I've been getting intense freezes at random on GFL's TF2 servers.

[Anno 7 / 719]

Like the title says, I've been getting intense lag (stuttering?) only on GFL's TF2 servers. It doesn't happen on any other servers I've tested so far.

Video taken with net_graph 3 shows the networking completely stopping for 5 or so seconds. I've only recently started to have this issue. Reset all my TF2 settings to stock, even tried to mess with different interp values. Nothing helped.

EDIT: I don't record on the PC I play on, so that's ruled out as a cause.

Edited July 23, 2019 by Annorexorcist

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

How often does this happen?

 

I'd suggest running an MTR to one of our Anycast IPs (e.g. 92.119.148.5) and seeing if you receive packet loss during the time the lag spike occurs.

 

You may download a program such as WinMTR to perform an MTR on Windows. Otherwise, on Linux, you can install a package containing the MTR command and run:

 

mtr 92.119.148.5

 

With that said, what are your download and upload speeds? Please perform a speed test from here and paste back the results.

 

Thanks.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

6 minutes ago, Mejilla said:

To add, this literally happens every single day. The players are always complaining about it, as well. It constantly lag freezes and sputters. Sometimes, it'll freeze completely but the voice chat stays normal and live. When it does this type of freeze, it only freezes for certain people, and for the people who are speaking over the mic, it's working fine for them.

If it's happening to multiple people (along with the same exact symptoms), I'd like trace route or MTR results to the Anycast network from these individuals. It's possible that a specific PoP or tier the affected users go through to the PoP is having issues. Given the issues I've seen from Vultr in the past, I would honestly not be surprised if this is the case since I've seen a lot of routers going from the specific tiers to Vultr having a lot of packet loss and higher than normal latency.

 

While an MTR would be more beneficial because it lists packet loss and continuously sends packets to the destination, you may also perform a trace route by executing the following command through Windows Command Prompt:

 

tracert 92.119.148.5

 

I'd like as many results as possible from the affected users.

 

Thank you.

[Anno 7 / 719]

Here's my result: http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/52261946

Tracert is showing 3 timeouts at the end of the trace.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

3 minutes ago, Annorexorcist said:

Here's my result: http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/52261946

Tracert is showing 3 timeouts at the end of the trace.

The timeouts are normal. Those routers more than likely have ICMP disabled.

 

Can you try performing an MTR and see if you're dropping packets at the same time the lag begins?

 

With that said, how often does this happen?

 

P.S. You're routing to our NYC PoP through Telia. Telia has been problematic to us in the past. We only recently started announcing to it again because our physical machines wouldn't route to our Dallas PoP otherwise. Since our physical machines are routing to Dallas through NTT again, I might go ahead and stop announcing to Telia on all PoPs.

 

Thanks.

[Anno 7 / 719]

The stutter happens randomly, lasting anywhere from 5sec (as in that clip) to 30sec (one I had today). Voice communications continue to work throughout these, which is the strange part.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Just now, Annorexorcist said:

The stutter happens randomly, lasting anywhere from 5sec (as in that clip) to 30sec (one I had today). Voice communications continue to work throughout these, which is the strange part.

When did this start to occur?

 

I have a Windows VM from work located in New Jersey that is using the same exact route as you to the NYC PoP (through Telia). Thankfully, I've had this VM running HLSW to test A2S_INFO caching and whatnot.

 

 

I'm seeing a lot of random timeouts in the 15 - 30 minute graph on HLSW (not sure how long it goes back to).

 

Going to be running an MTR from the machine as well.

 

Thanks.

[Anno 7 / 719]

Hmm... Had to be about a week to a week and a half ago.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

14 minutes ago, Annorexorcist said:

Hmm... Had to be about a week to a week and a half ago.

I've been running an MTR from the server in NJ to the Anycast network. It seems that the route keeps switching from NYC to Chicago for about 5 - 10 seconds and then goes back. At this time, it causes a timeout on the HLSW graph. Your net graph also didn't display packet loss at the time of the lag spike. I think it makes sense that's what you're seeing (your route is basically changing from NYC to another location, usually this comes with a timeout of 1 - 3 seconds I'd imagine).

 

Can you run an MTR via WinMTR and keep running it? You should notice the route suddenly change. Not sure how it'll look in WinMTR, but you aren't going to be able to see this if you're performing a trace route.

 

Please let me know.

 

Thanks.

[Anno 7 / 719]

WinMTR does nothing for me. Entered IP and it sits there blank.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

8 minutes ago, Annorexorcist said:

WinMTR does nothing for me. Entered IP and it sits there blank.

Are you just inputting the IP or are you including the port? Please ensure you're entering just the IP (92.119.148.5).

 

I've opened a case with Vultr since I was able to record a video of the route changing from NYC to Chicago on my server via MTR.

 

They also have scheduled network maintenance tomorrow for the NYC location which might be to fix this issue.

 

Regardless, I will let you guys know once I receive a reply back.

 

Thank you.

[Anno 7 / 719]

Yes, just the IP you gave earlier. I hit start and nothing happens. Might be my version of Windows perhaps? Not sure.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Just now, Annorexorcist said:

Yes, just the IP you gave earlier. I hit start and nothing happens. Might be my version of Windows perhaps? Not sure.

Can you record a video of the WinMTR window and what happens when you try to start the MTR?

 

Thanks.

[Anno 7 / 719]

Here's video.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

6 minutes ago, Annorexorcist said:

Here's video.

I've never seen that happen before. Makes me wonder if you're missing a requirement (e.g. a specific .NET framework build or something similar).

 

What version of Windows are you using?

 

With that said, have you tried running the program as administrator? Can you try inputting Google's IP (8.8.8.8) to see if that works? You appear to be using an older version compared to mine (0.8 vs 0.92):

 

 

I'm going to ZIP up my current WinMTR and send it to you through PMs. I want you to see if my version works on your computer.

 

Edit

I PM'd you my version of WinMTR.

 

Thanks.

[Anno 7 / 719]

Alright, that newer version works fine.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

3 minutes ago, Annorexorcist said:

Alright, that newer version works fine.

I'm glad it works!

 

Have this run while you're playing or just in general. When you have another lag spike, check to see if it appended any different hops to the results. I forget how WinMTR handles these type of situations, but I believe it'll just add some additional hops that was used for when it was routing to Chicago (you'll see some host names with chi in them assuming you're being temporarily routed to the Chicago PoP). You don't have to be playing as well. Just keep it running until you see a change in the routes.

 

Once this happens, please take a screenshot of the results (or paste the text, doesn't matter) and send it back.

 

Thanks!

[Anno 7 / 719]

Interesting, I just had a lag and discovered that 3 new (unpingable) hops were added to the chain afterwords.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

3 minutes ago, Annorexorcist said:

Interesting, I just had a lag and discovered that 3 new (unpingable) hops were added to the chain afterwords.

Take a screenshot and send that here. You're probably going through another tier to Chicago. The tier I'm going through (NTT) actually has ICMP enabled on the hops going to Chicago so it resolves them and I can see the host names/IP addresses, etc.

 

I'm going to be taking down the BIRD daemon along with Compressor on the NYC PoP soon to do an MTR from the NYC PoP to my server (Vultr is requesting this).

 

Thanks!

[Anno 7 / 719]

Left is before lag, right is after.