Thread: Time Warner, RoadRunner, Brighthouse players please read.

Beginning on 6/20 or about, players on these ISP's began encountering issues with accessing specific worlds, specific characters or during transit of game areas, this thread is an attempt to clarify what we know is happening, what we suspect might be occurring and other why's/who's and what's and hopefully clear up some misconceptions about the issue.

"What is going on?"

Okay to clarify what we believe is happening is that somewhere in your connections transit across the internet (specifically on your provider or providers affiliated networks), the UDP packets your game client is trying to send to the server, or the ones it is trying to receive back from the server are not reaching their respective destination. It appears to be related to ports in the 9000 to 9010 range but may not be specific to just those ten, there may be wider ranges of ports similarly affected.

When you connect to the game after the game launcher (which uses http/https not UDP) the game's 3d client connects to the world server on a specifc port in that range and they vary based on whichever world you're selecting (which is why sometimes you can connect to one but not another) additionally each character on that world will also open a different pair (inbound/outbound) ports to communicate as well which is also why some characters appear to load/stay connected but others can't.

When the data sent on these ports is being dropped like this or not routing correctly between your client and the server it manifests in but is not limited to just one of the following:
-Inability of the client to connect to a specific world
-Inability of the client to connect to a specific character or characters
-Loss of connection on transit from one game area to another

What is occurring is similar to an issue encountered by players on a different ISP some time ago, that one stemmed from a network switch at one of their third-party backbone connection providers network locations not correctly handling packet transitions for UDP on ports 9000 to 9010 and resulted in a similar behavior in the games.

"Why can I still connect to the internet/other games but only AC/DDO/LOTRO are affected?"

We believe that the games communication on port 80/8080 (http/https via the game launcher) is not affected, instead UDP packets on ports 9000 through 9010 as it transits across these providers networks are being affected.

"What do you mean it's my ISP?"

The servers themselves are up, to date almost all reports of this specific behavior beginning on the 20th have been from players on this specific network path using the ISP's listed.

"Why can't you fix it?"

Simply put, the issue is with routing of UDP packets on those ports on a network outside of our own. To even determine an exact location of where it's happening on that path means we would have to do very involved network connection testing on a regional ISP's network, which we simply cannot do for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it's not our network to be running tests like this on.

"What can you do to fix this?"

At best we can provide players with information, as well as try to follow up with the ISP somewhat since in this case we are tangentially affiliated with the affected ISP, but despite that the best means of contact is for the players to follow up with their ISP about what's happening and provide the information detailed in this thread, which helps to illustrate to them commonality of network pathing, what geographic areas seem to be most/least affected et al. We can only provide general information about what we think is occurring, you can provide much more in-depth detail on the actual occurrences.

"Do you know where the drops are occurring?"

Right now simply put no and we do not have the resources or access to make a definitive "Here" statement, that said though we do believe it is potentially as the connections transit through the eastern US section of RoadRunner's backbone, which is affecting all players connections as they transit that network. However that is at best a 'guess' and at worst incorrect, again the ISP's affected need to make a more clear determination, to do that they need information provided to them by their customers.

"What kind of things should we tell them?"

Start with how the games connection appears to be affected, point out that it appears to be somewhere in the connection chain (the full chain, not just locally). Let them know your connection path by doing a 'traceroute' to gls.lotro.com (I'll paste the steps below) and show them how your connection is pathing, with enough reports from enough affected players they can make a more informed list of path commonalities to help pin down where the drop might be occurring and possible why's.

"Okay how do I do a traceroute?"

Click on the Windows "Start" button and choose "All programs" > "Accessories" > "Command Prompt". In the command prompt window type "tracert gls.lotro.com" (no quotes) and press enter.

"How can I 'copy paste' from that?"

Right-click on the command prompt window anywhere, choose "Select all". When you right-click again, this time on the white highlighted area, it will copy this data into the 'clipboard' which you can now paste this into an email, chat, notepad file etc using "Ctrl" and "V" to paste.

Things to keep in mind: Trace Route is not an accurate reflection of this specific issue since it does not use the same ports/protocols as appear to be affected, but it does give your ISP's support team a look at how your connection is transiting to the game servers in general. Also results in the trace of "* * * [Request Timed Out]" do not always indicate an error with the connection, they often simply mean that the particular server was not configured to respond with its identity when handling a traceroute request, it still sends the trace onward but just is not telling you 'who' it is.

"What about changing which port the game uses?"

Some players have found that going into their "Userpreferences.ini" file (Found in Documents/My Documents > "The Lord of the Rings Online") and under the [Net] section changing "UserSpecifiedPort=" to a different port of the 9000 to 9010 range appears to correct this, however most have pointed out it is temporary since the issues then begin showing up again, which points to an issue more so as noted above with a potentially wider swath of ports or alternately with UDP packet routing in general.

"Turbine's Tech Support told me to restart my modem/router, reboot my computer and do a "flushdns" but that didn't work?"

Yes a full connection reset like that can in these instances sometimes help, simply because it can often cause your connection to re-route, the problem though may return since it stems from the backbone path that your connection specifically takes through your ISP and its related networks takes. Even common workarounds like using a VPN or internet 'proxy' may not correct this since their connections may still tunnel through the same affected areas.

"So should I still be contacting Turbine Technical Support?"

Certainly you can but I want to set the expectation to be aware that their assistance is somewhat limited in these types of issues because of their nature and where the cause typically is. Still the best option is following up with your ISP about this and what is occurring.

