Players frequently disconnected, GM loses connection to Cloud Server

[jkusters]

Hi, all, for the past several weeks, my game has ground to a halt. Players are frequently getting disconnected, sometimes have trouble connecting, and occasionally I (the GM) get a message saying something like "lost connection to Cloud Server" which reconnects a few seconds later. I had hoped it was a passing issue with my ISP, but it has persisted for several weeks now. I've been successfully able to run my game for several years prior to this, so this is new behavior for us.

Has anyone else run into this issue? If so, what did you do to fix it?

Configuration:
FGU v4.6.6 Ultimate
GM's machine: M1 iMac running macOS 15.3.1
Players machines: Various Macs and PCs
ISP: Xfinity in San Jose, CA
Campaign Server Type: Cloud
Server List: Private

[Moon Wizard]

We usually send people to this page with common tips on what might be interfering with the network communication:
https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1981349889/Network+Troubleshooting

Basically, if the GM connection is disconnecting constantly from the lobby server, it's also likely that the GM is disconnecting constantly from the players as well. So, it is very likely that something in the chain between the GM machine and the Internet as a whole is causing lost connections. It is usually some sort of "protection" that got turned on at the machine, router or ISP account level.

Any setting that throttles, filters, blocks at any of those points is a possible culprit. (i.e. machine security software, router settings, ISP modem settings, ISP account settings on their website, etc.)

Regards,
JPG

[jkusters]

Thanks for responding. Other than OS updates, I've not changed any network settings on either the DM's computer nor on our Xfinity router.

I've captured logs for when the disconnect happens, but not being a networking expert, I'm not seeing anything actionable on my end.

It's possible Comcast/Xfinity has implemented something new, which is why I included the ISP in the hopes that someone else has been encountering new issues as well and can help diagnose.

Everything has been fine since we started the game in late 2020 until the last two months. It's very frustrating that it has just randomly become unusable because of the frequent disconnects.

[jkusters]

Here are the logs that were captured when a player disconnect occurred, if it will help any.

[jkusters]

Other users report this may be a macOS issue which would need to be solved by Smiteworks. See this posting (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?83468-Weird-LAN-networking-connectivity-issue&p=737998&viewfull=1#post737998). Unfortunately the easy workarounds in this posting are not working for me, and I'm contemplating taking more drastic action.

[Moon Wizard]

From the number of Mac only reports like this, the posting the @jkusters pointed to appears likely to be the most likely cause (i.e. new Mac local network security feature) Definitely check out the comments from @kasin in that post.

Regards,
JPG