Connection issues....

TJD · Post by **TJD** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 5:56 pm

I've been unable to connect to Multiplayer for the last several hours. I get the "Please Wait ... Connecting" dialogue and nothing comes of it and it doesn't time out. It sat there for over half an hour last time until I closed it. I've never had this problem before.

I've restarted and rebooted. All my other internet functions are fine. No connection problems of any kind.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Tim

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 5:57 pm

Could any firewall you are running on the PC have re-blocked the FoGnet.EXE?

Cheers

Pip

TJD · Post by **TJD** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 6:12 pm

pipfromslitherine wrote:Could any firewall you are running on the PC have re-blocked the FoGnet.EXE?

Cheers

Pip

Nothing has changed in that respect. I'll keep tinkering. Guess I just wanted to know if there was any sort of problem on your end, and I see that there isn't.

Thanks for the prompt reply, Pip!

Tim

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 9:54 pm

OK - not sure what the problem can be if your firewall is telling you that the app is authorised (although bear in mind that when EXEs change, firewalls can often keep and entry for the old EXE, but actually block the new one, even though the name is the same, so you might want to just remove all the FoG entries and then re-add them to ensure they are relating to the correct EXEs).

Cheers

Pip

TJD · Post by **TJD** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 10:32 pm

pipfromslitherine wrote:OK - not sure what the problem can be if your firewall is telling you that the app is authorised (although bear in mind that when EXEs change, firewalls can often keep and entry for the old EXE, but actually block the new one, even though the name is the same, so you might want to just remove all the FoG entries and then re-add them to ensure they are relating to the correct EXEs).

Cheers

Pip

Before you wrote I did exactly what you just suggested and I am still having problems connecting to Multiplayer. I was able to access multiplayer once, and actually got in a move; I thought the problem had gone way. But it hasn't and I am really at a loss and there is no explanation at all for why I could do it once and not again. I"ve made at least a dozen attempts. Per above I don't believe it's a firewall issue. In any case, I've been playing daily for a long while and this is the first time I've had troubles of this kind.

Strangely, I've also had intermittent problems connecting to the Slitherine web site. It's the only site I have problems with today.

I'd welcome any other suggestions you might have.

Thanks,

Tim

Morbio · Post by **Morbio** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 10:56 pm

I've had intermittent problems with the Forum earlier today. Lots of 404 'page not found' issues. This was mostly between 12:30 and 14:00 BST.

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:31 pm

I've been using the server all day without any issues, doing BBC MP testing. It's possible it is a DNS issue with some branch of the route from the server to you, given that you were also having forum problems. If it continues then let us know.

Cheers

Pip

TJD · Post by **TJD** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:31 pm

Morbio wrote:I've had intermittent problems with the Forum earlier today. Lots of 404 'page not found' issues. This was mostly between 12:30 and 14:00 BST.

It took me 8 attempts in 2 different browsers to get back here to post this. I doubt there is a link between my problems accessing the web site and the problems I'm having connecting to multiplayer, but it's a strange coincidence to say the least.

Tim

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 1:36 am

The server uses the same protocol as a web page so they are directly linked. If you can't browse the site you can't use the server so we need to find out why you can't browse the site.

Epicouros · Post by **Epicouros** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 3:03 am

This seems somewhat familiar to the problems I'm experiencing from time to time...
(see the "please... not the error-1 again" thread)

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 3:26 am

These kinds of issues are very very hard to track down, given their intermittent nature, and the fact they only affect a small fraction of users. It can very easily be some ISP issue at any point in the linkup.

To illustrate, I had a very similar issue with WoW a while back, where a specific server would disconnect every 5 minutes. All day, every day, for months. I tracked that it was an issue affecting people in my area, and eventually it got fixed. But it was obviously something pretty specific to the routing between my ISP and where ever that specific data center was.

I appreciate that doesn't help a great deal, but hopefully gives some idea of the scope of the issue and trying to track it down.

If you ever find yourself unable to log onto the forums, it might be worth posting a trace, by typing:

tracert www.slitherine.com

into a command line. If you want you can erase the first couple of IP addresses (which are generally yours and those closest to you) for your security.

Cheers

Pip

deeter · Post by **deeter** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 3:17 pm

I was unable to connect to the forum or multiplayer for most of July 7 here in the USA. I assumed the seververs were down.
Deeter

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 3:33 pm

Nope - as I say, I'm doing MP work and use the same servers. My guess would be an ISP DNS update at some point in the chain.

