Lag Feedback

Thank you very much to everybody who has been giving us feedback on the lag and d/c issues. It would be very helpful if you could make sure to include the time of the lag as well as the date in your reports, as that helps us see if there is a pattern to the lag. Server time can be found on the homepage.

@Oldie - it would be really helpful if you could provide an MTR as well. While it isn't compulsary, it makes your information a lot more useful, as we can rule out connectivity issues at your end and spot connectivity issues which are at LSN's end. If it turns out that there is an issue relating to LSN, they need us to send current MTRs or Traceroutes so that they can look into the issue. Obviously an MTR won't tell us anything about - for example - issues with garbage disposal, slow queries or memory leaks. However, it will at least allow us to rule out connectivity-related issues.

 

Hey Kekturi, this doesn't look like the entire trace route. Are you sure it is? After the last one there at 14, you should've got 3 more lines:

14. gr-1-3-0-53.laxer.blacklotus.net
15. te5-1.bdr1.core2.dllstx3.dallas-idc.com
16. 70-3-31-64.static.reverse.lstn.net
17. 74-80-169-192.static.reverse.lstn.net

 

I must have copy & pasted wrong, sorry

 

No Kat, 100% packet loss does not mean anything bad. This simply means that host does not process trace route/ping packets and doesn't end up sending any responses.*** If those two hosts were indeed losing 100% of the packets, the following hosts would also display 100% loss as those two hosts would be losing all the packets thus the packets getting destroyed prematurely and not reaching the following hosts at all.

Starting at flt-01.dllstx3 it appears that 15 packets are lost, next host 17, the LSN entry point appears that 17 are lost, and finally at the game server, it appears that 19 are lost.

It's difficult to judge where the issue is because of WinMTR's randomness of the trace. It did not send the same amount of trace packets to each host and quit on hop** 10/11 after 33 tries.

If we assume that the moment of packet loss at the last 4 hosts was all during the same moment in time*, we can infer that
approximately 15/17 packets lost at hop 13 were because of hop 12, 15/17 packets lost at hop 14 were because of hop 12, 15/19 packets lost at hop 15 were because of hop 12, 2/19 packets lost at hop 15 were because of hop 14, and the remaining 2 were lost at the server itself. (Once again, this is assuming this happened all around the same timestamp, but WinMTR does not provide this information making it rather worthless. Therefore we cannot know for sure if the losses were random, or dependent on each other.) It does prove however that this is because of issues with LSN's network.



*The way a trace route works is that a packet is sent with a number. This is how many lives it has. Each time it reaches a host, the host will decrement the number by 1. The host that decrements it to zero, notices, and sends a reply back to the sender's IP located in the packet data.
Since this is how packets work, to get a result from the game server, you would send a packet with 15 lives. The point is to reach the game server, these packets must pass through hosts 1-14. If any of these hosts fail to pass on the packet to the next host, it never reaches 15. As you can see, packets do reach hop 12 meaning the two hosts indicating 100% are not in reality losing packets.
the number of packets lost at hop 12 is also less than 33.
If we assume that packets with 12,13,14,15 lives were sent all at the same time during the loss....... (continue now)

**hop number is the Nr in the screenshot.

*** You could use maplestory.com as an example. Try tracerouting or pinging them, you'll get 100% packet loss but will be able to connect to their website no problem.

 

@Katsuruka I just think it is completely absurd that mapleroyals' server provider get's YOU the purchaser of the service to go behind the scenes and get information on why THEIR service is not functioning as advertised. They provide you the server with 100% uptime. It is solely their responsibility to make sure their service is 100% operational. At most you should only need proof of packet loss reports when pinging the server itself.
Trace routes could be potentially useful, but how are they at all if half the hosts drop ping/TR packets altogether, and most of the TR's I've seen only report real loss at LSN itself?

Trace routes are a privacy concern. I will never post a TR publicly on the internet as this information can trace your location to a general area. For Example, Kekturi, I'll PM you your general location and ISP and you tell me if that's right. (Tested accurate to about a ~50km radius.)

Lastly, why requesting trace routes from individuals is more absurd aside from the privacy concern, is that There Are Countless websites and companies on the web that will provide trace route services. The employees at LSN can darn well use these services and their computers at home to do trace routes on their servers to find problems. If they are located in a bad location, why don't they pick up themselves and move where they won't have packet loss because of bad hosts.

If you're still going to continue with this from LSN regardless, I ask that you warn members of potentially having their IPs discovered or approximate location if they decide to post it on the forums or have them blank out all but the last 6 host names of the traceroute.
If they have packet loss from any preceding hosts, they should contact their ISP about packet loss then.