I've contacted Roadrunner and spoke to a Tier 3 Technical Service Rep, outlining all aspects of your post.

The Rep created an Escalation Ticket which, according to her, goes directly to their Engineering/Operations Center. I was told that it could be up to a week before being contacted by someone from the Engineering Department but that I would receive a call.

That being said, I wanted to share the update and the escalation ticket number.

Roadrunner Escalation Ticket Number: 10129132

What do you mean it's my ISP?The servers themselves are up, to date almost all reports of this specific behavior beginning on the 20th have been from players on this specific network path using the ISP's listed.

If the nature of the problem is such that my ISP must take corrective action, why do my failed trace routes end inside Turbines network?

Originally Posted by Jerek_of_horus

If the nature of the problem is such that my ISP must take corrective action, why do my failed trace routes end inside Turbines network?

Apparently you missed this part?

Originally Posted by Mirthgar

Things to keep in mind: Trace Route is not an accurate reflection of this specific issue since it does not use the same ports/protocols as appear to be affected, but it does give your ISP's support team a look at how your connection is transiting to the game servers in general. Also results in the trace of "* * * [Request Timed Out]" do not indicate an error with the connection, they simply mean that the particular server was not configured to respond with its identity when handling a traceroute request, it still sends the trace onward but just is not telling you 'who' it is.

I love these fake FAQ questions. We never asked these questions. It really bugs when companies make a fake FAQ...

How about answering a REAL question. It is YOU GUYS WHO did SOMETHING on 6/20. All of this happened right after maintenance. What was changed?

I have to tell you right now, I am [upset]. I was this close to coming back to the game and getting a nice 90 days worth of VIP and luckily this happened right before. I was also going to pre order Rohan, etc...

It is a simple question. What did you guys change on 6/20?

Originally Posted by donjn

I love these fake FAQ questions. We never asked these questions. It really bugs when companies make a fake FAQ...

How about answering a REAL question. It is YOU GUYS WHO did SOMETHING on 6/20. All of this happened right after maintenance. What was changed?

I have to tell you right now, I am [upset]. I was this close to coming back to the game and getting a nice 90 days worth of VIP and luckily this happened right before. I was also going to pre order Rohan, etc...

It is a simple question. What did you guys change on 6/20?

Short answer is, that I am aware of, nothing that would affect the game for a specific subset of players all on the same internet providers and in the ways it is occurring.

Well, I appreciate, at least, that someone from Turbine finally posted something about this problem on the forums. I feel better that they are part of the discussion with their customers and thank them for that.

Originally Posted by Brethalmar

Apparently you missed this part?

The basics of IP are not unknown to me. What is known to me is that I had a continuous period of about 2 hours Saturday and Sunday where pings and trace routes via command line; AS WELL AS connectivity to the game server via game client worked fine. Then for some unknown reason all three ceased going through for me at the same time. The path at which this stopped was behind at least one server that resolved to a Turbine server. I doubt your quote can explain that.

Originally Posted by Mirthgar

Short answer is, that I am aware of, nothing that would affect the game for a specific subset of players all on the same internet providers and in the ways it is occurring.

I appreciate your guide to help me speak a bit more intelligently to my ISP. Perhaps the backbone is SoCal got an update...........perhaps not, either way if this does not get cleared up soon I am going to get a refund since I just resubbed on Saturday after an absence of 2 years.

Originally Posted by Jerek_of_horus

The basics of IP are not unknown to me. What is known to me is that I had a continuous period of about 2 hours Saturday and Sunday where pings and trace routes via command line; AS WELL AS connectivity to the game server via game client worked fine. Then for some unknown reason all three ceased going through for me at the same time. The path at which this stopped was behind at least one server that resolved to a Turbine server. I doubt your quote can explain that.

Let me try to clarify a bit, traceroute is essentially a 'ping' but one that gets sent both ways. You get "* * * [Request Timed Out]" for a variety of reasons, the most common though is just like it says because the particular server isn't setup to respond with its identity when it replies. However when you get a string back from after a certain point and at specific times it can indicate that the reply itself is timing out and also it does not always indicate that where the timeouts began is where it's starting it effectively could be anywhere along on the chain.

I know that some of the outlying network hops on the internal side will in fact not respond with ID info on a tracert, but if you're getting all back as that it's even still hard to pin down what/which might be causing it since traceroute is just a very basic test of pathing and general latency moreso than of routing/forwarding and response, and the issues occurring with the game for folks on these ISP's are not using the same protocols and ports that a tracert uses.

I just got off the phone with TW. Took a a lot of cajoling (they did not wanna hear they could be at fault) but I gave them Wargfoe's ticket number and they told me the ticket is open and being investigated. I think that if you do call them, since ya have to deal with Tier 1, and they do not have the knowledge or resources to move on this, you need to give them the ticket number. They will then make a new one with that info. Hopefully this will be resolved soon.

Originally Posted by Mirthgar

Let me try to clarify a bit, traceroute is essentially a 'ping' but one that gets sent both ways. You get "* * * [Request Timed Out]" for a variety of reasons, the most common though is just like it says because the particular server isn't setup to respond with its identity when it replies. However when you get a string back from after a certain point and at specific times it can indicate that the reply itself is timing out and also it does not always indicate that where the timeouts began is where it's starting it effectively could be anywhere along on the chain.

I know that some of the outlying network hops on the internal side will in fact not respond with ID info on a tracert, but if you're getting all back as that it's even still hard to pin down what/which might be causing it since traceroute is just a very basic test of pathing and general latency moreso than of routing/forwarding and response, and the issues occurring with the game for folks on these ISP's are not using the same protocols and ports that a tracert uses.