Cheers

Pip

Triarii · Post by **Triarii** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 6:36 pm

deeter wrote:I was unable to connect to the forum or multiplayer for most of July 7 here in the USA. I assumed the seververs were down.
Deeter

Hi Pip

Not sure if this is any help or simply adds to the mystery

.

Me too - I got home from work at 7.00pm GMT 7/7/10 and could not connect to multi-player or slitherine web site from either a desktop (windows XP) or a lap-top (windows 7) on the same home network.
I could get a google cache for 7/7/10 timed at 16.00 or so. I had no problem with the internet connection and connectivity in any other way or with any other sites I used last night.

I cleared the explorer cache went and watched the semi-final and at 11.00pm GMT; tried again on both re-booted machines. Same issue - no problems with any other internet connections but no access to Slitherine.com either directly, through google or through other web, e.g. Matrix, links.

Have returned home from work tonight and no problem with access or multiplayer.

I had assumed server downtime until I read this thread.

One thing I did not do was reboot the router but as I said there was no other reason to do this.

Triarii · Post by **Triarii** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 6:39 pm

Mind you one of the games I was playing was against Deeter
- Is it him?
- Tell him we must start our game again - (I'm loosing)!

TJD · Post by **TJD** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 6:39 pm

Pleased to report no further problems today. All's well; have accessed multiplayer and the web site multiple times without fail.

Thanks Pip for the tip about using tracert.

Tim

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:35 pm

If anyone does have any further or ongoing issues, then the tracert output will at least enable us to see what is going on.

Thanks

Pip

TJD · Post by **TJD** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 9:17 pm

pipfromslitherine wrote:If anyone does have any further or ongoing issues, then the tracert output will at least enable us to see what is going on.

Thanks

Pip

I just had the connection problem again (I'm the guy who started the thread, fwiw.) No problems all day, then suddenly no web page and no multiplayer. Took me several attempts to get back here.

Here's the tracert, with the initial lines deleted:

4 23 ms 25 ms 25 ms 64.71.241.110
5 25 ms 25 ms 23 ms eqx.20ge.iad.wvfiber.net [206.223.115.47]
6 37 ms 39 ms 37 ms atl-ten5-4-ash-ten6-3.bboi.net [66.216.1.142]
7 37 ms 39 ms 39 ms 66.216.1.198

HTH.

Tim

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 10:36 pm

How long was the outage period in total that you noticed? It does look like the trace worked, but the route might have been up again by then?

Cheers

Pip

TJD · Post by **TJD** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 11:57 pm

pipfromslitherine wrote:How long was the outage period in total that you noticed? It does look like the trace worked, but the route might have been up again by then?

Cheers

Pip

I just got back on now, having tried several times unsucessfully since my last post. I did tracert on 2 failed attempts and also did it after I was successful just now in getting to the Slitherine site. There's no difference that I can see. Same routes.

The top file -traces3 -- is the successful one. The bottom two here are the failures. But they're all the same.

Thoughts?

Thanks, Pip.

Tim

Comparing files trace3.txt and TRACES.TXT
***** trace3.txt

Tracing route to www.slitherine.com
over a maximum of 30 hops:

4 24 ms 23 ms 23 ms 64.71.241.110
5 23 ms 25 ms 22 ms eqx.20ge.iad.wvfiber.net [206.223.115.47]
6 38 ms 39 ms 38 ms atl-ten5-4-ash-ten6-3.bboi.net [66.216.1.142]
7 38 ms 38 ms 38 ms 66.216.1.198

***** TRACES.TXT
Comparing files trace.txt and TRACE2.TXT
***** trace.txt

4 23 ms 25 ms 25 ms 64.71.241.110
5 25 ms 25 ms 23 ms eqx.20ge.iad.wvfiber.net [206.223.115.47]
6 37 ms 39 ms 37 ms atl-ten5-4-ash-ten6-3.bboi.net [66.216.1.142]
7 37 ms 39 ms 39 ms 66.216.1.198

***** TRACE2.TXT
4 23 ms 23 ms 25 ms 64.71.241.110
5 24 ms 24 ms 25 ms eqx.20ge.iad.wvfiber.net [206.223.115.47]
6 42 ms 38 ms 38 ms atl-ten5-4-ash-ten6-3.bboi.net [66.216.1.142]
7 38 ms 37 ms 37 ms 66.216.1.198

*****

*****

***** trace3.txt
Trace complete.