 

Off topic but I want to respond to Oldie's concern: Oldie, you realize anytime you visit a website anyone who has access to the site can trace your location? In all honesty, it's like wrapping tin foil around your head to avoid getting cancer from cell phone radios while smoking a cigarette. If you use a LiveCD Linux distro, funnel all traffic through multiple VPNs, go on and on, maybe then you can make yourself harder to trace, but even then, you would still be traceable. So please consider that in the future. If you want to discuss this further, please feel free to PM me. Since I work with these things for a living, I enjoy talking about it with anyone who cares to listen, even if they respectfully disagree.

Regarding LSN, the reason we provide MTRs is because we make these claims and they don't see an issue. When they are seeing issues themselves, of course we don't need to provide MTRs. The onus is on us though if we are making a service claim and they see no proof on their end. LSN's service is superb and the technicians are very knowledgeable. They are also very open. I have personally called them several times and they are very open with giving very specific and technical details on anything you would like to know. They are also small enough of a company to personally know our server (or maybe we just send them so many tickets).

The lag has been significantly better and LSN has continued working with us to ensure we are no longer seeing issues and making sure they give us our money's worth. When it comes to a point we no longer feel we are getting our money's worth or that a better level of service can be provided elsewhere at an equal or lower price we are currently paying per month, then we will look into our options.

 

@John, Oldie clearly stated his concern is about posting the traceroutes publicly on a forum (or anywhere else). These forums are viewable for any guest, so anyone with malicious intends could use this information wrongly.

 

And again, my point is, it isn't hard for that malicious actor to get his or anyone's information that we're asking them to post through other means. Really the only information that reflects privacy concerns is the first hop, which only in some cases is the user's IP address. In my case and many others, the public IP address doesn't even show in the MTR, which is why I stand by what I said to Oldie.

 

Date & Time of lag (Server Time): Sun Oct 05 2014 16:40:42 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
Duration of lag: 15 seconds
Description of lag: Unable to attack. Disconnected after 15 seconds
Trace route (Recommended):
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| WinMTR statistics |
| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
| 67.164.16.1 - 0 | 210 | 210 | 8 | 10 | 19 | 9 |
|te-0-7-0-2-sur04.sfmission.ca.sfba.comcast.net - 0 | 210 | 210 | 8 | 11 | 19 | 11 |
|te-1-12-0-5-ar01.oakland.ca.sfba.comcast.net - 0 | 210 | 210 | 8 | 13 | 26 | 14 |
|te-1-12-0-4-ar01.sfsutro.ca.sfba.comcast.net - 0 | 210 | 210 | 9 | 14 | 25 | 16 |
| 68.86.166.141 - 0 | 210 | 210 | 11 | 15 | 27 | 16 |
|pos-0-4-0-0-pe01.11greatoaks.ca.ibone.comcast.net - 0 | 210 | 210 | 13 | 19 | 67 | 16 |
| xe-9-3-0.sjc10.ip4.tinet.net - 0 | 210 | 210 | 12 | 19 | 37 | 19 |
| xe-9-0-1.lax20.ip4.gtt.net - 1 | 206 | 205 | 19 | 25 | 77 | 19 |
| giglinx-gw.ip4.gtt.net - 0 | 210 | 210 | 20 | 25 | 44 | 20 |
| ae-0-0-laxcs1-8-blacklotus.net - 3 | 192 | 188 | 0 | 25 | 41 | 22 |
| ae-0-0-laxer4.blacklotus.net - 0 | 210 | 210 | 20 | 24 | 61 | 22 |
| gr-1-3-0-53.laxer.blacklotus.net - 0 | 210 | 210 | 52 | 69 | 733 | 60 |
| te5-1.bdr1.core2.dllstx3.dallas-idc.com - 1 | 206 | 205 | 0 | 56 | 171 | 54 |
| 70-3-31-64.static.reverse.lstn.net - 1 | 206 | 205 | 0 | 57 | 78 | 58 |
| 74-80-169-192.static.reverse.lstn.net - 1 | 206 | 205 | 0 | 56 | 75 | 54 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider

 

Date & Time of lag (Server Time): Sun Oct 05 2014 20:43:13 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
Duration of lag: 30 seconds
Description of lag: Unable to attack. Character is at a stand still, but still able to move. Disconnected in 30 seconds.
Trace route (Recommended):

