Dropping connection

[Dareus]

Everytime I log onto FGs, I log into game, play for a few minutes and then I lose connection to the host. My machine is well within the specs. for the game. Anyone have a clue what the problem may be?

[Oberoten]

Most likely bandwidth. What kind of connection do you have?

And are you running any other applications at the same time that eats that up? Like filesharing, downloading, VoiceIP or Teamspeak etc.

[Dareus]

High speed cable modem. I run MMO's on this machine and have no such problems.

[Oberoten]

Ah. Still not a terribly verbose answer.

Is anyone else sharing the connection with you? Are you connected by a cable or wireless? The more information we get the bigger the chance that we can help you.

[Dareus]

I connect through a wireless router which is connected to the main computer that someone else uses. When I was running this, I was the only person connected and everything else on my end was shutdown!

[Oberoten]

Do you use teamspeak or any other voice over net program?

Does the other computer user use a lot of bandwidth? I think we have seen something similar before with a fellow who's wife played World of Warcraft or Everquest II while he was trying to run FG.

You may also try connecting to the router by a cable, it is usually a more stable connection than wireless.

[Dareus]

About the most the other computer gets used for is surfing the net. Nothing that is very resource intensive. We were not using any VOIP either. When I signed on and joined the game about 20 min before it started, everything was fine and even last week was on for ~40 minutes getting the character setup w/ the GM and everything was cool. But tonight, anytime I logged on, a couple minutes would go by and I would kind of lock up on this side and then maybe 2 minutes later get the message I lost connection to the host.

[joshuha]

Do you know if your internal IP was changing at all? I am wondering if your DHCP was recycling you on the router for whatever reason.

Also things like microwaves and certain cordless phones can cause a temporary loss in a wireless stream enough to cause a drop for a program like FG.

[Foen]

I have something like Dareus describes - one or two of my players have a troubled connection and the symptoms are:

- they receive GM-shared materials (such as maps) about 3-4 times more slowly than other players
- intermittently (but say five times a session, enough to be damn annoying) they see their chatbox freeze or drop to a crawl (it seems like very bad lag, but anything they type is visible to the other players)
- following the chatbox problem, they lose the connection

It seems to be the same player(s) this affects each time, and we have been unable to figure out what is different or wrong with their setup.

Stuart

[Dareus]

I have something like Dareus describes - one or two of my players have a troubled connection and the symptoms are:

- they receive GM-shared materials (such as maps) about 3-4 times more slowly than other players
- intermittently (but say five times a session, enough to be damn annoying) they see their chatbox freeze or drop to a crawl (it seems like very bad lag, but anything they type is visible to the other players)
- following the chatbox problem, they lose the connection

It seems to be the same player(s) this affects each time, and we have been unable to figure out what is different or wrong with their setup.

Stuart

Yea, that is what seems to be happening to me.

[Griogre]

If it were me I would see if connecting directly to the router via a wire solved the problem, that would let you know if it was the Wireless connection problem or something else. Also bear in mind that if the computer in another room is setup for file sharing, it will steal all your bandwith especially if it is uploading to someone on a peer to peer network.

[Foen]

In my case, the player has a wired connection to an unshared router. I think that there may be some software conflict somewhere, or a background process in his machine that kicks in periodically.

If I knew the answer though, we wouldn't still be having the problem :o)

Stuart

[Griogre]

I had a player that most of the time could only connect via the direct IP address. They alias server would time out on him most of the time. I never did find what that deal was, I just sent him the IP address. That one really boggled my mind, especially because he was only a couple of hundred miles away. Instead of using an alias you might try connecting via the hosts external IP address.

[Dareus]

I had a player that most of the time could only connect via the direct IP address. They alias server would time out on him most of the time. I never did find what that deal was, I just sent him the IP address. That one really boggled my mind, especially because he was only a couple of hundred miles away. Instead of using an alias you might try connecting via the hosts external IP address.

Tried this and it did not work. I can't figure out why I can run 8 billion things at once but FG wants to drop me every 2 minutes.

[Oberoten]

Most likely culprit then is some other program stealing the port for you.
Can you see if there is any other trafic on port 1802?

[Stuart]

Tried this and it did not work. I can't figure out why I can run 8 billion things at once but FG wants to drop me every 2 minutes.

I have run two sesions and had a couple of players drop and then be totally unable to get back in. No maps or tokens ... just dropped whilst using the chat dialogue.

The annoying thing is that they seem totally unable to log back in ....under FG, players being dropped was more precictably tied to map/token movement issues and they could re-log.

Mind you, the maps, tokens and combat tracker were wiped as FG tended to crash so, FGII is an improvement on that score ;-)

[calvinNhobbes]

Hey all,
I'm the DM for the game Dareus is trying to join. Yes, it is very strange. He has no problem logging in, but will just randomly get dropped after a minute or so. He seems to have no problem logging back in, but then will get dropped soon after. His connection seems more stable if he is the only player logged in. None of the other players have any problem. Any thoughts on things to try would be great.
cNh

[Griogre]

If he's the only one it is likely his machine or internet connection. I would have him try on a different computer and see if it makes a difference. If it is very regular then it is probably a program on his computer deciding it's time to do something - almost every program under the sun does automatic updates these days.