I take it you haven't seen my post in the other thread.

Originally Posted by Mirthgar

"Why can I still connect to the internet/other games but only AC/DDO/LOTRO are affected?"

We believe that the games communication on port 80/8080 (http/https via the game launcher) is not affected, instead UDP packets on ports 9000 through 9010 as it transits across these providers networks are being affected.

Well, if it really should be an issue related to the ports used by the UDP packets, you should look at the port numbers on the other end of the connection, too. I am not exactly an expert regarding internet traffic, but when I downloaded and ran Wireshark out of curiosity (my connection was good and contacted Belegaer, a German server), I found a port in the 10640+ range, too. I guess it is there to identify Belegaer as the target of any commands sent over there.

As you can see here:


Even if the 9K-9010 (outgoing) ports are working fine, the 1064x (incoming) might have issues.

Just my 2 Cent.


Greetings, Polymachos

The standard response from Turbine really needs to shift away from "we didn't do anything to cause this" to "our changes to the game must have had some unforseen consequences, we're working as hard as we can to fix it." Nothing is more frustrating for a player than to see 1) Turbine changed something, through an update/expansion/maintenance and 2) now we have problems where before we had none. WE CAN PUT 1 AND 2 TOGETHER. It's insane to continue to give us the "we didn't do anything" line!

After the utter fiasco about lag after ROI came out, it's honestly insulting that yet another Turbine update/maintenance goes through and instantly causes problems and yet we are asked to spend hours on the phone fixing it. Are you serious? These problems came DIRECTLY after a maintenance on the game and/or servers. This may also be at least partly the fault of TWC, I am fully aware of that possibility, but that does not change how customers were fine with TWC (some for months or years) as their ISP until 6/20 when you did maintenance!

Originally Posted by Mirthgar

Beginning on 6/20 or about, players on these ISP's began encountering issues with accessing specific worlds, specific characters or during transit of game areas, this thread is an attempt to clarify what we know is happening, what we suspect might be occurring and other why's/who's and what's and hopefully clear up some misconceptions about the issue.

"What is going on?"

Okay to clarify what we believe is happening is that somewhere in your connections transit across the internet (specifically on your provider or providers affiliated networks), the UDP packets your game client is trying to send to the server, or the ones it is trying to receive back from the server are not reaching their respective destination. It appears to be related to ports in the 9000 to 9010 range but may not be specific to just those ten, there may be wider ranges of ports similarly affected.

When you connect to the game after the game launcher (which uses http/https not UDP) the game's 3d client connects to the world server on a specifc port in that range and they vary based on whichever world you're selecting (which is why sometimes you can connect to one but not another) additionally each character on that world will also open a different pair (inbound/outbound) ports to communicate as well which is also why some characters appear to load/stay connected but others can't.

When the data sent on these ports is being dropped like this or not routing correctly between your client and the server it manifests in but is not limited to just one of the following:
-Inability of the client to connect to a specific world
-Inability of the client to connect to a specific character or characters
-Loss of connection on transit from one game area to another

What is occurring is similar to an issue encountered by players on a different ISP some time ago, that one stemmed from a network switch at one of their third-party backbone connection providers network locations not correctly handling packet transitions for UDP on ports 9000 to 9010 and resulted in a similar behavior in the games.

"Why can I still connect to the internet/other games but only AC/DDO/LOTRO are affected?"

We believe that the games communication on port 80/8080 (http/https via the game launcher) is not affected, instead UDP packets on ports 9000 through 9010 as it transits across these providers networks are being affected.

"What do you mean it's my ISP?"

The servers themselves are up, to date almost all reports of this specific behavior beginning on the 20th have been from players on this specific network path using the ISP's listed.

"Why can't you fix it?"

Simply put, the issue is with routing of UDP packets on those ports on a network outside of our own. To even determine an exact location of where it's happening on that path means we would have to do very involved network connection testing on a regional ISP's network, which we simply cannot do for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it's not our network to be running tests like this on.

"What can you do to fix this?"

At best we can provide players with information, as well as try to follow up with the ISP somewhat since in this case we are tangentially affiliated with the affected ISP, but despite that the best means of contact is for the players to follow up with their ISP about what's happening and provide the information detailed in this thread, which helps to illustrate to them commonality of network pathing, what geographic areas seem to be most/least affected et al. We can only provide general information about what we think is occurring, you can provide much more in-depth detail on the actual occurrences.

"Do you know where the drops are occurring?"

Right now simply put no and we do not have the resources or access to make a definitive "Here" statement, that said though we do believe it is potentially as the connections transit through the eastern US section of RoadRunner's backbone, which is affecting all players connections as they transit that network. However that is at best a 'guess' and at worst incorrect, again the ISP's affected need to make a more clear determination, to do that they need information provided to them by their customers.

"What kind of things should we tell them?"

Start with how the games connection appears to be affected, point out that it appears to be somewhere in the connection chain (the full chain, not just locally). Let them know your connection path by doing a 'traceroute' to gls.lotro.com (I'll paste the steps below) and show them how your connection is pathing, with enough reports from enough affected players they can make a more informed list of path commonalities to help pin down where the drop might be occurring and possible why's.

"Okay how do I do a traceroute?"

Click on the Windows "Start" button and choose "All programs" > "Accessories" > "Command Prompt". In the command prompt window type "tracert gls.lotro.com" (no quotes) and press enter.

