Red Plug of Doom - Need Help
Shurakan
Join Date: 2013-06-29 Member: 185776Members
Join Date: 2013-06-29 Member: 185776Members
I have a Technicolor TG589vn, recently acquired, and I believe it was after I got it that I started getting connection problems with servers. Occasionally I can enter a server, but whenever I have to spawn I get the red plug again and it takes ages to spawn. It also occurs when I evolve as an alien. Most of the time I simply Timeout when trying to join a server. I've had the game since December - and didn't have problems until just about the time Build 249 came out. Back then I could actually have some games where everything went smooth and I didn't have problems. By the time build 250 came out I could no longer play at all.
I've tried verifiying the cache, reinstalling, and I searched these very forums for solutions. I watched the Killing Floor video and forwarded the ports it suggested. After that didn't work, I tried the ports for both Steam and Natural Selection 2. None of these things worked. I can play other games, like Guild Wars 2, Halo 4, Path of Exile, among others without problems. I also went looking at Steam support and tried their solutions - downloading those MasterServer files, etc.
I've searched and searched but have found no solutions. I've read that these routers tend to have this problem, but nothing I've found about it has helped. The last thing I can think of is to just ask about this specific router and see if something's going on. Every other internet related thing - like Youtube, Twitchtv, etc. work without a hitch. This is what leads me to suspect I'm suffering from the problem other people have with these routers but the solutions haven't worked.
I'm not sure if this is relevant to case but I'll say it anyway - the instructions on the video and other places suggest to use Telnet to mess around with the ports. Me and my father accessed the router directly and forwarded the ports the "simplest" way. He says that should have no impact at all - that opening the ports is opening the ports, but I just thought I'd mention it.
I'm at my wits end since I really love the game.
I've tried verifiying the cache, reinstalling, and I searched these very forums for solutions. I watched the Killing Floor video and forwarded the ports it suggested. After that didn't work, I tried the ports for both Steam and Natural Selection 2. None of these things worked. I can play other games, like Guild Wars 2, Halo 4, Path of Exile, among others without problems. I also went looking at Steam support and tried their solutions - downloading those MasterServer files, etc.
I've searched and searched but have found no solutions. I've read that these routers tend to have this problem, but nothing I've found about it has helped. The last thing I can think of is to just ask about this specific router and see if something's going on. Every other internet related thing - like Youtube, Twitchtv, etc. work without a hitch. This is what leads me to suspect I'm suffering from the problem other people have with these routers but the solutions haven't worked.
I'm not sure if this is relevant to case but I'll say it anyway - the instructions on the video and other places suggest to use Telnet to mess around with the ports. Me and my father accessed the router directly and forwarded the ports the "simplest" way. He says that should have no impact at all - that opening the ports is opening the ports, but I just thought I'd mention it.
I'm at my wits end since I really love the game.
Comments
Do you have a copy of log.txt and a dxdaig we can see?
You can find the log in %appdata%/Natural Selection 2/log.txt. and by running dxdaig in windows.
I would also like you to run ping -t and see if the network bogs down or if it is just ns2.
You can do thus by pressing windows and r and you type ping -t google.com and then leave the window open and running ns2 and checking to see if the network connection to google drops when the ns2 connection does.
Once we got that it will be easier to give you a hand
I'm not entirely sure it's my router anymore, since I can play other Steam games without problem... Unless it only affects some Steam games and not others?
Edit: I just managed to get into a game... but when spawning into a team, and whenever I died, I got the red plug icon and lagged like hell. This would occur everytime I spawned in some fashion.
can you take a look at r_stats and net_stats and see what your fps/server look like.(open up console with ` type r_stats and watch ti in red plug vs non redplug)
Also, if you have antivirus with real time protection you may need to whitelist ns2.exe. Some programs really like freezing it occasionally to check it out.
I timeout on many - I just couldn't get in. In servers where I did get in and got the red plug - the sent and received would drop to zero, as would server rate. I noticed choke would increase to 100%.
I also deactivated my antivirus with no difference.
I did however discover that I can play on specific servers... well, only one. I went in and everything played perfectly.
Have you tried without a firewall?
The Technicolor is our router/modem. I'm told I can't connect to the internet at all without going through it. As far as I've seen, there don't appear to be any settings for flooding.
I downloaded both and found that I could play the two of them without incident.
I also tried to connect to as many servers as I could, and have found that there are about 4 or 6 servers I can connect to. I can connect to JestServers, the NG servers, and 1 or 2 more. I don't know what's causing this, but it looks like there's something these servers have or don't have that the ones I can connect to do or don't. I don't know what it could be nor how to fix this. I've opened every port in the range 27000-27100. I've tried lowering the firewall. The other forum recommended to try different telnet commands that resolve the UDP cone NAT issues and it didn't work. Can absolutely anyone shed light on this? It seems I can play occasionally, provided those servers I can play in have people, but it really is quite different from what I could do back in the times near build 248.
It said:
Client Warning: No Client Handler specified for message SetTimeWaveSpawnEnds
It repeated the same message a few times. I have no idea what it means and I haven't seen it before.
Might help to delete mods out of your appdata natural selection 2 folder.
To rule out the game as your culprit:
Find a server you can't join.
Have a friend join it.
Now click the arrow next to your friends name in steam and click "game info" it will display the server ip.
Open DOS prompt (start, run, type cmd)
Type ping (ip address)
Include the port as well.
For example : ping 67.34.178.20:27015
You can also use another command, tracert
Post your results here
I tried again without it and got this.
The very first one was a typo. 74 is the server I can't join, while 68 is a server I can join.
This may not be your exact problem though so the cause may be different and in fact my hunch may be wrong.
You can try changing settings like dns, steam server region, or time out values in your modem.. But i think this just may be a case of poor hosting from the server that fails to complete your hop to your destination IP.
I. E. ... There may not be much you can do.
I'll see what a developer has to say though just in case
Click steam > Settings
Go to the downloads tab.
Set the max pings/minute to 250.
Guess I can't play this game (much).
Thats why using a windows program to ping it instead of NS2 yields the same issue.
If the loss is at the 10th hop it is entirely outside your network.
You can contact your internet provider and see if they can do anything about it. Generally having a router out there with 100% loss is usually a bad thing for everyone involved so, if you report it to them (I am getting 100% loss for 192.168.1.1 magicalspacelemming.confusedco.net) and they should take care of it. If not put it someplace like the lossy router list on dsl reports
I would also try connecting to different servers. 10 hops can get you pretty far. So if there are servers listed locally to you try those first, then some that are in entirely different directions. as an example if You lived in Chicago USA and the lossy router was something like B400.WASHDC-LCR-22.verizon-gni.net you might want to try a west coast server so your data doesn't have to go through Washingtion DC.
At this point, this is looking unsolvable from my end, which is a pity. If I put where I'm getting these losses on that site, would that solve anything?
Also you get 0% packet loss...now, maybe bad luck? Try it again right when the problem is happening.
I'm consistently getting 0% packet loss, even while trying to connect to a server I can't connect to on NS2.