traceroute is not giving you what you would like to know, which is end-to-end bandwidth and latency. For TCP mind, as that's what GW uses! For all we know TCP takes an entirely different route as UDP and ICMP.

My assumption that a traceroute would matter is based upon the commands that "gw.exe -diag" uses. It's using 'pathping' which is Microsoft's modern equivalent to traceroute.
But apart from our technical chatter: the recent rise in lag spikes and err7s affecting people in different locations (real life and gw-instances) simultaneously should be evidence enough that there is nothing wrong on the individual user's machines. It doesn't need to be Anet's fault, maybe it's the recent major update for Auto Assault that's clogging NCSoft's network pipes.
All i want from Anet is acknowledging that there might be a problem and that they look after it (what else is their Network News page for?).

It's gradually becoming more and more apparent that the problem is neither at the user's end or ANet's end, but at some point in between.
However, it is up to ANet to fix it. You know, chuck money at the problem or whatever, just fix it.
Why?
Because if people keep having problems that show no signs of going away, they'll gradually stop playing, which means they'll stop buying newer content too.
After all, why buy something new for a game that is painful to play?

I know that I've stopped playing GW as much over the past week due to these problems, and if it continues for much longer I'll stop playing almost completely, only checking in at monthly intervals.

So i guess its not Anets problem that 6 times last on Friday my entire team, and practically everyone else in HA had been getting booted off with code40s? Or that just by standing there you get lag or err7. This lag is getting beyond playable sometimes.

Gaile are you entirely sure your servers are quite what you make them out to be? Seems like you all seem to think they could handle the insane amount of people online for this weekend event.

My last lag spike is more than 24hours ago... *cross fingers*

i have only had very bad lag no err7s though. it started when i got my new router.so it could be a.)router b.)A.net. or c.) bad isp i have no clue which it is but i just hope it gets fixed soon.

I know plenty about how the internet works, and I would say that running a traceroute is just fine for seeing if there is a problem somewhere between you and ANet... Did you see the tracerts where response times were down <100 and then suddenly spiked up to 250ish, then back down, then up again?

Traceroute does two things, it finds the hops that a route takes then it measures how long it takes to ping that particular hop. These numbers SHOULD always increase, as each hop has to travel through all previous hops to get to it first. But when you see either large numbers or mass fluctuation, you know you have a problem on YOUR end.

I doubt that anyone needs more than tracert to do an initial diagnosis. I suppose the tools you include would help if a tracert did not produce results, but I would think in most cases it would give people at least an indication.

My argument has been all along that 9 times of 10 the problems with lag or err7 has got to be on the users side. Gaile has come on and at least initially confirmed this, but of course as much as I respect her, everyone should question the source too.... In that Gaile would probably not come on the board and talk about how ANet had a major problem... But my biggest argument is that my step son and I both have 2 accounts each to Guild Wars with good pipes to the internet. Neither one of us have ever err7'ed or had major lag issues. How would this be possible if ANet had major issues on their end?

Ah man... You beat me to the punch!

if you want to know if it's your rig or anet it's simple.. I'll make this as newbie as possible for broadband.. if your on aol I feel sorry for you- expect everything is your end cause it is

http://myspeed.visualware.com/

you can select which locations on the upper left.. the numbers you want to look at will be in the advanced tab after the test.. you should be getting around 20ms max to europe and around 12ms max in the states.. or vise versa if comming from europe.. the average should be around 8ms.. if either of those numbers are way high it's your end

I don't get the err7s but I live in california.. here's the server I play on 216.107.241.*

Umm, I don't think that is accurate. Its a simple Broadband test. The latency varies depending on where you are located in proximity to the testing server and the speed of the connection. And it has to be done during peak hours to reflect real world usage. IF you have a slower connection (I.e. Under 1.5mbits) then there is probably no way that you will get 20ms max to europe and 12ms for the states.

I wish that people would stop blaming users for this connection problem. There is no way in hell this many people are having the SAME problem is linked to their own machines. There hasn't been this much trouble since Anet's ISP was having issues(Deja Vu?).