"How can I 'copy paste' from that?"

Right-click on the command prompt window anywhere, choose "Select all". When you right-click again, this time on the white highlighted area, it will copy this data into the 'clipboard' which you can now paste this into an email, chat, notepad file etc using "Ctrl" and "V" to paste.

Things to keep in mind: Trace Route is not an accurate reflection of this specific issue since it does not use the same ports/protocols as appear to be affected, but it does give your ISP's support team a look at how your connection is transiting to the game servers in general. Also results in the trace of "* * * [Request Timed Out]" do not always indicate an error with the connection, they often simply mean that the particular server was not configured to respond with its identity when handling a traceroute request, it still sends the trace onward but just is not telling you 'who' it is.

"What about changing which port the game uses?"

Some players have found that going into their "Userpreferences.ini" file (Found in Documents/My Documents > "The Lord of the Rings Online") and under the [Net] section changing "UserSpecifiedPort=" to a different port of the 9000 to 9010 range appears to correct this, however most have pointed out it is temporary since the issues then begin showing up again, which points to an issue more so as noted above with a potentially wider swath of ports or alternately with UDP packet routing in general.

"Turbine's Tech Support told me to restart my modem/router, reboot my computer and do a "flushdns" but that didn't work?"

Yes a full connection reset like that can in these instances sometimes help, simply because it can often cause your connection to re-route, the problem though may return since it stems from the backbone path that your connection specifically takes through your ISP and its related networks takes. Even common workarounds like using a VPN or internet 'proxy' may not correct this since their connections may still tunnel through the same affected areas.

"So should I still be contacting Turbine Technical Support?"

Certainly you can but I want to set the expectation to be aware that their assistance is somewhat limited in these types of issues because of their nature and where the cause typically is. Still the best option is following up with your ISP about this and what is occurring.

Hello,

My name is Gary and I am the Online Forums Manager for Bright House Networks. Based on what I've read here I can assure you we are not blocking those ports or impeding UDP data in any way. Please contact me directly at BHNtechXpert@mybrighthouse.com and lets work together to determine what actually is going on.

Thanks,

Gary

Originally Posted by WargFoe

I've contacted Roadrunner and spoke to a Tier 3 Technical Service Rep, outlining all aspects of your post.

The Rep created an Escalation Ticket which, according to her, goes directly to their Engineering/Operations Center. I was told that it could be up to a week before being contacted by someone from the Engineering Department but that I would receive a call.

That being said, I wanted to share the update and the escalation ticket number.

Roadrunner Escalation Ticket Number: 10129132

I will contact our partner TWC and find out the status of this ticket. In the meantime I encourage anyone who thinks they are impacted by this and who are Bright House Networks customers to open a direct forums thread in our forums at DSLReports.

Not the first time and won't be the last that a ISP makes changes to how it routes your connection or has a hardware failure in its own network or via its transit host which can affect all ISP's it has contracts with.

If it was the update, then you would see this forum die from the load of other players on with Other ISP's posting. It's not its affecting a specific ISP/s

Bah I am defending TB, but take your tin foil hats off, it wasn't the patch.

Originally Posted by thunderchickn

The standard response from Turbine really needs to shift away from "we didn't do anything to cause this" to "our changes to the game must have had some unforseen consequences, we're working as hard as we can to fix it." Nothing is more frustrating for a player than to see 1) Turbine changed something, through an update/expansion/maintenance and 2) now we have problems where before we had none. WE CAN PUT 1 AND 2 TOGETHER. It's insane to continue to give us the "we didn't do anything" line!

After the utter fiasco about lag after ROI came out, it's honestly insulting that yet another Turbine update/maintenance goes through and instantly causes problems and yet we are asked to spend hours on the phone fixing it. Are you serious? These problems came DIRECTLY after a maintenance on the game and/or servers. This may also be at least partly the fault of TWC, I am fully aware of that possibility, but that does not change how customers were fine with TWC (some for months or years) as their ISP until 6/20 when you did maintenance!

Cheers to tunderchickn! In just two paragraphs, I believe you've summed up our sentiments with the frustrations we've been having. Also, cheers to Gary, aka BHNtechXpert, for his professional input and willingness to help! Here here!

Originally Posted by Mirthgar

Let me try to clarify a bit, traceroute is essentially a 'ping' but one that gets sent both ways. You get "* * * [Request Timed Out]" for a variety of reasons, the most common though is just like it says because the particular server isn't setup to respond with its identity when it replies. However when you get a string back from after a certain point and at specific times it can indicate that the reply itself is timing out and also it does not always indicate that where the timeouts began is where it's starting it effectively could be anywhere along on the chain.

I know that some of the outlying network hops on the internal side will in fact not respond with ID info on a tracert, but if you're getting all back as that it's even still hard to pin down what/which might be causing it since traceroute is just a very basic test of pathing and general latency moreso than of routing/forwarding and response, and the issues occurring with the game for folks on these ISP's are not using the same protocols and ports that a tracert uses.

Mirthgar. I know what traceroute is. I know it's an entirely different protocol, port, etc.. from the game client/ports. I know what the *'s mean.

