Disconnect problem since patch

[Riault]

Hey; I am running 2 accounts using autohotkey. I was getting disconnected every every 10 seconds at times and then it was fine for 10 minutes but the issue would always come back.

I tried
1. turning off all addons
2. the video options suggested above
3. pulling my hair out

but nothing seemed to work. Any new information on this issue? I don't play on the PTR but I have not reinstalled Wow ever.

Thanks

Riault

EDIT: Further information
- my disconnects are quick, it is not a "lag out" type.
- my follow seems to be working well (not walking issues)

[thrillhaus]

I tried one more thing today that may be the answer to the problem. From what I noticed, I would usually disconnect in an inn or other enclosed area. I then noticed the FPS on the two disconnecting would be at 130+ while in an inn or enclosed area. The FPS on the two not disconnecting were sitting at <60 in the inn.

My theory: Such a high FPS is causing more frequent updates sent to Blizzard's servers and causing the disconnections.

I turned on vertical sync on the two machines that were pushing 130+ FPS to limit their FPS to my refresh rate (60). Since all machines now have a cap FPS of 60, I have not yet had a disconnection in a few hours of running around.

So, if you are having issues with disconnects please try limiting your fps to 60 by turning your refresh rate to 60 and enabling Vertical Sync and Triple Buffering under Video Options. Let me know if that helps. I will continue doing testing today and make an update if my theory fails

You know, I think you're on to something there. If you send too many movement updates/packages or something of similar nature, the server automatically disconnects you.
Seems very possible that something similar is happening here.

[Mirishka]

Might be on to something here - this post is copied and pasted from a post I made on wow forum that has yet to recieve a response. Please investigate this...

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Everyone out there having this issue I think I may have found the cause, or at least some evidence of the cause. If Blizzard is actually reading this thread they are probably skimming past my posts since I have vented at them a bit. =)

So - Please try out something and if you notice the same thing, please get a discussion going about it. Maybe am on to something, maybe its nothing, you guys decide. This is what I am observing...

I use the FuBar addon. Before anyone says it, no its not an addon causing this issue. All of us that are serious about getting it sorted have already tried running no addons. There is a plug in for FuBar called PerformanceFu, one of the options in this addon allows you to monitor your network status, displaying your latency, Bandwidth In in B/s and Bandwidth Out in B/s.

If I reset my modem, reset my router, reboot my machines, etc. Load the game, log in, and just sit there standing still in one spot not doing anything at all on either char my numbers tend to settled down somewhere around 60-100 latency, 600-700 B/s Bandwith In, and 15-30 B/s Bandwidth Out.

When I group the chars and set one to follow the other, the Bandwidth Out on the following char goes crazy. Instead of hanging around the 30 ish range like the lead char it climbs very very quickly, and continues to climb until the char is disconnected.

If the lead char begins moving, the Bandwith Out on the following char stops climbing, and starts to go down very slowly. As soon as the lead char stops moving, the Bandwidth Out on the following char immediately begins to rise again. It gets absurdly high, 1500-2000 B/s in less then a minute.

If a WOW client can sit in one spot doing absolutely nothing and only require 15 B/s Bandwith Out to remain connected, why exactly does it require 2000 B/s Bandwidth Out to stand there and do absolutely nothing with /follow on another char that is standing there doing absolutely nothing? If I am not giving my client any input at all, why is it sending 2000 B/s to the server?

Those of you that use performance monitoring addons please look into this yourselves. Right now, as I am typing this, I am looking over at my following chars screen, and the Bandwidth Out has climbed to 2315 B/s and seems to have leveled off. Still climbing, but much slower. Bandwidth In is sitting at 643.

The char that it is following has seen an increase of Bandwidth In from the 600 range to 1800 range. But the Bandwidth Out has remained low, currently sitting at 30.

I am no network expert and I am no programmer. But I am pretty confident that a game client that only uses around 20 ish B/s outgoing to communicate with a game server shouldn't require 120 times that ammount of Bandwidth to send a simple message /follow.

Please discuss - something is not right here.

Edit to add: Let them sit for a bit with the follower still following. The In on the lead char kept climbing, got up to around 2500 and latency started to rise, upwards of 200. Broke the follow, went for a smoke. Latencies have come back down to around 100. The high Out on the follower and high In on the leader have dropped down to about 1800 and falling, but falling very very slowly.

Second edit to add: trace routes performed while this is going on come back at 47ms on average.