One thing is CLEAR though, is that there is a Network problem going on somewhere in between users and the ANET servers. Many people in my guild who I've played with for about a YEAR now with very stable connections is now experiencing the SAME lag as everyone else. AND it started a couple of weeks ago. Sounds Familiar?

I was even hit with err=007 a couple of times in the past 2 weeks and that's rare for me. I even tested the connection right after the 007s, and my connection was clearly responsive like normal.

I know that there is always the possibility that the problem is with the End-User but I do NOT think that THIS particular issue is.

Side Note:
I have also read that Time Warner internet customers in NYC are having a major packet loss issues.

There was a network issue a few months back where many people could not log in at all, while others could log in just fine.

aye omega I'm not even gonna entertain your lack.. first of all that is the best test you can do to find out if your on par.. it shows you your times over each hop while downloading and uploading data to and from a server.. not your overall ping times which I think your trying to compare to (but it shows those too.. those will be more related to your bandwidth- please try not to look like you know things about networking.. you are obviously a traceroute- oh that's good kinda of person..

what I said still holds true- if your getting high times on your hops and your average is high- it's your end/isp

Gaile what of "error7 spikes" surely 6 poeple error7ing at relatively the same time give or take 5secs in GvG isn't a coincidence. Also what of this reconnect feature? To tell you the truth I really couldn't care if nightfall comes out or not as long as this reconnect feature rolls in. Ofcourse I'll get nightfall when it comes out but the reconnect button > nightfall

There have been increases in the lag and we're aware of it. I've written to one of the founders and asked if there is any information that we have to share at this time. Not that we won't share out of some caginess on our part, not at all! But I don't know if we have anything concrete to offer in terms of what's going on, or why the problems are surfacing. Be aware that we only control one small part of all what brings you the game: The game itself. If there's a game-related problem, we'll fix it! Quite honestly, that doesn't appear to be the case because we've lifted every stone and climbed every mountain and we're not seeing an internal source for the problem. It's a fact, though, that comes to us, and what happens after the data leaves us have both been problematic in the past. I hope we'll have more information in the near future, and we all thank you for your patience!

It's Y2k 6 years late.

That's all.

Like i have said before and Like ill say again, most of the problems typically occur in route, its not specifically either end but typically a problem in route.

Routes are not always dynamic in most cases, Routes are very often statically assigned by your region and by your default gateway. The majority of which is determined at your c/o, If your Default gateway or dns changes so will your route. There are known network routes that always seem to have problems as has been illustrated before. I know that when my isp changes the default gateway to work on something and I'm routed through arpnet my connection works like crap, when they switch it back and i'm off arpnet things are normal.

If you are having problems the first place you can probably check is your default gateway. That is the default gateway assigned to your modem, if you have a router you will need to check the page that contains ip information for it, this should not be a private Class c address (192.xxx.xxx.xxx). Run something like pathchirp or run a ping with a packet count of atleast 50. If things are looking good from your modem to your isp assigned default gateway its a pretty good chance that the problem is outside the bounds of control for either arena net or your isp.

The sad part about that is that if that is the case there is little you or areana net can do about the issue beyond report it or send nastygrams to the offending network support lines.

While there may very well be other factors at play, with a thin client system, I am far more inclined to believe the issue is an external network issue then a localized system issue.

I would also like to add that utilities like PathChirp do you very little good if you don't know the route/destinations to check with the tools. As the syntax seems to indicate the need for both a send/originating ip address and a recieving/destination address. while i'm sure it is great for checking on bandwidth bottle necks you have to first find the Destinations you want to check.

Thats my 0.02
i apologize if my first post in this thread was a bit cold cut, but there are just a flood of threads on this issue and they are all the same and very often all remain unresolved because the Point of the problem extends outside the control of either party.

Then I want a shorter route lol!

(Thanks Gaile for the response... and I agree reconnect > nightfall - yes its been that bad! This is my first time trying to actually play pvp in 3days (last time err7) so we'll see if the route still hates me -_-)

It's them darn birds, I tell ya, mistaking cables for tree trunks!