Look at my post here:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...06#post6251506

What you see there are pings and traceroutes that I was running while playing on Brandywine Sunday morning between about 9:30 and 10:15am Pacific Daylight Time. I was periodically running them both from the command line as I played. What you see initially are very clean traces where all the servers respond to pings just fine, not all of them will reverse-dns, but no biggie. The last three servers I take to be in Turbine's domain:

17 97 ms 95 ms 95 ms border1.te7-1-bbnet1.bsn003.pnap.net 63.251.128.43
18 105 ms 98 ms 98 ms turbine-7.border1.bsn003.pnap.net 64.95.76.202
19 133 ms 139 ms 107 ms 74.201.102.154
20 101 ms 122 ms 99 ms 74.201.102.12

...simply because the first of the last 3 is called turbine-7.bsn003.pnap.net. Though obviously I do not know your internal network, so I could very well be incorrect. Please note that 74.201.102.12 pings just fine for nearly 2 hours, as does everything else along the trace. During this time, I was playing on Brandywine just fine. Then, at approximately 10:15 I ported from Isendale to 21st hall, and then took a fast horse from 21st hall to Stangard. On the loading screen to Stangard, I noticed it was taking an extra long time ( a common symptom in this problem), and I immediately began another set of pings/traces to gls.lotro.com. You can see the results clearly in that post of mine. My game-client connection of course timed out following the same pattern as everyone suffering this problem has had, and I could not log back in, just like everyone is suffering with. Mind you, I was running pings/traces during all of this.

The results say that at the exact same time that I was disconnected from the game server, suddenly all pings and traces end at 74.201.102.154, but have fine latency results up until that point. How can you explain that with ping being blocked/slowed en-route and not an IP block at the end?

It appears from this end as if someone at turbine literally just flipped a switch to ban my IP address from accessing the servers. I can find no other explanation for what I see in the data I took. I realize how crazy that sounds, but that's how crazy the situation is.

When you combine this with the fact that this behavior started with a Turbine update, and the fact that many technical people at these ISPs are claiming that UDP packets are in no way being blocked/throttled/etc... well, I think you can forgive me for making the obvious conclusion that Turbine is responsible for this problem.

Obviously, I'm not 100% sure, and I could not be without inside access to your network. However nothing that you've posted thus far can possibly convince me to think twice.

EDIT: I should add, for completeness, that I experienced the exact same symptoms both days this weekend. I would log on about the same time both mornings, play until about 10am, and then I would be abruptly DCd and be unable to log back in.

Originally Posted by 0Pinger

Not the first time and won't be the last that a ISP makes changes to how it routes your connection or has a hardware failure in its own network or via its transit host which can affect all ISP's it has contracts with.

If it was the update, then you would see this forum die from the load of other players on with Other ISP's posting. It's not its affecting a specific ISP/s

Bah I am defending TB, but take your tin foil hats off, it wasn't the patch.

It could very well be that the ISP shares the blame, but to absolve Turbine of any responsibility is to ignore the facts. They did something during maintenance on 6/20. Immediately following this maintenance, customers of TWC So Cal have connection issues, where there were none prior to 6/20. For me personally that means months of no problems with TWC service, for others it could mean years. It's asinine to think that the maintenance on 6/20 is in no way connected to problems experienced immediately after 6/20.

Compounding the frustration for those of us affected, this is on the heels of a similar issue where Turbine pushed an update that resulted in lag spikes and freezing/stuttering. They didn't take responsibility of that for months and in fact adamantly denied any blame whatsoever. I would not think it unreasonable to learn from those mistakes. Unfortunately that seems too much to ask.

Here are some observations and speculation regarding LOTRO's network traffic. Although it seems highly improbable to me that these would be the cause of the recent connection difficulties, it might be worth investigating anyway.

Observations:

Turbine uses UDP packets to send encoded messages to and from the client and server. The encoded payloads of some of these packets have a byte sequence that closely resembles (or is identical to) the message header used by the PCLI protocol. At least a few network protocol analyzers and packet inspectors will falsely recognize some of LOTRO's UDP packets as PCLI.

The PCLI protocol is not typically intended to be routed over the public internet. Typical usage of the PCLI protocol restricts it to the ISP's internal network. It's used to encapsulate specific network traffic for the ISP to capture in response to a request from law enforcement officials.

Speculation:

Because of the way messages are encoded into UDP packets by LOTRO, the data for certain combinations of characters or servers or message types may be more prone to be misinterpreted as PCLI.

An ISP may have implemented a new network policy to drop UDP packets the ISP has identified as PCLI and are bound for destinations outside its internal network.

The LOTRO client or server may not be able to gracefully recover from the loss of some of these packets, leading to a connection abort.

Originally Posted by BHNtechXpert

I will contact our partner TWC and find out the status of this ticket. In the meantime I encourage anyone who thinks they are impacted by this and who are Bright House Networks customers to open a direct forums thread in our forums at DSLReports.

Thanks for this, Gary. It has been five days since this problem has begun and supposedly might be another five days before I even get a call back from Roadrunner/TWC Engineering. Obviously, any help is greatly appreciated to a lot of people who are, like myself, extremely frustrated by this situation.

I have personally spoken to three different Tier 3 Tech Support Reps at RoadRunner. All three of them have reiterated the same as yourself "RoadRunner (and affiliates) do not block or impede any ports and what's happening should not be happening." The ISP's are willing to even accept less responsibility when they learn that everything internet related other than Turbine Games works perfectly. That being said, however, I have not heard of any other groups of people having any connectivity/stability issues with Turbine Games on any server from any other internet providers other than these three.

One of the posters here was told that BH was aware of the problem and in communication with Turbine to try and resolve the issue. I cannot seem to get the same confirmation from Roadrunner. As subscribers, we can only hope that someone from each ISP is talking with Turbine and vice versa.

As an outsider, what I do know factually is that something, somewhere, somehow changed on June 20th that literally made Turbines Games unplayable to people in several states using the same ISP's.

Best random guesses on the ISP side:

Hardware Issue in some specific ISP location(s)?
Port Malfunction in some specific ISP location(s)?

Turbine says it is the ISP. The ISP's says it is Turbine. Ok, then... All of us End Users/Subscribers only want one thing - to play the game. Thanks again for your interest and any help.

For everyone else out there who, like me, has not been able to play for almost a week - I empathize and echo your sentiment.

Originally Posted by Fredelas

An ISP may have implemented a new network policy to drop UDP packets the ISP has identified as PCLI and are bound for destinations outside its internal network.

The LOTRO client or server may not be able to gracefully recover from the loss of some of these packets, leading to a connection abort.

That's possible, but somewhat contradicts the behavior I saw this weekend. Also, I shouldn't think it would affect a reconnection unless the algorithm applying the policy has a defined timeout on further packets matching the policy going that direction. The symptoms here include the complete inability to reconnect after being DCd.

Originally Posted by Jerek_of_horus

That's possible, but somewhat contradicts the behavior I saw this weekend. Also, I shouldn't think it would affect a reconnection unless the algorithm applying the policy has a defined timeout on further packets matching the policy going that direction. The symptoms here include the complete inability to reconnect after being DCd.

Yes, that particular symptom would require a policy that drops all further packets with the same combination of source and destination IP and port for a period of time. While this isn't unreasonable (since PCLI packets come in as a stream, and successive non-PCLI packets may be misinterpreted as PCLI packets with errors), it does seem unlikely.

I just thought these observations would be worth throwing out there, because even if they're not causing a problem today, it's possible they might at some point in the future.

Originally Posted by Mirthgar

Beginning on 6/20 or about, players on these ISP's began encountering issues with accessing specific worlds, specific characters or during transit of game areas, this thread is an attempt to clarify what we know is happening, what we suspect might be occurring and other why's/who's and what's and hopefully clear up some misconceptions about the issue.

"What can you do to fix this?"

At best we can provide players with information, as well as try to follow up with the ISP somewhat since in this case we are tangentially affiliated with the affected ISP, but despite that the best means of contact is for the players to follow up with their ISP about what's happening and provide the information detailed in this thread, which helps to illustrate to them commonality of network pathing, what geographic areas seem to be most/least affected et al. We can only provide general information about what we think is occurring, you can provide much more in-depth detail on the actual occurrences.

So are you guys going to contact RoadRunner?

Well, I gave it a shot tonight fellas. 5 attempts to connect to Brandy. All failed. Going to go play another game.

How long will I and others continue to pay for your game Turbine if we can't connect to it?

/*rubs the salt in*

Originally Posted by Jerek_of_horus

Well, I gave it a shot tonight fellas. 5 attempts to connect to Brandy. All failed. Going to go play another game.

How long will I and others continue to pay for your game Turbine if we can't connect to it?

/*rubs the salt in*

I am struggling too, I get in after 3 or four tries but then I am just frozen in place, reading chat since that seems to be the only thing that makes it from my computer to turbine. I am not going to do this much longer.

Originally Posted by WargFoe

Thanks for this, Gary. It has been five days since this problem has begun and supposedly might be another five days before I even get a call back from Roadrunner/TWC Engineering. Obviously, any help is greatly appreciated to a lot of people who are, like myself, extremely frustrated by this situation.

I have personally spoken to three different Tier 3 Tech Support Reps at RoadRunner. All three of them have reiterated the same as yourself "RoadRunner (and affiliates) do not block or impede any ports and what's happening should not be happening." The ISP's are willing to even accept less responsibility when they learn that everything internet related other than Turbine Games works perfectly. That being said, however, I have not heard of any other groups of people having any connectivity/stability issues with Turbine Games on any server from any other internet providers other than these three.

One of the posters here was told that BH was aware of the problem and in communication with Turbine to try and resolve the issue. I cannot seem to get the same confirmation from Roadrunner. As subscribers, we can only hope that someone from each ISP is talking with Turbine and vice versa.

As an outsider, what I do know factually is that something, somewhere, somehow changed on June 20th that literally made Turbines Games unplayable to people in several states using the same ISP's.

Best random guesses on the ISP side:

Hardware Issue in some specific ISP location(s)?
Port Malfunction in some specific ISP location(s)?

Turbine says it is the ISP. The ISP's says it is Turbine. Ok, then... All of us End Users/Subscribers only want one thing - to play the game. Thanks again for your interest and any help.

For everyone else out there who, like me, has not been able to play for almost a week - I empathize and echo your sentiment.

Hey there,

I received your email and thank you. I just finished reaching out to TWC and hopefully will have an update from a status perspective on the above referenced ticket tomorrow. I must be honest with you however. It is highly unlikely this is a provider side issue and when I mean unlikely I'm talking really unlikely. I don't think you guys realize how many devices and services utilize UDP in that port range in both directions.

I also want to say that it is highly premature and inappropriate for Turbine to blame other parties without having taken the time out to contact them directly. They now have my contact information and I look foward to hearing from and working with them from the Bright House Networks side of the equation so I expect to hear from them. If I don't I will let you guys know.

Just in case they didn't get it the first time email me at BHNtechXpert@mybrighthouse.com

I'll be back in touch and just repeating those of you who are BHN customers I really could use those Bright House Direct Forums posts over at DSLReports. This way I can check your equipment and get this issue working from our network side of the equation.