Third edit to add: And ofcourse after sitting here for the last couple of hours doing all that crap - I ran out to kill a few grey mobs and the follower got disconnected on the third or fourth one.

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I made that post late last night / early this morining, before todays server restart. This afternoon it is still happening but the growth rate on the bandwidth out isn't as rapid, but it still grows to way way more then it oughta be.

Possibly Blizz code to collect data from clients on /follow ?? dunno

[Mirishka]

PS - This may also help to explain why I see so much wild variance in latnecy between my two clients. The follower seems to be spamming the shit out of the leader. Followers out goes way high, leaders in goes way high, leaders latency goes to shit, follower disconnects. WTF

[Xzin]

I don't want to toot my own horn but thats what I have been saying the problem is since it started. When you send too much to the server, it disconnects you. It always has. Probably a map hack / flooding protection but it has been in place since day 1.

The performance metrics and consequent disconnects support this. The underlying root cause, however, remains to be elucidated.

My theory is they screwed something up with the /follow code and the client attempts to "get" to the lead character, can't and tries again instantly. Leading to an out of control spiral which DCs you.

But then again, I have not researched it as I don't disconnect - even with 9 characters on follow for hours.

[Adronson]

Well I tried Wougoose's settings -- 60hz with Vertical Sync and Triple Buffering and it seems to be stable. I'm running three on one machine. Haven't had time to do a real push in an instance yet, but I am not getting disconnects in some of the places that had previously given me difficulties. A tentative congratulations (with my fingers crossed that it holds).

[Mirishka]

Please read and share your comments in the following new thread on the Blizzard bug report forum:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...922296&sid=1#0

Thank you

[Mirishka]

Well I tried Wougoose's settings -- 60hz with Vertical Sync and Triple Buffering and it seems to be stable. I'm running three on one machine. Haven't had time to do a real push in an instance yet, but I am not getting disconnects in some of the places that had previously given me difficulties. A tentative congratulations (with my fingers crossed that it holds).

Admittedly extremely skeptical that a purely client side graphical setting could possibly have anything at all to do with connectivity. But being desprate for a fix I have given this a try.

I did the following:

-Set monitor refresh rate to 60 on both machines
-Logged into the game, set refresh to 60, enabled vsync and trip buff
-Logged out of the game
-Deleted Cache folder in WOW directory
-rebooted both machines and reset the router
-Logged into the game to recieve fresh Cache data
-Logged out of the game and rebooted both machines
-Logged into the game and stood idle for 10 minutes, tapping move occaisionaly to prevent auto afk flag

Observations:
Average latency increased from 60 ish to 120 ish. This is possibly due to the fact that it is getting later in the day and server traffic is higher. Average Bandwidth IN increaed from around 650 ish to 750 ish. Average Bandwidth OUT increaed from 18 ish to 25 ish.

After sitting idle for awhile one char put the other on /follow

Bandwidth OUT on the follow immediately began to rapidly rise. Bandwidth IN on the leader immediately began to rise.
Latency on the leader went up to over 200.

Bascially - No Change

Monitor refresh rates, vertical sync settings, etc, are client side hardware / driver settings for your display and display adapter. They don't have a damn thing to do with connectivity and server communication.

[Mirishka]

Update: After making the changes the Bandwidth OUT growth on the follower started leveling off around 1400 ish instead of 2000+ as before. It is still growing, and may very well reach the 2000+ mark, but its growing at 1 every second or two instead of 20 per second. Bandwidth IN on the leader is still well over 2000 and latency is totally squashed, running over 250 while the follower is at 49.

Killled half a dozen greys and didn't disconnect. /shrug

Second Update: Follower disconnected while typing the above update, just standin there doin nothin. I give up, likely cancel my accounts awhile.

[wougoose]

Well, I have to say that the problem has been solved. I managed to play all day yesterday without a single d/c on all 5 machines.

The solution that worked: Capping all of my machines FPS to 60.

I believe that the server was being flooded enough to boot me when my FPS was hitting 100+. I believe there still needs to be some fixing with this on Blizzard's part, but I have no problems when capping the FPS to 60. Our eyes can't see the difference anyways

Note to self: Turning down all of the video settings doesn't always help performance (In this case)

I'm sorry if this solution doesn't end up working for you. I spent quite a few hours trying to troubleshoot it, and this ended up being the cause for me.

Whatever you do, don't lose hope! I almost dropped everything and was ready to quit this new hobby of mine.