Storyline Disconnects - [Merged]

[johnnyd.1670]

happened to me a good portion of the way during the Crystal Desert intro scenario

 

[Amatyr.2564]

In the last few weeks, both my account and my girlfriend's have a 100% disconnect rate when attemping to do the first PoF mission "Sparking the Flame".

(I've already got my mount from a while ago, trying to get hers.)

 

Everytime the NPCs start to talk after fighting the Forged Warhounds, when First Mate Fidus Foecrush says "Commander! I've got somethin' that might help with those fires." we get disconnected. Attempted both teamed and solo.

[Ringlin.1863]

I'll again raise the question of "**Why not save story progress and allow players to continue if disconnected?"**

 

Or rather, since ANet already saves progress within a story instance (if you die, you can continue from a checkpoint), why not allow players to return to that checkpoint if they disconnect? You have the checkpoint and the save mechanic already in place.

 

Personally, I would allow players to do so without time limitation, but if devs didn't want players to break instances into chunks, they could allow re-connecting within a limited time, as apparently they did in GW1.

 

While I appreciate that devs are trying to make the problem reproducible, that hasn't been a productive path so far. Why not apply this fix, which builds on an existing mechanic, and an existing feature of GW1?

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"Ringlin.1863" said:

> While I appreciate that devs are trying to make the problem reproducible, that hasn't been a productive path so far. Why not apply this fix, which builds on an existing mechanic, and an existing feature of GW1?

 

I'd assume that this is not nearly so simple as it sounds, because otherwise it kind of is the obvious thing to do.

[Aulendur.4036]

> @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> > @"Ringlin.1863" said:

> > While I appreciate that devs are trying to make the problem reproducible, that hasn't been a productive path so far. Why not apply this fix, which builds on an existing mechanic, and an existing feature of GW1?

>

> I'd assume that this is not nearly so simple as it sounds, because otherwise it kind of is the obvious thing to do.

 

It was implemented for a time (LS3 I think) with checkpoints (as opposed to gw1 where we could reconnect at the same place we left), but yes if this feature hasn't been put in the whole game it could mean that it is not the easiest thing to work on in gw2.

[Odinsfury.8360]

> @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> > @"Ringlin.1863" said:

> > While I appreciate that devs are trying to make the problem reproducible, that hasn't been a productive path so far. Why not apply this fix, which builds on an existing mechanic, and an existing feature of GW1?

>

> I'd assume that this is not nearly so simple as it sounds, because otherwise it kind of is the obvious thing to do.

 

It might not be the easiest thing to do, but at least it's something to do.

[JackalHeadGod.8195]

> @"Odinsfury.8360" said:

> > @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> > > @"Ringlin.1863" said:

> > > While I appreciate that devs are trying to make the problem reproducible, that hasn't been a productive path so far. Why not apply this fix, which builds on an existing mechanic, and an existing feature of GW1?

> >

> > I'd assume that this is not nearly so simple as it sounds, because otherwise it kind of is the obvious thing to do.

>

> It might not be the easiest thing to do, but at least it's something to do.

 

A feature like that would likely consume significant development resource meaning they'd have to push other engine changes (not content changes, that's most likely a different team). Would have knock on effects on other development pushing back other bug fixes or even the next expansion by however long it takes. I doubt there's much of GW1 in GW2, so it's not like restoring some old functionality, it's probably a whole new feature that may not sit well with the server infrastructure. The change also brings high risk of unexpected consequences I'd imagine, necessitating lots of testing. It's the kind of thing they should have built in to the game day 1.

 

Based on the number of posts complaining, and the amount of developer presence, I'd assume it's not affecting enough of us to be considered critical. I'd be stunned if they told us they had even a single resource looking at this full time.

 

If we want a fix/workaround quick then we'd have to start hoping the issue became chronic and start affecting everyone. I'm not mean enough to wish that on other people unfortunately :D

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"JackalHeadGod.8195" said:

> > @"Odinsfury.8360" said:

> > > @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> > > > @"Ringlin.1863" said:

> > > > While I appreciate that devs are trying to make the problem reproducible, that hasn't been a productive path so far. Why not apply this fix, which builds on an existing mechanic, and an existing feature of GW1?

> > >

> > > I'd assume that this is not nearly so simple as it sounds, because otherwise it kind of is the obvious thing to do.