Thanks again...

Originally Posted by Jerek_of_horus

Well, I gave it a shot tonight fellas. 5 attempts to connect to Brandy. All failed. Going to go play another game.

How long will I and others continue to pay for your game Turbine if we can't connect to it?

/*rubs the salt in*

Originally Posted by Mightytree

I am struggling too, I get in after 3 or four tries but then I am just frozen in place, reading chat since that seems to be the only thing that makes it from my computer to turbine. I am not going to do this much longer.

You would think that with the sudden influx of quality new games that have recently come out, as well as those coming out soon, there would be a sense of urgency to keep the player base that you already have.

Instead, we get "you should call your ISP if you want to play our game, because none of this is our fault". I never planned on quitting LOTRO for some upcoming games I'm excited about (I just planned on playing them alongside LOTRO like I always have) but that has become a very real possibility because of things like this and how they are handled.

Originally Posted by BHNtechXpert

Hey there,

I received your email and thank you. I just finished reaching out to TWC and hopefully will have an update from a status perspective on the above referenced ticket tomorrow. I must be honest with you however. It is highly unlikely this is a provider side issue and when I mean unlikely I'm talking really unlikely. I don't think you guys realize how many devices and services utilize UDP in that port range in both directions.

I also want to say that it is highly premature and inappropriate for Turbine to blame other parties without having taken the time out to contact them directly. They now have my contact information and I look foward to hearing from and working with them from the Bright House Networks side of the equation so I expect to hear from them. If I don't I will let you guys know.

Just in case they didn't get it the first time email me at BHNtechXpert@mybrighthouse.com

I'll be back in touch and just repeating those of you who are BHN customers I really could use those Bright House Direct Forums posts over at DSLReports. This way I can check your equipment and get this issue working from our network side of the equation.

Thanks again...

Thanks so much for investigating Gary. I am thankful that someone is on our side, though it would be nice if it were the people I pay $10 a month to.

Being a TWC So Cal customer, I look forward to your response from TWC.

Originally Posted by BHNtechXpert

Hey there,

I received your email and thank you. I just finished reaching out to TWC and hopefully will have an update from a status perspective on the above referenced ticket tomorrow. I must be honest with you however. It is highly unlikely this is a provider side issue and when I mean unlikely I'm talking really unlikely. I don't think you guys realize how many devices and services utilize UDP in that port range in both directions.

I also want to say that it is highly premature and inappropriate for Turbine to blame other parties without having taken the time out to contact them directly. They now have my contact information and I look foward to hearing from and working with them from the Bright House Networks side of the equation so I expect to hear from them. If I don't I will let you guys know.

Just in case they didn't get it the first time email me at BHNtechXpert@mybrighthouse.com

I'll be back in touch and just repeating those of you who are BHN customers I really could use those Bright House Direct Forums posts over at DSLReports. This way I can check your equipment and get this issue working from our network side of the equation.

Thanks again...

Thanks Gary, I just posted at DSL Reports. Hope I did it correctly, never posted there before.

Turbine emailed me back on my support ticket with them today. They are still saying it is the ISP. I quoted that email in my DSL Reports post. The varying information and acknowledgement of the problem if the most frustrating. It is us, the customers, that are caught in the middle of a he said/she said for the most part. I did write back to Turbine and urged them to read this thread and to contact you. Whether they do is a different story.

Thanks again.

Thank you for an official response, although the theory of it being UDP packets in a specific range seems unlikely to me. If that were the case, why is the launcher and this website also showing sluggish and/or dropped connections? They would use TCP on port 80 (or 8080).

I am on Time Warner cable and have the same game connection problems already
described; but ALSO the lotro web forum (forums.lotro.com) is very slow or times-out
a lot for me now. I can get to other web sites just fine. Can anyone offer an explanation
since the forums are TCP and not UDP?

Originally Posted by Kohl25

Thanks Gary, I just posted at DSL Reports. Hope I did it correctly, never posted there before.

Turbine emailed me back on my support ticket with them today. They are still saying it is the ISP. I quoted that email in my DSL Reports post. The varying information and acknowledgement of the problem if the most frustrating. It is us, the customers, that are caught in the middle of a he said/she said for the most part. I did write back to Turbine and urged them to read this thread and to contact you. Whether they do is a different story.

Thanks again.

I just responded to you over there as well... Guys we will get to the bottom of this one way or the other. From my perspective it doesn't matter what the issue is so long as there is open dialogue between all impacted parties and it gets fixed. You want your game...we want happy customers. I'm sorry that I didn't see this sooner and I assure you had I known about it I would have engaged you folks several days ago.

If something looks and smells the part, it is the part...

1. None of us had issues connecting UNTIL the 6/20 maintenance.
2. In the last week, I have played 9 different online games and visited hundreds of websites. This includes my work, which uses Time Warner Business. lotro.com is the only website and forum that I have troubles getting to.
3. The UDP excise is invalid, because as others have stated the forums use TCP and port 80 or 8080.
4. Ever hear the phrase "thou dost protest too much"? Mirthgar's post gave us a lot of information. Maybe too much. It was put together like a canned PR response and really didn't tell us much.
5. I would hate to bring up the "B" word, but do you actually think something like this would go on for 5 straight days and not be fixed or figured out by a compnay like Blizzard? Say what you want, but I really wish Turbine would provide the state-of-the-art customer service that Blizzard offers.