On a more serious note, thanks Gaile for looking into this. I personally haven't experienced too much lag, but it looks like others have. It would be great if something can be done about it, if in fact there is anything that can be done about at ANet's end.

I was getting lag/Error 07 pretty continuously for the last few weeks - game wasn't worth playing. Saw on another thread that it might be a defrag problem - GW is too big for the regular defrag utility. Per the thread I downloaded "contig.exe" ran it. Haven't had a problem since - and just got the "You have been playing 14 hours" message.

Apparently with all the downloads, files, etc GW gets pretty fragmented which affects the timing enough to mess things up.

ironox that works for some but like myself there was only one file not defragged - I'm am however sure that for a lot of people this defragging will help a lot.


Thus far since the last update I have so far been err7 free (same for my husband and my guildies). *keeps fingers crossed that it stays this way*

This is mildly disappointing. I certainly hope that Anet has at least accepted that, all other things being equal, more people have been experiencing problems with Err 7s than they have before. What the actual cause(s) is/are remains to be seen, but the focus really does have to be on the Anet side (all other things being equal, and all...). It would be a real shame to have the online performance of this great game degrade to the point where it becomes so frustrating to play so as to be laughable/disposable.

I also hope that there is an appropriate sense of urgency with the right people at Anet. This entire game depends on how well the infrastructure can support it. To us it's an Anet issue, as we're sitting on our internet-connected Vent/TS servers, still talking about how we Err 7'd out of matches. I hope you folks understand our logic and frustration.

There are a couple million accounts out there with a lot of hours invested in this game, so it's not surprising the amount of passion expressed when it comes to Err 7s (and getting stuck in maps).

Thanks for at least providing this comment regarding the connection issues, Gaile. I hope you are able to get some more dialog flowing from the devs.

I usually run lag-free until I go out into an explorable area and start fighting with an enemy mob for the first time. For some reason, the first time the enemies and my party are casting spells, my game FPS drops drastically for a few seconds, the game lags to the point of becoming a slideshow, and then just like that it goes back to being smooth for the rest of the time in that explorable area. Kind of sucks. I don't know wtf the problem is with that one. Pretty damn annoying though. Only seems to happen a few times a night (ie. sometimes I can go into a mission or an explorable area and see no choppiness with the first mob fight whatsoever), and only with the first few seconds of the first mob fighting, but it's very noticeable when it does happen.

My connection is good. I have never err007'ed out of GW, ever, but this problem runs rampant for me.

I only really seem to lag at the Zaishen a lot in Heroes Ascent, or as you said when going to fight a new monster for the first time, its fine until you hit the first monster then BANG laggggg... and if your unlucky you end up getting an err7 or the lag stops and you end up dead or everybody else has killed everything for you.

What gets me is i can be in a team of 8 others, 4-5 people get error7 at EXACTLY the same time, anet tells all of us that out internet is at fault, but we are all on vent still talking.

Last nite in HA there was a scared earth match, 2 of our team dropped, we thought ah well, shit happens, we run into the opposing team fully expecting to get killed and all we see is a ghostly hero, nothing else, ok so onto the next team, we get to the next doors and theres one team of 2 human players getting beat by a full team of 6 hench, doesnt that cry out that something is wrong at anets side? or are we ALL on crappy internet?

Edit: also skill delays are awful, been getting 5min+ lag spikes, i can still see what everyone else is doing and they see me moving, but my skills are all flashing, then 5min later i get "invalid target".
Its not just me that it happens to, lots of others say the same.
Did anet make some cut-backs hoping we wouldnt notice? i know its a "free game" but we all have to pay £30 for a new chapter every few months and the new chat slots werent free.

I also get the skill "freezing" thing, then i click on another one and same happens untill all my skills are flashing saying they are being activated, however i am still on TS/Vent talking to the rest of the team who i appear to be just standing there, i noticed it happens alot if you spike slightly late, the target is dead but your skill is still trying to activate, however obviously the target is dead so, nothing can happen. Its really frustrating! *Stomps feet*