> >

> > It might not be the easiest thing to do, but at least it's something to do.

>

> A feature like that would likely consume significant development resource meaning they'd have to push other engine changes (not content changes, that's most likely a different team). Would have knock on effects on other development pushing back other bug fixes or even the next expansion by however long it takes. I doubt there's much of GW1 in GW2, so it's not like restoring some old functionality, it's probably a whole new feature that may not sit well with the server infrastructure. The change also brings high risk of unexpected consequences I'd imagine, necessitating lots of testing. It's the kind of thing they should have built in to the game day 1.

 

I mean, this is the obvious concern. The underlying technology clearly exists, but how easy it is to make that work with these story instances, I have literally no idea. My speculation is that it must have some hidden challenge, because otherwise it *would* be the obvious change, and the ANet team are no fools: if they could make this all go away quickly, why wouldn't they...

 

> Based on the number of posts complaining, and the amount of developer presence, I'd assume it's not affecting enough of us to be considered critical. I'd be stunned if they told us they had even a single resource looking at this full time.

 

We do know that only a small number of players are hit by this, but that it is very persistent for them. We know that an ANet developer is looking at this, though I can't imagine "full time" describes it. (I know that, given what they said about it, I usually instrumented things and waited for data collection to figure out what the common pattern was for these people, which isn't a full time thing, for situations where I dealt with similar issues in my own work.)

 

> If we want a fix/workaround quick then we'd have to start hoping the issue became chronic and start affecting everyone. I'm not mean enough to wish that on other people unfortunately :D

 

Yah. So far we know that there is a common pattern in that the traffic on the TCP port used between client and server goes silent for 20-30 seconds, then there is no response from the server. I'm curious, for those hit by this, what brand and model of router y'all using, to see if there is a pattern there.

[Gorden.5483]

> @"Jeffrey Vaughn.1793" said:

> We have folks investigating this issue, but so far we haven't been able to reproduce it. We're trying to determine what the commonality is between players that run into this issue. If you haven't already, please submit a bug when it happens so we can get more data points.

 

I have the same issue now, but my question is how do I submit a bug report if the feature is only enabled when ingame, but I cannot get ingame since I lose connection when trying to get ingame.

Also, yeah I have the same issue now. Cannot login to any character now after the 1st story instance disconnected me.

 

Edit:

I just tried again and I got back into the game. Should I still submit a bug report?

[Belishine.7493]

i just got in and started the new story and was disconected and now i cant get in the game ples fix.

[tonny.7580]

i and many other second it> @"Belishine.7493" said:

> i just got in and started the new story and was disconected and now i cant get in the game ples fix.

 

 

[Warlord.9074]

Right after I went int he anoon instance and was walking towards tiami and she said like come here, my game got disconnected. Now i cannot get back online. I cannot even play now.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

Please report this morning's disconnects [here](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/44856/episode-3-connection-issue "here"). Please do not post in this thread about issues noted today -- June 26 -- because that muddies the waters between a temporary connection issues, like this morning's, and some of the reports of persistent disconnect issues. Even if you are not playing Episode 3 right now, please put all disconnect comments in the linked thread.

 

**Today's reports: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/44856/episode-3-connection-issue**

 

I will reopen this thread for the more persistent issues after today's bug is corrected. Thanks for understanding.

[tizodd.8310]

For some reason, I often get stuck in cutscenes (movie real above my character's head) when I'm in an instance. The game will eventually close to the character selection screen and I have to re-enter the game. On shorter missions it's not that big of a deal...but on missions like "Ossuary of Unquiet Dead", it really sucks to get to the final boss, then have to start it from the beginning because the game froze.

 

Please give us a grace period (5-10 minutes) where we can log back in and continue where we left off.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

This is a persistent problem for some players, and anet are looking into it. Could I ask, please, what brand and model of router you have?

[Malafaia.8903]

> @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> This is a persistent problem for some players, and anet are looking into it. Could I ask, please, what brand and model of router you have?

 

+1 on the "small number of players" having this problem.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"Malafaia.8903" said:

> > @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> > This is a persistent problem for some players, and anet are looking into it. Could I ask, please, what brand and model of router you have?

>

> +1 on the "small number of players" having this problem.

