Mystery of the Lag solved maybe...

[SuRfY]

I have posted in one of the thread where people are experiencing lag issues. In the post, i mentioned that the lag issues is recently and it had never happened before (when i levelled all 3 characters to level 21). After analyzing, I strongly believed it has to do with one of the updates. Few explanations I can think of:

They downgraded their server (which cannot sustain the current numberr of players)
There is a sudden injection of large number of new players (which the servers overload)
They shifted their servers elsewhere or underground (a bit far fetched)

But after backtracking through all the updates thread and putting on my thinking cap, I have come to a conclusion that is logical to me. The problem lies in the elixirs timer counting down even when the players are logged off. If there are hundred thousands players with free elixirs counting down at the same time even if they are logged off, it will put more weight in the servers. Tombs are the areas with the most lag because most players use their elixirs in there to level up and probably lots would have logged off from there with their elixirs still running. Not discounting the possibility of that.

A developer could look into this.

PS: I am quite into troubleshooting so that is my perspective.

[Vystirch]

The elixirs don't last long enough to cause such long sustained problems.....

[Rare]

I have posted in one of the thread where people are experiencing lag issues. In the post, i mentioned that the lag issues is recently and it had never happened before (when i levelled all 3 characters to level 21). After analyzing, I strongly believed it has to do with one of the updates. Few explanations I can think of:

They downgraded their server (which cannot sustain the current numberr of players)
There is a sudden injection of large number of new players (which the servers overload)
They shifted their servers elsewhere or underground (a bit far fetched)

But after backtracking through all the updates thread and putting on my thinking cap, I have come to a conclusion that is logical to me. The problem lies in the elixirs timer counting down even when the players are logged off. If there are hundred thousands players with free elixirs counting down at the same time even if they are logged off, it will put more weight in the servers. Tombs are the areas with the most lag because most players use their elixirs in there to level up and probably lots would have logged off from there with their elixirs still running. Not discounting the possibility of that.

A developer could look into this.

PS: I am quite into troubleshooting so that is my perspective.

I seriously doubt EVERY timer is continuously counting down. That would be pretty careless if you had to have a thread counting everything.

Instead... probably saves your time when you log off and when you log back on compares to the current system time.

[SuRfY]

The elixirs don't last long enough to cause such long sustained problems.....

I see it as "Every second, a baby is born and every second, someone dies" based on the world.




I seriously doubt EVERY timer is continuously counting down. That would be pretty careless if you had to have a thread counting everything.

Instead... probably saves your time when you log off and when you log back on compares to the current system time.

Doubt but it's still a possibility.

[Samhayne]

Hey Surfy,

I'm sorry to hear that you are having latency troubles. To address your concern, no the countdown of elixir timers doesn't have (or is negligible) impact on server performance.

The recent server maintenance for Arcane Legends was to actually improve capabilities.

Have you been able to try playing on a different internet connection and compare?

If you have a PC on your local network, try doing a tracert to account.spacetimestudios.com and look for hops in your network traffic that is timing out. If you're not sure what a tracert is, check this article out: http://www.mediacollege.com/internet/troubleshooter/traceroute.html You can also find out more about troubleshooting connectivity issues by searching on the web.

Your first try should really be to try a different connection. If you play on a tablet or phone can you try a different wifi completely? Sometimes here at work we'll go use a nearby free wifi just to see how things are from a different connection.

[Genuinous]

since the latest update my ping is a lot better. Used to be about 250-350, but not it's 130-200. So I'm really happy with it ;)

[McBain]

If you have a PC on your local network, try doing a tracert to account.spacetimestudios.com and look for hops in your network traffic that is timing out.

Therein lies the problem it would seem, at least for me. Repeated trace or ping tests to that specific domain (account.spacetimestudios.com) time out before reaching the destination. Tracert hit the same wall every time around line 18, and then times out the rest of the way, and ping never connects.

Everything is fine running the same tests to just spacetimestudios.com however. To that domain, tracert shows only 14 lines, no time outs, and all times under 100ms, and the ping test averages 88ms.

So, it would appear that a breakdown in connectivity to the game server is what's causing these problems for some of us. My ping always appears to fine in-game though. In the midst of a lagging episode, I'll check it, and it always shows green values. I also don't experience this lag in any other STS games, only AL, and it only started happening right around the recent server maintenance. I'm thinking that can't be a coincidence. I haven't had a chance to try playing on another internet connection. My neighbors all selfishly have their wifi password protected (the nerve of some people! :p ). Maybe I'll go find a McDonalds or Starbucks or something and see if anything's different.

