Random, strange disconnects from multiplayer games (Not network issue)

[Yekaterina]

Dear developers:

I often find myself disconnecting from games hosted by other people in multiplayer team games. I can maintain decent connections to some hosts, such as NoobDude, axi and juarca, while I struggle a lot with others, for example weirdJokes and Cesar. Every time before I disconnect, I see a yellow message on the top right corner of my screen saying losing connection ... (n s). Some observations have led me to believe that the cause is not my own home network. 

Firstly, the disconnects occur more frequently in early game than late game; the disconnects are almost always during booming or resting before battles; I've almost never dropped during a battle where there is a lot of action. It seems that the more data being transferred, the more stable the connection, contrary to intuition.

Secondly, sometimes I could hold myself in the game by spam clicking hotkeys, F5 and alt+tab to switch between windows. If I do it fast enough then I can maintain connection in spite of the yellow message, else I will drop out. This is very strange indeed. Plugging in the laptop charger improved the stability; without the charger being connected, I drop so often that the game is unplayable. This seems to be something related to my laptop hardware / software and not the network.

Thirdly, using an ethernet cable not only didn't improve the stability but made me completely unable to rejoin hosts, so I switched back to WiFi.

Lastly, when I host a game, some players might get yellow messages or disconnect half way, but at least 6 of them can play until the end. I myself don't get disconnected from the lobby. We have never experienced issues when I play LAN games with my family.

In addition to the above observations, when I try to join a host, if I click too quickly, I would see a message: "Stun Error", however, this message disappears if I click on this host a few seconds later. When I try to rejoin a host after a disconnect, sometimes it claims "Player name in use"  for a long time (nearly a minute). But if I kill the 0ad client and restart it, there will be no obstructions and I can rejoin smoothly.

I hope these observations can give you some clue. I am not sure if it's just me or is anyone else experiencing similar issues. Most of the time it's playable for me but occasionally, some hosts lose their patience and kick me.

Best,

Helicity

 

[Norse_Harold]

In the title of your post, you state that it is not a network issue. I think that it is too early to conclude what the cause of the issue is.

Based on the symptoms that you have described, and when they do and do not occur, I think that the most likely explanation of the problem is packet loss at your Internet connection. (Also check for packet loss at your wireless network.) There are many possible causes of packet loss at the Internet connection. One idea is to check whether you have a modem with the Intel Puma chipset, because those modems have terrible problems with packet loss. A partial list of modems to avoid is here. Otherwise, find your modem in the DeviWiki database and check what CPU it has. If it's Intel Puma then I advise replacing it, since there is no firmware fix for the problem.

Another possible explanation of the problem is that your laptop is doing excessive power saving on the wireless network adapter. During gaming, you can try configuring your computer to be in high power mode so that the CPU (and maybe other devices) aren't doing power saving. Also, try disabling power saving on the I/O interface that your wireless network adapter uses, whether it's a USB port, PCI-e port, or other type of interface.

Another possible explanation is that your laptop is overheating and doing brief periods of thermal throttling. This seems less likely than the other ideas, since the computer would probably be totally frozen during thermal throttling, not just networking. Usually cleaning dust and hair from the heatsink can resolve this. But, don't remove the heatsink unless you have the supplies, tools and instructions to properly reinstall it. Otherwise, you'll ruin the thermal interface between the processors and the heatsink. Generic instructions for redoing a thermal interface are on Arctic Silver's website, but ideally you would follow instructions specific to your laptop. Laptops often use adhesive thermal pads of specific thickness that you would need to source, ideally directly from the manufacturer, second-best is from ifixit.com, third best is from eBay spare parts intended for your specific model of laptop.

If you don't know how to do these things or want more troubleshooting advice then talk to me on IRC when I'm online.

[Yekaterina]

5 hours ago, Norse_Harold said:

Based on the symptoms that you have described, and when they do and do not occur, I think that the most likely explanation of the problem is packet loss at your Internet connection. (Also check for packet loss at your wireless network.) There are many possible causes of packet loss at the Internet connection. One idea is to check whether you have a modem with the Intel Puma chipset, because those modems have terrible problems with packet loss. A partial list of modems to avoid is here. Otherwise, find your modem in the DeviWiki database and check what CPU it has. If it's Intel Puma then I advise replacing it, since there is no firmware fix for the problem.

I'm afraid that the modem is built into the router and I cannot access it, but I think it's unlikely to be Intel Puma given the circumstances.

5 hours ago, Norse_Harold said:

Another possible explanation of the problem is that your laptop is doing excessive power saving on the wireless network adapter. During gaming, you can try configuring your computer to be in high power mode so that the CPU (and maybe other devices) aren't doing power saving. Also, try disabling power saving on the I/O interface that your wireless network adapter uses, whether it's a USB port, PCI-e port, or other type of interface.

Now this is very likely the case, thanks. I have now disabled power saving from system settings, but I will also change the mode to performance mode in the BIOS just in case.

5 hours ago, Norse_Harold said:

Another possible explanation is that your laptop is overheating and doing brief periods of thermal throttling

This is  in fact a real problem: when I play 0AD, in late game, the CPU's temperature often reaches 97 degrees Celsius. It is a design flaw: my laptop uses an processor with 64W turbo TDP when it has only a single fan cooler built into a 1cm thick chassis... I'm afraid I can't change this.

 

Thank you for the reply, Norse_Harold.

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, HazellyMores said:

network problem or a flaw in the game's current build.

I am more inclined towards to the latter as I have never experienced network problems doing anything else: downloading large files, browsing web pages, chats, watching YouTube and uploading content were all smooth.

Below are some test results:

[Yekaterina]

@Norse_Harold after changing the power mode to "Maximum performance" in the BIOs and all system settings, the connection quality did improve greatly. Previously unplayable hosts became playable. In addition, the thermal throttling issue was gone as the fan absolutely committed itself to the job. I think this would be a great lesson for any player who is using a laptop.

Battery saving mode was the culprit after all... turn it off while gaming! 

[Kampot]

This might be usefull to you for boosting CPU https://github.com/nbebaw/boostchanger or https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode

 

In the past I had issue with WIFI, either buy external USB wifi with  antenna or use hardwired cable.

Those are most likely issues

Edited February 15, 2023 by Kampot

[Yekaterina]

41 minutes ago, Kampot said:

This might be usefull to you for boosting CPU https://github.com/nbebaw/boostchanger or https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode

I will try them out! Thank you!

 

[Yekaterina]

Today, when I was hosting a game, everyone disconnected at the same time after gradually losing connection. They claimed that the cause was DDOS (distributed denial of service attack), but I think that is unlikely. I did not change my network by any means during the game time.

In addition, I was kicked randomly from the lobby at some later time with the message "XML Parse Error". Could that be related?