 

To anyone reading, don't get me wrong: it super-sucks for the people it happens to, and it is annoyingly frequent for them. ANet have a developer tasked with working on figuring this out, but by their comments, they don't yet have any common pattern in what is going on, so no solution in sight quite yet.

[tizodd.8310]

> @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> This is a persistent problem for some players, and anet are looking into it. Could I ask, please, what brand and model of router you have?

 

I'm not at home right now, but I'm with Xfinity. It's just really odd that it happens so often with Guild Wars 2, but doesn't happen in any other online game I play.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"tizodd.8310" said:

> > @"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

> > This is a persistent problem for some players, and anet are looking into it. Could I ask, please, what brand and model of router you have?

>

> I'm not at home right now, but I'm with Xfinity. It's just really odd that it happens so often with Guild Wars 2, but doesn't happen in any other online game I play.

 

Drat. That kind of shoots my idea about maybe a router commonality out of the water, because that isn't a VirginMedia Hub of any sort, which the first few were.

 

During the cutscene, there is no network traffic between GW2 client and server, and at about the 20 second mark is where most people who suffer this disconnect see it happen. Most online games *never* go silent for that long, so that is the single most obvious difference between the two.

 

Don't get me wrong, too: I'm not saying this isn't a GW2 issue or something, and I'm definitely not opposed to things like checkpoints to reduce the pain; I'd even encourage them to add a keepalive message of some sort during that period so the connection isn't completely silence.

 

I'm just hoping that maybe we find a commonality, and then they can fix it right -- because even with checkpoints, if you disconnect seven times in a row it will suck, just suck a little less than it did.

 

Anyway, yeah, GW2 clearly has some sort of issue here, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you what it is, and sadly, ANet have confirmed -- via posts from the developer who is actively working on this -- that they cannot yet determine it either.

 

Kicking through to my next vague idea, do you have any sort of "internet security" software installed? I'm thinking things like the Norton Internet Security system, that sort of thing.

[PzTnT.7198]

Another potential thing could be if youre on a laptop with wifi. Some are /extremely/ horrid with their power save on the wlan card to the point where they effectively cut the link if there is no traffic in a minute or two.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"PzTnT.7198" said:

> Another potential thing could be if youre on a laptop with wifi. Some are /extremely/ horrid with their power save on the wlan card to the point where they effectively cut the link if there is no traffic in a minute or two.

 

Oh, interesting! I hadn't considered that, and that is a useful point. I'll ask about that, too, and see if that turns up a commonality. The time does seem to be ~ 20 seconds idle to a disconnect, pretty consistently from the tcpdump traces, but ... if some do that when the link is idle for a minute, I can imagine someone cutting that down further because power saving reasons or something.

[ilonlie.4316]

The disconnects are nothing like I've experienced with any other game. It has me looking for a new game I'm so frustrated. The community is the best I've found and the game content is fine. I simply cannot excuse repeated disconnects at the same place in mission sequences. This has happened many times before always at transitions and after considerable progress has been made in a mission. I never get a response to bug reports and the conversations tend to learn towards the players fault.

[ilonlie.4316]

I tried one more time and got disconnected at the same exact place in the mission. Tracking the Aspect Masters after killing the small dragon where we gather around the downed master and watch them die. The game is too bugged to enjoy.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"ilonlie.4316" said:

> The disconnects are nothing like I've experienced with any other game. It has me looking for a new game I'm so frustrated. The community is the best I've found and the game content is fine. I simply cannot excuse repeated disconnects at the same place in mission sequences. This has happened many times before always at transitions and after considerable progress has been made in a mission.

 

Yes. For the players who suffer this problem, it happens with a very high probability at any cutscene. Since those only occur during missions...

 

> I never get a response to bug reports and the conversations tend to learn towards the players fault.

 

FWIW, I don't think this is the "players fault", but I do think that the likely cause -- which ANet are still trying to find, and have not yet succeeded -- for the small number of players who this hits is going to turn out to be outside their servers. Unfortunately, I had half hoped the migration to AWS would fix it, because that changes many of the potential root causes at their end, but it did not.

 

Anyway, if you don't mind: what model and brand of router are you using, and are you using a wifi connection to play?

[Biff.5312]

I hear this a lot. I'm just glad it doesn't happen to me.