[Samhayne]

Sounds like you want to bring up the issue with your ISP or network administrator and see if they can route your traffic around that hop that is timing out.

Spacetimestudios.com and our websites (like www.pocketlegends.com or www.arcanelegendsgame.com) is hosted on a completely different server and location, so that's not a valid test for game issues.

[McBain]

Gotcha. That's what I figured, but I tested spacetimestudios.com as secondary test mainly to check that my internet connection is otherwise fine, not for necessarily diagnosing game problems. At any rate, I think we've found the problem.

[chitgoks]

I have posted in one of the thread where people are experiencing lag issues. In the post, i mentioned that the lag issues is recently and it had never happened before (when i levelled all 3 characters to level 21). After analyzing, I strongly believed it has to do with one of the updates. Few explanations I can think of:

They downgraded their server (which cannot sustain the current numberr of players)
There is a sudden injection of large number of new players (which the servers overload)
They shifted their servers elsewhere or underground (a bit far fetched)

But after backtracking through all the updates thread and putting on my thinking cap, I have come to a conclusion that is logical to me. The problem lies in the elixirs timer counting down even when the players are logged off. If there are hundred thousands players with free elixirs counting down at the same time even if they are logged off, it will put more weight in the servers. Tombs are the areas with the most lag because most players use their elixirs in there to level up and probably lots would have logged off from there with their elixirs still running. Not discounting the possibility of that.

A developer could look into this.

PS: I am quite into troubleshooting so that is my perspective.


naah, the developers can always log the time the user logged off the server. when the user logs back in, it calculates the time remaining on the elixir and updates the new value.

it would certainly overload the servers if the timer keeps running even if players are logged off and this is not a good approach

[SuRfY]

Hey Surfy,

I'm sorry to hear that you are having latency troubles. To address your concern, no the countdown of elixir timers doesn't have (or is negligible) impact on server performance.

The recent server maintenance for Arcane Legends was to actually improve capabilities.

Have you been able to try playing on a different internet connection and compare?

If you have a PC on your local network, try doing a tracert to account.spacetimestudios.com and look for hops in your network traffic that is timing out. If you're not sure what a tracert is, check this article out: http://www.mediacollege.com/internet/troubleshooter/traceroute.html You can also find out more about troubleshooting connectivity issues by searching on the web.

Your first try should really be to try a different connection. If you play on a tablet or phone can you try a different wifi completely? Sometimes here at work we'll go use a nearby free wifi just to see how things are from a different connection.

Hi Sam,

Thanks for answering to the thread and clearing up. Regards to the trancert which u gave me the link, i am attaching a screenshot here. Not sure what it means. Maybe you can help to see and interpret the readings. :)

24916

I typed trancert www.spacetimestudios.com on my command prompt.

[McBain]

Type "account.spacetimestudios.com" (without the quotes) at the command prompt instead. That'll test your connection to the game's server, which is probably where the problem is.

[yuriramos]

Maybe now that the game is so popular, more players are online and servers get more traffic.
Maybe

[Pulkeren]

lag depends in your internet connection period!! or sometimes when you play it on desktop it dpends on your computer performance!! too ;)

[SuRfY]

Type "account.spacetimestudios.com" (without the quotes) at the command prompt instead. That'll test your connection to the game's server, which is probably where the problem is.

Screenshot as follows:

24933

[digitalbot]

has been getting laggy i completely agree, (mostly weekends)
anyways, try turning off your router for 20mins and turn back on, this will give you a new IP
'cause at times, ports get blocked somehow
theres a website for chexking which ports are blocked too but i forget, pretty sure speedtest.net has it
-later buddys

[Samhayne]

Screenshot as follows:

24933

Hey Surfy,

We're not really the ones to troubleshoot your connection. You probably want to bring the issue up with your ISP. After the 8th hop, ping times go up significantly. The dropouts on hop 16 and up don't look that great either.

[AtariX]

I have actually tried 4 different wifis and everytime the same result as Surfy. After the 7th/8th hop the ping goes up as hell. Therefor I stopped to play on my PC and went back to my mobile phone on 3G. This seems to be not only an issue for me. Still Sam, I don't think it's a coincidence, that after a recent update I am not the only one with the lag/ping issue. Yet, I don't really know a valid solution, that would fit all users, as said, for me it's the 3G network (but that doesn't solve my pvp ping).

[GoodSyntax]

3G/4G generally has a more consistent ping rate than wi-fi. Wi-fi can have a lot of flutter, so you could see huge ping spikes.