Otherwise he just might not have a very clean internet connection. Some of the worst problems to find are things like a cable connection to the router going bad. And for the record, if he's on wireless make sure the router has security enabled. Otherwise the guy across the street connecting to and using his router to do bit torrent will kick him off.

[Dareus]

What I really want to know, Is why this program is so different from anything else that I drop constantly. I can play other games over the net, never drop and have a program or 2 running in the background at the same time. But this program, as soon as someone on the other end types a few messages I drop. Thats what I don't understand!

[chubinator]

We are having the exact same problem with one of our users. He has DSL and doesn't have anything else going on either. I wonder if FG is sensitive to latency issues and if the server drops them thinking they are gone. What we have noticed is that we see him "disconnect" before he realizes it. i.e. We see a "<player> disconnected" in our chat and moments later he receives a message saying he lost his connection.

[Griogre]

FG uses TCP, it should not be very sensitive to dropping unless a lot of packets are being lost which typically isn't the fault of the program. If it is one guy it is usually a problem with his setup somehow. Unfortunately it can just be a bitch to find certain problems and a lot of unsophisticated user put all sorts of junk on their systems. :(

[Oberoten]

Basic suggestions : Clean from spyware. www.lavasoftusa.com (https://www.lavasoftusa.com) has a free and good scan for this. Clean from virus, if you have nothing else Grisoft gives away AVG for free. ( A quick Google on +Grisoft +AVG +Free should give that one as first or second hit. )

[chubinator]

Yeah, well ironically, he's our most sophisticated user (minus me of course ;)

Albeit he's more of a Linux hack then a Windows guy. He reluctantly boots into Windows just for FG (cough cough)

He runs IPCop for his firewall and I have suspected that, but again, as the other poster asked: whats so special about FG?

I can say that for me to host the game, I had to disable intrusion detection on my firewall. Again, whats so special about FG?

I do agree its likely his setup and his connectivity, but what I wonder? His setup is fairly vanilla minus his use of IPCop. Again, he has not had trouble staying connected with other apps, including Ventrilo.

With all that said, we'll do some network troubleshooting and attempt to find the root cause and post back.

Thanks

Edit: I should add that our problem isn't nearly as frequent as the other poster suggested. Our user only disconnects every 10-20 minutes. Enough to be annoying though.

[Oberoten]

There is really nothing that special about FG's demands, as long as you have the hardware requirements and a stable 1802 TCP port it should be fine. Closest comparision would likely be IRC or something where you often see the same behaviour if your computer has any sort of "competition" for the port. (( Connection reset by peer, anyone? ))

It is basically a bit timing sensitive and probably should stay that way or the new complaint would quickly be that it lags.

[chubinator]

Thanks for the prompt reply. In doing our investigation, can you point us to any FG log files that might help?

[Oberoten]

The one thing I can think of is to check the TCP stack logs to see if anything else tries to steal the port?

Start --> Control Panel --> Administration Tools --> Logs.

[Nephilim667]

Hi everyone!

Two friends and me installed the FGII Demoversion (2.1.0) yesterday to give it a try, as we plan to start a RPG goup with 6-8 ppl.

Pittily two of us had connection problems as described in some posts of this thread. We we able to log on to the GMs game and do stuff. After some time the client(s) seem to losse connection. They still receive everything from the GM and other players, but they are not able to send data to the host. Means: The clients could still roll dice, but noone else could see it; the clients could still edit the carsheet, but the GM doesn't get any updates; the clients could still enter a message in the textfield of the chatbox, but it doesn't appear in the chatbox after sending. Eveing quitting the client doesn't work properly, as the Host doesn't notice the client quit (client cant reconnect, as the name is allready in use; the host had to restart every1 time).

It really looks like there are absolutley no packets being sent to the host anymore.
As mentioned above we had 3 users, 2 with Win7, one with Vista. All are behind routers, the port was forwarded on all client networks, firewall rules were ok, on all connections there was plenty of bandwith left. (Only had skype running next to FG.)
The problem was repoductable on two of the clients, the 3rd one never seem to have any problems. It also doesn't seem to depend on the Host, as we switched the host around, trying to figure out the root of the problem, but it keeps happening.

None of us ever had similar problems with any other game/program.

Please help, as we would really like to purchase a version and use it for playing. But pittily these problems are an absolute showstopper.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Sincerely
Chris

[ddavison]

Are the clients experiencing the problem running over a wired or wireless connection to their router? If they are, would they be able to run another test where they connect over an ethernet cable?

[Nephilim667]

All three users were connected via CAT5-cable.

We can give it another test somewhen soon, so I can dump the communication via wireshark or something, if this any help to you.

[Nephilim667]

Hi!

My mates and me did some more testing today using wireshark to keep track on the network communication.