Originally Posted by AnjTheOdd

Thank you for an official response, although the theory of it being UDP packets in a specific range seems unlikely to me. If that were the case, why is the launcher and this website also showing sluggish and/or dropped connections? They would use TCP on port 80 (or 8080).

Originally Posted by JLotro

I am on Time Warner cable and have the same game connection problems already
described; but ALSO the lotro web forum (forums.lotro.com) is very slow or times-out
a lot for me now. I can get to other web sites just fine. Can anyone offer an explanation
since the forums are TCP and not UDP?

Same for me, the forums are not stable either.

I am a TWC user for the past year, and Ic an honestly tell you there is not a time since we started using them I did not regret it. From the start we've been dealing with lag and latency issues, including timeouts an d freezes that got us dead in my household, so it's not like this was unexpected. TWC ran me around and just today, because of this event, I am on modem number 8! I have purchased a new router, used a brand new out of the box router I was saving for when my older one died and NONE of this ever corrected the past year of nonsense.

On the 22nd, the issue that everyone has been feeling finally slammed into us. Not the 20th, not the 21st..the 22nd of June. SO sod all this talk about it being because of the update. It wasn't.

We've been tracking this issue for freaking ages, and even watching how TWC actually caused this issue with other games, including Diablo III and successfully getting their player base to turn on Blizz and blame them for this issue.

When speaking to TWC Tech 3, they blamed EVERYONE but them, so I said to hell with it, contacted COngentco.com and found out they are not the issue. In fact, there is a lag from East coast to west coast when utilizing their service and adding TWC/RR into the equation, but taking them OUT of it, their timing goes back down to normal standards. The extra time lag due to TWC is unexpected and something they refused to accept when I spoke to them.

In fact, when I contacted them on the 22nd they said it was a known issue. When I contacted them on the 23rd, they said ti was a certificate issue due to Turbine changing a certificate on DDO, which is non-sequitur and I told them so. Then on Monday the 25th, they began to berate me for not knowing what I was talking about, that there was NO such issue, and no KNOWN issue and all the notes from my many calls had been erased. I was also told that TWC/RR are not responsible for the product they sell or any connectivity issues they have with anyone if I can connect to the internet. That they are not responsible for their traffic shaping and they will not be held accountable for loss of connectivity. Caveat Emptor, folks, that all came from a Tech 3, so if he's wrong or right, this is what they believe no matter HOW much we pay them. Also, most of them do not know how the internet works and do not know they pay for cross-country bandwidth to get signals across the US with anyone and do not feel they have to contact ANYONE they lease connectivity from like BBnet or Cogentco to track things down...

SO choke on that nay-sayers.

TWC, after I presented them with the trace routes, the date from Cogencto.com and the information that it could not be BBnet in my ping series UNLESS THEY CONTACT THEM because the date from Cogentco.com was conclusive. Turbine was clean to Cogentco, Cogentco runs clean and no packet losses...TWC DID have data loss and and an unexplained speed loss as well that grew when pinging them repeatedly from both myself and Cogentco Boston router.

Now, after all this data, a new modem...again..and a tech support guy coming tomorrow to "fix" my issues again, we're still spinning our wheels.

As I see it we have only a few facts to go on:

This is only happening with TWC, RoadRunner and BH.
People on these are suffering coast to coast, but more so here in Southern California.
This event HAS occurred before with other game services and has been reported on WoW, Diablo III, Age of Conan, Star Trek Online, Star Wars Online and more in the past 6 months and all were centered around TWC, RR and BH.
They tried to pass it off as a Cogentco.com issue and succeeded in getting many to buy into that while whatever was happening resolved itself poorly.

I have not found ANY evidence to prove it's not an issue with TWC as it's been happening to my service to a much lesser degree ALL THIS PAST YEAR. All I can see is this is the final, unavoidable, end for them as they have fought to keep this issue hidden and unresolved so they could get the high price they extract for the service they sell.

Anyone else on Bright House specifically? Head over to DSLReports and post in the Bright House Networks Direct forum that you are having a problem.

Gary is BHNtechXpert and will open a ticket there for you. At the very least, it will prove or disprove Turbine's claim this isn't a problem with them and get us, the customers, a lot more visibility and a louder voice.

With all that has been going on since the 20th, I have to admit that I have had or used brighthouse networks for almost 13 years off and on. I have never had an issue with any game or the internet until now. After the maintenance that turbine did wed. i had timed out the at the same time 2 days in a row and then i was getting timed out or was unable to connect to server for the game intermittenly since then. Tonight I have been able to log in and actually play at least an hour at a time and it is only taking a total of maybe 5 minutes to get into the game. I honestly do not care who or what is to blame for the issue as long as it gets fixed so that we can continue playing the game with out any problems. Also, Gary, you mentioned posting on the DSLreports forum. Where is it located and what would you like those of us who use bright house to post?

Originally Posted by Maegilmir

I am a TWC user for the past year, and Ic an honestly tell you there is not a time since we started using them I did not regret it.

...

I feel for you and your issues, internet problems are one of the most frustrating things. With that said, I don't think you should cover all your statements in absolutes because for many people this is clearly an isolated situation. For you it is not isolated, so it is hard to separate this from the myriad of other problems you experience with TWC. For many of us, 6/20 was a clear point in time where access to the game was disrupted afterwards. I'm sorry your problems are more chronic, but please don't pretend to speak for the rest of us.

SO choke on that nay-sayers.

This will not win you any support, and frankly it loses a lot of your credibility. It looks like you are only interested in mocking those of us who have experienced these problems in a more acute way than you have.