If I had to guess, it looks like your ISP is the problem. The jump from mid-20 ms pings to >200 is large, so your ISP is probably using their own network or contracted with second tier backbone providers...or their routing tables are a sloppy mess.

The problem does not seem to lie with your local node, but rather the switchover from local to regional nodes.

My ISP (Cable) usually serves each hop at around 15-25 ms. Occasionally, during peak times (4PM - 7PM) my hop times jump to 40-70 ms, but are still reasonably good.

Try doing a tracert to google.com and see if the hop times are similar. If they are still >200 ms after the jump from local to regional nodes, I would either call the ISP or find a new one.

[SuRfY]

3G/4G generally has a more consistent ping rate than wi-fi. Wi-fi can have a lot of flutter, so you could see huge ping spikes.

If I had to guess, it looks like your ISP is the problem. The jump from mid-20 ms pings to >200 is large, so your ISP is probably using their own network or contracted with second tier backbone providers...or their routing tables are a sloppy mess.

The problem does not seem to lie with your local node, but rather the switchover from local to regional nodes.

My ISP (Cable) usually serves each hop at around 15-25 ms. Occasionally, during peak times (4PM - 7PM) my hop times jump to 40-70 ms, but are still reasonably good.

Try doing a tracert to google.com and see if the hop times are similar. If they are still >200 ms after the jump from local to regional nodes, I would either call the ISP or find a new one.

Screenshot here after tracert to google.com:

24960

[GoodSyntax]

I'm no network wiz, but I would say that this appears to be an issue with DNS (Domain Name Servers) or Routing Tables with your ISP. The fault probably lies with a 3rd party or contracted ISP (the 5th column will give you some domain names, which are the ISP names it is traversing).

Just for yucks, try doing an ipconfig /flushdns on your PC. This will refresh the DNS cache on your machine. This probably won't help since the fault appears to lie outside of your regional node.

Wish I could offer up more advice, but, as I said, networking protocols aren't in my wheel-house.

[SuRfY]

I changed the wall socket, telephone lines, router, modem and it looks slightly slightly better. Still lagging. Anyway, thanks to those who posted constructive help.

24995

[McBain]

Don't know if this is related or not, but I also get the same lag when playing on 3G that I do on wifi. They're two different internet connections from two different companies, so I'm assuming they would be taking different routes to the server. Is it possible to trace a 3G connection? When I trace my wifi, it looks pretty much exactly like Surfys, so I'm wondering if the problem isn't necessarily with our individual ISPs, but with a specific hop somewhere down the line that we all have to go through.

Anyway, regarding contacting my ISP: is this a request that happens often, and something they can actually control? Like, if I call up and ask if they can re-route my traffic to account.spacetimestudios.com, will they be like "oh, no problem" or will they be like "wtf are you talking about?" This has never been an issue for me before, so idk.

[meanakric]

My ping is getting very high (200ms) when start connecting to Amazon server.

[Otawaazavie]

I think the right address is accounts.spacetimestudios.com and not account.spacetimestudios.com. Maybe a dev can clarify?

[H2N]

I think the right address is accounts.spacetimestudios.com and not account.spacetimestudios.com. Maybe a dev can clarify?

account.spacetimestudios.com (without the 's')

Pinging account.spacetimestudios.com [204.236.230.172] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 204.236.230.172: bytes=32 time=56ms TTL=43
Reply from 204.236.230.172: bytes=32 time=63ms TTL=43

[Otawaazavie]

I can't even ping that adress. Request is timing out. Do I have to forward any ports? Help appreciated

[H2N]

I can't even ping that adress. Request is timing out. Do I have to forward any ports? Help appreciated

Can you access the web version of AL at http://account.spacetimestudios.com/arcanelegends/

[Otawaazavie]

I can but because iOS (iphone5) can't open flash I get the following "Uh-oh! An error occurred while initializing flash! Please try again later or contact Spacetime Studios Support!"

[H2N]

I can but because iOS (iphone5) can't open flash I get the following "Uh-oh! An error occurred while initializing flash! Please try again later or contact Spacetime Studios Support!"

Then it's probably a block that we have on icmp that explains why you can't ping it. What about tracert. Can you tracert account.spacetimestudios.com?