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| WinMTR statistics |
| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
| 67.164.16.1 - 27 | 13925 | 10275 | 7 | 10 | 209 | 8 |
| Destination host unreachable. - 27 | 13889 | 10274 | 7 | 10 | 517 | 8 |
| Destination host unreachable. - 27 | 13938 | 10275 | 7 | 12 | 221 | 10 |
|te-1-12-0-4-ar01.sfsutro.ca.sfba.comcast.net - 27 | 13918 | 10266 | 8 | 13 | 199 | 12 |
| 68.86.166.141 - 27 | 13917 | 10265 | 9 | 15 | 195 | 14 |
| Destination host unreachable. - 27 | 13882 | 10264 | 12 | 18 | 269 | 19 |
| xe-9-3-0.sjc10.ip4.tinet.net - 27 | 13934 | 10273 | 12 | 16 | 241 | 14 |
| xe-9-0-1.lax20.ip4.gtt.net - 1 | 10232 | 10210 | 19 | 24 | 257 | 21 |
| giglinx-gw.ip4.gtt.net - 27 | 13930 | 10281 | 19 | 24 | 254 | 21 |
| ae-0-0-laxcs1-8-blacklotus.net - 29 | 13303 | 9545 | 0 | 25 | 84 | 27 |
| ae-0-0-laxer4.blacklotus.net - 27 | 13944 | 10285 | 19 | 24 | 108 | 23 |
| gr-1-3-0-53.laxer.blacklotus.net - 27 | 13928 | 10279 | 51 | 69 | 733 | 57 |
| te5-1.bdr1.core2.dllstx3.dallas-idc.com - 31 | 14688 | 10274 | 0 | 57 | 245 | 55 |
| 70-3-31-64.static.reverse.lstn.net - 29 | 14275 | 10269 | 0 | 57 | 242 | 56 |
| 74-80-169-192.static.reverse.lstn.net - 32 | 15042 | 10273 | 0 | 66 | 323 | 54 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider

 

Privacy (and care) of your members is something an admin should be concerned about and not go over as lighty like 'in my case and many others', you should aim to protect your players as good as you can given them detailed information on how certain actions might help the server, but could possibly risk their own personal space. I'm in no way saying you should give go through all the technical details, but just a little headsup that warns us to post our IP adress public would've been nice. Posting your own IP adress as public as a this could be an annoying problem if your ISP gives you a static IP adress.

I'm still waiting for the privacy update in the TnC, and hopefully this will include some information about what information should better be kept for yourself.

 

However again as I said, I do not see cases in which the user's public IP is published in the MTRs. In Kat's screenshot, I do not believe I see her public IP address, in my MTR my public IP address is not shown either. The reason being an MTR shows the route in which a packet gets from point A to point B. That route never lists your public IP since that's not one of the steps in the route, otherwise the packet would be sent back to its origin, which isn't what happens. Therefore, there is no need for any action to be taken, since there is no privacy violated (unless you have some strange reason for not wanting people to know your ISP).

 

Matt is right. I learned something new here. The trace will never display your IP address unless you have a funky ISP.

But knowing someone's ISP can still identify their approximate location most of the time.

 

Again, not necessarily true. If it's a rural ISP where its registered address is near its customers, then yes. If it's a big ISP like Comcast/Xfinity or Verizon FiOS, you will be getting the location of the nearest handling center (can't think of the correct term right now) which can be quite a number of miles away in a completely different city. At the end of the day, there are many more bigger things to worry about. The MapleRoyals community should not in any way be concerned.

 

John's statement made me believe that in some cases the public IP address is in fact posted with a MTR. That's what my concern was about, but if indeed like you say this is wrong, I don't see an issue.

 

Oct 7th 11:32 (GMT -4) ST

Entire* server DC.

*Channels were rather empty upon relog (at channel select screen), and whole guild (10 members) reported DC.

 

Date & Time of lag (Server Time): Sun Oct 12 2014 10:44:28 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
Duration of lag: 1 minute
Description of lag: Unable to attack. Character is at a stand still, but still able to move. Disconnected in 1 minute.
Trace route (Recommended):

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| WinMTR statistics |
| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
| 67.164.16.1 - 0 | 46 | 46 | 8 | 12 | 25 | 13 |
|te-0-7-0-2-sur04.sfmission.ca.sfba.comcast.net - 0 | 46 | 46 | 9 | 12 | 25 | 12 |
| 68.87.192.157 - 3 | 43 | 42 | 9 | 12 | 20 | 11 |
|te-1-12-0-4-ar01.sfsutro.ca.sfba.comcast.net - 0 | 46 | 46 | 9 | 16 | 31 | 18 |
| 68.86.166.141 - 0 | 46 | 46 | 10 | 16 | 33 | 12 |
|pos-0-4-0-0-pe01.11greatoaks.ca.ibone.comcast.net - 0 | 46 | 46 | 15 | 20 | 33 | 19 |
| xe-9-3-0.sjc10.ip4.tinet.net - 0 | 46 | 46 | 14 | 18 | 33 | 17 |
| xe-9-0-2.lax20.ip4.gtt.net - 0 | 46 | 46 | 21 | 27 | 72 | 25 |
| giglinx-gw.ip4.gtt.net - 0 | 46 | 46 | 21 | 27 | 55 | 24 |
| ae-0-0-laxcs1-8-blacklotus.net - 3 | 43 | 42 | 22 | 27 | 42 | 27 |
| ae-0-0-laxer4.blacklotus.net - 3 | 43 | 42 | 20 | 25 | 33 | 26 |
| gr-1-3-0-53.laxer.blacklotus.net - 3 | 43 | 42 | 0 | 59 | 76 | 55 |
| te5-1.bdr1.core2.dllstx3.dallas-idc.com - 3 | 43 | 42 | 0 | 59 | 176 | 55 |
| 70-3-31-64.static.reverse.lstn.net - 3 | 43 | 42 | 0 | 58 | 67 | 55 |
| 74-80-169-192.static.reverse.lstn.net - 3 | 43 | 42 | 0 | 57 | 65 | 57 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider

 

Date & Time of lag (Server Time): Mon Oct 13 2014 18:32:51 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
Duration of lag: 15 minute
Description of lag: Unable to attack. Character is at a stand still, but still able to move. Disconnected in 15 minute.
Trace route (Recommended):

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| WinMTR statistics |
| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
| 67.164.16.1 - 0 | 1375 | 1375 | 7 | 11 | 80 | 11 |
|te-0-7-0-2-sur04.sfmission.ca.sfba.comcast.net - 0 | 1375 | 1375 | 7 | 11 | 30 | 13 |
| 68.87.192.157 - 0 | 1375 | 1375 | 8 | 12 | 28 | 12 |
| be-100-ar01.sfsutro.ca.sfba.comcast.net - 1 | 1368 | 1366 | 8 | 13 | 32 | 10 |
| 68.86.166.141 - 0 | 1375 | 1375 | 9 | 16 | 35 | 16 |
|pos-0-4-0-0-pe01.11greatoaks.ca.ibone.comcast.net - 0 | 1375 | 1375 | 13 | 19 | 96 | 20 |
| xe-9-3-0.sjc10.ip4.tinet.net - 0 | 1375 | 1375 | 12 | 17 | 76 | 14 |
| xe-9-1-0.lax20.ip4.gtt.net - 1 | 1344 | 1336 | 19 | 25 | 127 | 26 |
| giglinx-gw.ip4.gtt.net - 0 | 1375 | 1375 | 19 | 25 | 72 | 24 |
| ae-0-0-laxcs1-8-blacklotus.net - 2 | 1308 | 1291 | 0 | 26 | 54 | 42 |
| ae-0-0-laxer4.blacklotus.net - 1 | 1367 | 1365 | 0 | 25 | 66 | 24 |
| gr-1-3-0-53.laxer.blacklotus.net - 1 | 1371 | 1370 | 0 | 73 | 780 | 57 |
| te5-1.bdr1.core2.dllstx3.dallas-idc.com - 1 | 1371 | 1370 | 0 | 58 | 175 | 60 |
| 70-3-31-64.static.reverse.lstn.net - 1 | 1371 | 1370 | 0 | 59 | 81 | 58 |
| 74-80-169-192.static.reverse.lstn.net - 1 | 1371 | 1370 | 0 | 57 | 77 | 62 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider

 

Some are claiming a lag so here's my report:
Date & Time of lag (Server Time): Thu Oct 16 2014 10:03:09 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
Duration of lag: N/A
Description of lag: N/A
Trace route (Recommended):

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| WinMTR statistics |
| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
| 67.164.16.1 - 0 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
|te-0-7-0-2-sur04.sfmission.ca.sfba.comcast.net - 0 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 |
| 68.87.192.157 - 0 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 |
| be-100-ar01.sfsutro.ca.sfba.comcast.net - 0 | 1 | 1 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 |
| No response from host - 100 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
|pos-0-4-0-0-pe01.11greatoaks.ca.ibone.comcast.net - 0 | 1 | 1 | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 |
| xe-9-3-0.sjc10.ip4.tinet.net - 0 | 1 | 1 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| xe-9-0-2.lax20.ip4.gtt.net - 0 | 1 | 1 | 49 | 49 | 49 | 49 |
| giglinx-gw.ip4.gtt.net - 0 | 1 | 1 | 28 | 28 | 28 | 28 |
| ae-0-0-laxcs1-8-blacklotus.net - 0 | 1 | 1 | 35 | 35 | 35 | 35 |
| ae-0-0-laxer4.blacklotus.net - 0 | 1 | 1 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 29 |
| No response from host - 100 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| No response from host - 100 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 74-80-169-192.static.reverse.lstn.net - 0 | 1 | 1 | 65 | 65 | 65 | 65 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider