Is it the server?

[VlaAra]

Well I've been having problems, no one from the server community seems to know what to do. I did all the troubleshooting I could from your sig Trevius and I'm still having the same problem. Pretty much every other zone or so I freeze up.

I'm using SoD, and I'm using their private login - The Hidden Forest

Actually when I go to login it shows "Logging in to the server. Please wait..." and freezes there. Sometimes it goes to server select, and freezes there. Other times I make it to character select, and it will freeze there (This is after hitting login, play everquest, enter world etc.). Some days I breeze through all those into the game, only to crash on the first or second zone I hit. Most of the time I just pick a zone, get all my toons there and just play there for a few hours (god forbid I die).

I never had a single problem on TZ/VZ that wasn't on my end, because I have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done on my end. I am no longer interested in playing on tz though, and I played on Scars of Amerous for a while and actually had similar problems there (part of what led me to move servers again).

I checked my net, it's around 1.5-2.0 mbps but I am in Alaska, pingtest.net says I have pretty crappy ping. Do I just need to find a server that is compatible with me or does something stand out (like maybe me being in Alaska ) as my problem? There are other people with the same problem but in different areas but like 95% of the people who play there have no problems. Anyhow just grasping at straws here now before I move servers again lol, I would prefer to play on just one.

[trevius]

Well, being in Alaska could definitely be part of your problem. If you open a command prompt and ping the THF login server with a -t (for unlimited pings) option, are you getting packet loss? Also, what is your latency to the server?

Another thing to try is to make sure you have the AMD optimizer installed if you are running an AMD CPU. Or, if you are on a laptop, it may require a special laptop CPU driver or something.

[VlaAra]

I did the tracert thing and 11 pings timed out, the first ping started at 21/24/26 to my ISP and the highest was 221 MS. I don't know how to read it honestly and I can't remember how to post a printscreen thing.

[Tharkun]

2 things tracert is not the same as a ping.... use ping, tracert does not tell you anything you, as a ISP's end user, have any control over.

Also, I'm not sure where TZ/VZ was physically, but I'm reasonably certain that THF is served from Europe, and you will have a slightly higher than average ping due to that.

Now what I suspect Trevius wants to know is % packet loss, and average ping result (since that's what I'd be looking for). Once you have that info we can moved forward in assisting you.

[trevius]

Originally Posted by VlaAra

I did the tracert thing and 11 pings timed out, the first ping started at 21/24/26 to my ISP and the highest was 221 MS. I don't know how to read it honestly and I can't remember how to post a printscreen thing.

A trace route isn't bad to have either, but I assume you are probably going through the USA to get to Europe. Halfway around the world is a long trip and I would suspect your latency to be fairly high. Also, if satellites are involved, latency can be even higher and packet loss can get bad.

The best test is to do the continuous ping for maybe 50 or 100 pings and see if you get packet loss and what your average latency is around. This should be the command you want to use:

ping login.thehiddenforest.org -t

Once you have enough pings, you can use CTRL+C to escape from the continuous ping.

Then, to copy the ping info, just right click in your command prompt window and select "Mark". Then, select the text you want to copy, and right click again. The second right click automatically copies the selection to your clipboard. Then, you can just paste it in a post here.

One suggestion would be to try one of the servers located in the USA like PEQ (actually they are having host issues atm, so you might not want to use them), or Storm Haven, or EZ Server, or whatever, and see if you have the same issues on those servers. If you have the same issue on all servers you try, then it is most likely a problem with your PC, or your local ISP. There may not be much you can do about local ISP issues, but if it is your PC that is having the problem, you can always try some of the suggestions in the FAQ in my sig.

[VlaAra]

Pinging thehiddenforesttest.dyndns.org [78.139.16.65] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 78.139.16.65:
Packets: Sent = 57, Received = 0, Lost = 57 (100% loss),
Control-C
^C
C:\Users\Warren>

[VlaAra]

Yeah I switched back to EQEmu's login server now I just freeze up after the server list only. This morning I had 3 toons in and was zoning like a champ - now I can't even get past the server select. Pingtest seems ok, and speedtest showed 2.4 mbps.

[VlaAra]

Oops guess the server is down for a lot of people, I'll try again when it's functioning properly.

[Nagus69]

ICMP packets are being blocked but the server was down indeed. Problem fixed and should be backup again.

Edit: for the non techies - if icmp is blocked, ping will always time out, so don't hold your breath on the results of this test.