[Otawaazavie]

This is part of traceroute to account.spacetimestudios.com
10 ae-42-42.ebr1.newyork1.level3.net (4.69.137.70) time=198 ms
11 4.69.201.70 (4.69.201.70) time=191 ms
12 ae-5-5.ebr2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.143.221) time=196 ms
13 ae-72-72.csw2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.134.150) time=190 ms
14 ae-2-70.edge3.washington1.level3.net (4.69.149.81) time=194 ms
15 amazon.com.edge3.washington1.level3.net (4.59.144.174) time=190 ms
16 72.21.220.135 (72.21.220.135) time=195 ms
17 72.21.222.157 (72.21.222.157) time=188 ms
18 *
19 *
20 *
21 216.182.224.221 (216.182.224.221) time=244 ms
22 *
23 *
24 *
25 *
26 *
27 *
28 *
29 *
30 *

And ping results

PING account.spacetimestudios.com (204.236.233.29)
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
Request timeout for icmp_seq 4
Request timeout for icmp_seq 5
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6
Request timeout for icmp_seq 7
Request timeout for icmp_seq 8
Request timeout for icmp_seq 9
Request timeout for icmp_seq 10
Request timeout for icmp_seq 11
Request timeout for icmp_seq 12
--- account.spacetimestudios.com ping statistics ---
14 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, lost 100.0 %

[H2N]

This is my tracert from the sts office to account.spacetimestudios.com, which http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/204.236.230.172 reports as being located in Ashburn, Virginia. Ping time as reported in my AL Chrome client is 134. Considering that my tracert time(s) are much less than 134, this most likely means that it's my AL Chrome client's FPS that's resulting in the 134 ping time reported in the client. Remember that post from Samhayne (posted somewhere) that the ping time reported in the client will be no faster than the client's FPS, which is most likely what's happening in my case.

Tracing route to account.spacetimestudios.com [204.236.230.172]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 8 ms 8 ms 39 ms tge7-5.austtxa-er01.texas.rr.com [66.68.1.25]
3 9 ms 16 ms 14 ms tge0-15-0-2.austtxa-cr02.texas.rr.com [24.175.42.236]
4 10 ms 15 ms 17 ms agg11.austtxrdcsc-cr01.texas.rr.com [24.175.41.206]
5 11 ms 14 ms 8 ms agg10.austtxrdcsc-cr02.texas.rr.com [24.175.41.209]
6 16 ms 14 ms 16 ms agg22.hstntxl3-cr01.texas.rr.com [24.175.41.48]
7 21 ms 22 ms 31 ms 107.14.17.138
8 25 ms 23 ms 23 ms ae-0-0.cr0.dfw10.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.39]
9 18 ms 21 ms 19 ms 107.14.17.232
10 24 ms 21 ms 19 ms dls-bb1-link.telia.net [213.248.66.69]
11 61 ms 49 ms 47 ms ash-bb3-link.telia.net [213.248.80.141]
12 51 ms 48 ms 51 ms ash-b1-link.telia.net [80.91.248.157]
13 58 ms 49 ms 54 ms vadata-ic-157231-ash-bb1.c.telia.net [62.115.9.62]
14 65 ms 65 ms 48 ms 72.21.220.47
15 50 ms 51 ms 52 ms 72.21.222.155
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 60 ms 55 ms 50 ms 216.182.224.91
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 52 ms 48 ms 49 ms ec2-204-236-230-172.compute-1.amazonaws.com [204.236.230.172]

Trace complete.

[Lady_Pebbles]

Do yall have linkage to a site where it'll trace it for our mobile devices?

[H2N]

Do yall have linkage to a site where it'll trace it for our mobile devices?


I believe there are traceroute apps available for devices/tablets. I googled it and got quite a number of hits.

[Lady_Pebbles]

Thanks! I'll check 'em out and see what it says. I'll try it both with 4G and WiFi. Also wanna see the exact differences between the network being slowed down or when its completely up. Might just PM the results cuz Im not sure what I can post here without making my devices a magnet lol.

Super curious. O.o

[H2N]

This is part of traceroute to account.spacetimestudios.com
10 ae-42-42.ebr1.newyork1.level3.net (4.69.137.70) time=198 ms
11 4.69.201.70 (4.69.201.70) time=191 ms
12 ae-5-5.ebr2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.143.221) time=196 ms
13 ae-72-72.csw2.washington1.level3.net (4.69.134.150) time=190 ms
14 ae-2-70.edge3.washington1.level3.net (4.69.149.81) time=194 ms
15 amazon.com.edge3.washington1.level3.net (4.59.144.174) time=190 ms
16 72.21.220.135 (72.21.220.135) time=195 ms
17 72.21.222.157 (72.21.222.157) time=188 ms
18 *
19 *
20 *
21 216.182.224.221 (216.182.224.221) time=244 ms
22 *
23 *
24 *
25 *
26 *
27 *
28 *
29 *
30 *


http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/216.182.224.221 says 216.182.224.221 is Amazon.com located in Seattle, Washington. Considering that it's taking 244 ms just to get this far, and account.spacetimestudios.com is on the other coast in Ashburn, Virginia, the final latency will probably be at least 300 ms.

