while palying the game disconnects

[Tssbackus]

I am playing the game with a friend over the network and the game network connection disconnects.

the internet and skype call still works showing that the internet connection to the computer is still there.

 version 3.1.41

[keith.lamothe]

Does this happen as soon as you start the game, or after some specific action?

[Fleet]

Its happened twice so far in our 40minute gaming session. I have not been able to ID a specific action causing this, but I'll stay on the look out.

I don't believe its related to starting a game, although the first time was right near the beginning of it.

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, ok.  What I'd be worried about here is a desync, so if it's at all around the same time as a use of any of the context menu functions, arc-move, dragging planets, etc, that could be involved.

[Fleet]

Just had another, I have to call it a night. My ally said he was left-clicking a command station at the time. I had just selected a scout, and was giving move orders. I'll update this in a day or two when we get time to play.

[Fleet]

We are still getting these...with or without skype being on (minimized though). Sometimes it connects back automatically in a few seconds, and other times it will not connect at all unless the hoster closes AI war, and starts it up again, at which time I can connect.

To be clear, this is a "Waiting for Players" message, and the hoster reported not seeing "Desync" in the bottom right box. I thought it was our internet connection or some other config setting causing this, but because it works when the hoster restarts AI war...

edit: apparently my ally uses two network cards or something, and his internet switches between the two every once in a while. I find this suspect...

With one disabled, we still get small frequent disconnects, but they reconnect after seconds.

[x4000]

It sounds like some sort of confusion on the network layer of the OS, to be sure.  I tend to have around 3 virtual network adapters plus two real network adapters (wireless and LAN) on my machine while playing AI War and it's never been a problem, but it just depends on the network card drivers, etc.  What MTU are you guys playing with?  Lowering that a bit on the client and the host both might help, 1400 or even slightly lower might make some difference if this is a router problem.

[Fleet]

I'll try that. It disconnects about every minute, and is getting unbearable. And this is constant...why must this happen to my beloved game!

Thank you.

[Fleet]

Tried N/800 and N/400, no luck.

The disconnects are someone more frequent with Skype on, but definitely occur a lot while its off as well.

My friend reports his drivers are up to date. When the game disconnects, skype usually drops as well, but web pages (new / ssl) still load.

We both tried a tracert to google, just to see if there was a wild difference between us. Both of us averaged 48ms for the last hop, which seems reasonable.

Not sure if one of our routers is weird and cannot handle the traffic, or if its our internet connection in general...could you suggest some more things I can do to take a systematic approach to this, and pin down whats causing this?

Another random bit, whenever the game drops, network utilization flatlines as reported in task manager.

Edit: Sometimes skype drops by itself, as well...so, some network problem outside of AI war.

Thank you.

[x4000]

Well, I'm glad to hear that you've narrowed it down some, but sorry to hear it's still such an ongoing thing, even with Skype outside of the game being on.  My first guess would then be the routers, one of them being wonky or something -- QoS services can wreak absolute havoc on high-bandwidth or uneven-bandwidth applications (like both Skype and AI War).  If it's not that, you can always send a support request to your ISP; one of my alpha testers was having frequent disconnects (his whole connection to the ISP would drop, it was really obvious), so he called them and the problem went away.  But obviously that won't always work, and they tend to be skeptical.  It's easier to isolate which player is having a problem when you have at least 3 players, incidentally...

[Fleet]

In my eternal search through network settings and configuration, I saw that although my friend was by default connecting to his home network, there were several other networks in the area that would be connected to automatically. In theory, this should happen when his preferred connection is not available. I have a feeling it was switching networks anyways.

We disabled auto-connecting to all other networks, and played for a quick 1hr session, with skype most of the time. Only two very small "waiting for players", which corrected after a few seconds.

So initial success. We will see what more thorough testing shows.

Thank you for your suggestions, sometimes I just need someone to talk to while isolating all these variables. 

[x4000]

That's great news!  Glad that was working out for so long of a span there.  That's really encouraging.

My pleasure on the suggestions, and thanks so much for all the update reports.  I haven't ever run into that specific issue (wireless networks switching automatically), but it makes perfect sense.  Now if anyone else ever has this, I'll know what to tell them, too.  Knock on wood that this is all it was and you're good to go after this.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, even if that turns out not being the only issue (Covington's law of diagnosis: there can always be more than one thing wrong), it certainly seems to have been contributing to the problem, and good to have that on the checklist for future troubleshooting