We couldn't solve the problem, but we get closer the root of it.

We again could reproduce the "connection problem" and wireshark gave us some interessting information:
The TCP connection works like a charm at any point, even when the evitable connection loss occurs. That means: in FGII my chat, dice, whatever id not shown to other players or to the gm, but the network packets with those information arive at the host computer! (When I type something in the chat, we can se the packet leaving th client and also arriving on the host, FGII server is just not responding to them anymore.)

So this id definatly NOT a connection/network-problem. It looks like the host looses the connection internaly.

Do you think you can get this problem solved anywhen soon?
Is there a possibility to get a newer testversion to see, if the issue is allready fixed?

Thx in advance.

Regards
Chris

Update: The client being disconnected is allways the one that connected last.

[fod]

Hi,
some more info about our tests: It is always the player who connected last (second player), the first connecting player does never loose the connection. Well, loose connection is wrong, as Wireshark shows that all players still send and receive packets. However, if the player in the second slot gets the connection problem, I (as the GM host) can see all packets sent to the players marked with TCP ZeroWindow. This means, the GM host has a full receive buffer and cannot accept more packets. This forces the player host to not send anything to the GM host (except for periodical ZeroWindowProbe packets), which is correct behaviour. So, it seems that there is a problem in the FG server (GM) code: at some time the receive buffer of the connection for the second slot is full. Maybe the FG server does not fetch all bytes from the buffer or is at some point not fast enough to do so...

Hope this helps,
Frank

[ddavison]

So if you have a GM and player A and player B connect in order A then B, it works fine for A and B has connection issues. If you reverse the connection order to B then A, B will work correctly but A has connection issues? Each person only has a single instance of FG running in their task list as well, right?

[fod]

That's correct.

[Andalf]

Hi.. I'm the third guy testing this... could it be, that this bug is somehow demo-related? eg due to the limiting of the player slots, or something...

Because if this bug was in the full version, I think there'd be more complaints.

I'm asking this, because at the moment, this bug is the only thing that keeps us from recommending this tool to our group.

[ddavison]

Possibly, although I can't rule out something particular to your group's setup. We haven't had anyone else report this issue on the demo license either, although I can't say with any certainty that more than 2 people (a GM and a player) are ever really used before someone decides to go with full or player licenses.

[feldrol]

Hi, I reported the same kind of issue on registered versions some times ago :

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10351

I have no advanced knowledge of networks, but what I can add is that when I run with 5 players, the first players to connect are never disconnected, and the two last one concentrate all "disconnections".

[Andalf]

well... seems similar, with the exception that your players seem to get disconnected. The bug we have with the demo, is that the client sees all the actions of the GM and the other player, but no one (including himself) can see his dicerolls in the chat. He can move tokens on maps, but only on his end. For the GM and the other player, nothing happens.

Another situation I can reproduce, is the following:

Start a demo-server. Start a second instance of the demo. Connect the client to the localhost (as seen in xornes tutorials for instance). When you now create a character on the client-side and browse a bit in the rulebooks, for feats etc, after a while you will realize that the Server does not see the clients dice-rolls or chatentries any more. The behaviour is exactly like the behaviour for the second client in our three-man-test. Just that it happens for the first slot.

[fod]

Your error looks different as you report that your players get a disconnect message. This is not the case with the demo, as the connection is still alive, the players sees everything from the GM and other players, but any actions he does are not sent to the GM (and therefore also not sent to anyone else). The root cause of this behaviour is described above (TCP ZeroWindow).
We also tried to open a GM session and one player session on the same computer (via localhost), and the player sessions gets the same problem.

This leads me to some conclusions:
1. It is not related to network performance (ISP, Wifi vs. cable etc.) because the problem also appears using the same computer (via localhost)
2. It might not be connected to the second (or last for the demo) slot, but maybe just to the player who connected last -> have to test this further

Can anyone please try to open a GM session with a full license and a player session on localhost? Then just create a character and browse through the library manuals. This usually leads to some network traffic and ultimately after some minutes to the describes problem. Thanks.

[fod]

2. It might not be connected to the second (or last for the demo) slot, but maybe just to the player who connected last -> have to test this further

Just tested it with a GM sessions and to player sessions on localhost: After some clicking in the library manual pages (large pages like the weapons chart are good for this) lead to BOTH player session having the problem...

[Andalf]

Just tested it with a GM sessions and to player sessions on localhost: After some clicking in the library manual pages (large pages like the weapons chart are good for this) lead to BOTH player session having the problem...

Well.. lets hope thats not in the full version...

[Scarlett]

What I have experienced, and I am by no means an expert, is a sort of 'lag' for the person who is opening modules/perusing the library. This usually impacts that person the most but can affect the whole group. After some time, it seems to sort itself out, especially once the modules have been 'closed' by the player. Having been using FGII for oh about 2 years now, this is pretty common, not sure what the 'root' cause is, but it seems to put a heavy load on resources when modules are open for use in the library.