[Otawaazavie]

The problem is it never reaches destination -.-
But anyway thank you very much for reply H2N :-)

[H2N]

The problem is it never reaches destination -.-
But anyway thank you very much for reply H2N :-)

It's OK that tracert never reaches the destination. That's just hosts/routers along the way that's been configured to ignore tracert packets. Whatever results you got can be used to extrapolate some useful information. In this particular case, the last available host along the destination on line 21 (216.182.224.221) means that your ping to account.spacetimestudios.com will be that, plus whatever host(s) comes after that before reaching account.spacetimestudios.com.

[Otawaazavie]

Thank you very much for useful information once again

[illego]

I've noticed that I mainly have issues with my phone (GalaxyS3). I play with my son and he is on his Nook Tablet next to the router. When I lag and see the ping numbers shoots up in RED, he is fine. No issues at all. All my other apps works fine, never have connection issues. I usually have to kill AL and restart it and I am fine again for a while. Seems worse in the evening time (PST) when internet traffic is at its highest but also happens late night also.

It might help if everyone states their location, ISP and device to see if there are any trends.

California/Time Warner Cable/GS3

[Theorems]

This is a cross post from another thread on the lag issue.

I am going to add to this and say that I have definitely experienced the lag spikes quite a bit as well.

One thing that I saw mentioned in the other thread, but not receive much attention, is that I think physical location has a lot to do with it. Since the servers are on the East Coast, my guess is people who are close/closer tend to not have issues and all these pretty severe lag issues are really hitting West Coasters or potentially international players who are much further away.

I personally am on the West Coast (Los Angeles) and I have seen a few of the other people complaining of lag issues say that they were from the West Coast as well.

STS is saying, since they are not hearing an "overwhelming" number of complaints, it must be an issue on our side. My counter would be, if the issue is based on physical location, then even though the problem is quite severe for those experiencing the lag issues, we will never hear an overwhelming number of complaints because there are plenty of people who live on the East Coast, near the servers that do not have any problems with lag.

That however does NOT mean there is not an issue. It just means the issue is localized and only a distinct population of the players will complain, and THOSE individual will complain loudly, while people in unaffected areas will say, everything seems great! It follows that this is NOT an issue that STS should be allowed to dismiss as, "Not enough people are seeing the problem for it to be an issue for us to deal with."

I don't know about you guys, but I didn't even realize it was a lag issue until I saw others complaining of it on the forums. Basically when playing on chrome, my character would just kinda freeze up for a few seconds and then everything would snap in later. I thought maybe my computer was being slow or I just had chrome freeze up or something, but I am using cable internet with plenty of bandwidth and I have a powerful gaming computer which should have no problem running AL or any of these games, since I run many games that require significantly more processing and graphics capabilities.

STS - please help us with this lag issue!

[Monstertongue]

Omg even some1 in states is complaining...let's alone those playing outside of US...and coz coz we have 19 other big country players

[Bebsi]

I can't PVP atm, ping is constantly 1-2s -.-
So all I do is lvl an alt till its fixed?

And it's not my ISP, I tried 3 different ISP (with iPad and Galaxy Tab) with the same result...
(PL works fine -.-)

[Ulaar]

Is AL hosted on amazon aws? This would explain the frequency of high latency/dropped packets when tracerts are hitting amazon ip blocks. If I were a betting man, I'd throw plat down that AL is on aws and that this is a traffic issue within amazon's infrastructure...

[H2N]

Is AL hosted on amazon aws? This would explain the frequency of high latency/dropped packets when tracerts are hitting amazon ip blocks. If I were a betting man, I'd throw plat down that AL is on aws and that this is a traffic issue within amazon's infrastructure...

All 4 Legends games are hosted on Amazon EC2/AWS in the US East (N. Virginia) region. We (like all other businesses that are hosted on Amazon EC2/AWS) rely on Amazon to manage network traffic.

[Ulaar]

STS bought the platinum support package that includes Jeff Bezos phone number, right? ;) seriously though, that the issue is on amazon's end seems plausible - would creating a thread with screenshots of tracerts provide any ammo to enable sts to ask amazon to look at the issue? I'm making pretty big assumptions here with only anecdotal data but...

[McBain]

I live in the Eastern US pretty close to Virginia, and I have the lag problem, so I don't know that location is the main factor.

[SuRfY]

Anyone living in Texas having the lag problem? LOL. I assumed no.