Unable to connect to Ghallanda

[RuneStriker]

For the past couple of days I have received a lot of issues trying to log into Ghallanda. Mostly it stops at the "Searching for Login Server x of 20..." and then closes the launcher after 20 tries. And even when I can get connected there has been a lot of server-wide lag going on (killed all but 5 members of a Shroud group at the same time in part 5 last night - one fighter and 4 casters pulled out the win to salvage the run!!).

I have no problems logging and playing on other servers so I know it's not an issue with my client in general (unless there are specific hidden settings per server, but I could not find any in the FAQ).

What is going on here and how can this be corrected?

[Smitey]

For the past couple of days I have received a lot of issues trying to log into Ghallanda. Mostly it stops at the "Searching for Login Server x of 20..." and then closes the launcher after 20 tries. And even when I can get connected there has been a lot of server-wide lag going on (killed all but 5 members of a Shroud group at the same time in part 5 last night - one fighter and 4 casters pulled out the win to salvage the run!!).

I have no problems logging and playing on other servers so I know it's not an issue with my client in general (unless there are specific hidden settings per server, but I could not find any in the FAQ).

What is going on here and how can this be corrected?

Hi RuneStriker,

No problems for me on Ghallanda recently (but not shroud) - around 105ms latency and no loss with no launcher connection issues.

The only difference between servers from a client perspective will be the IP address you connect to.

I would follow all the steps in this article:

http://support.turbine.com/ics/suppo...questionID=570

Could you provide your ISP ; anti-virus/firewall suite you use and tracert please.

[RuneStriker]

I've tried just about everything on that list and none of it changes a thing.

Full Virus Scan (Avast 6) - good; nothing found
Check Windows Firewall for exclusions - good; 3 of the 4 turbine listed programs already in the exceptions window. 4th added.
Rebooted and checked - no luck
Checked Avast scan exceptions just to be sure that scanning of packets wasn't the issue - added all 4 turbine programs
Ran "clean boot" and checked logon - good for any world but Ghallanda
Undid "clean boot", rebooted and checked again - no luck

I can log into any world but Ghallanda with no issues. It makes no sense.

ISP is Verizon Fios with 15/5 connection speeds.
Windows Firewall with all updates
Avast Anti-Virus (v6)
Tracert to turbine.com resolves after 11 steps.

Looks like I'll need to place a call to Turbine support tomorrow and my guild will be down two members until this can get resolved.


Odd coincidence that this all started happening right after the update including Wayfinder in the world list was introduced... I can't help but feel that this is somehow connected.

[Smitey]

Hi RuneStriker,

Thanks for providing the info - I asked in case it's a localised geographic/ISP issue or a specific firewall product at fault.

No-one else has come forward as yet so I'm not seeing it as an issue Tubine's end (or maybe I've just been lucky every single launch of the client)

By all means contact Turbine about this.

One thing you may be able to investigate further is by checking your launcher log file:

WinXP - C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Turbine\Dungeons and Dragons Online\Launcher
Vista - C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Turbine\Dungeons and Dragons Online\Launcher

Mine shows Ghallanda to resolve to 74.201.106.64 so maybe run a pingplotter to monitor how stable the full connection is over a longer duration as tracert is just a snapshot.

If the TCP packets are not experiencing loss then this will help rule out networking and you can also contact your ISP about this should any blips in the routing occur within the section they control.

[RuneStriker]

I show the same url you provided and did a tracert on it and after 11 steps it gets to 74.201.102.170 and then times out at that step.

The log file is a bit hard to read, but it appears that it DOES connect to the login server and then the last 4 lines read this way in the last 3 files from last night

A running game has been found.                            8/25/2011 7:15:48 PM
Launched Game Process ID (PID): 2444                      8/25/2011 7:15:48 PM
Transition to phase: GameIsRunningControl                 8/25/2011 7:15:48 PM
Launcher execution ends: 8/25/2011 7:15:50 PM             8/25/2011 7:15:50 PM

So it appears that although the screen tells me the logon cannot be found, it may actually be related to some hidden temporary file that makes the game think that I have a session already running despite the fact that the computer was rebooted several times.

To be quite honest I am not happy with the way the DDO program has been hogging resources lately either. With the last couple of updates it has gone from using about 800M of memory to over 1.4G when I have switched characters during the same session. There is definitely some bad memory mismanagement going on there as even after closing down the client it may take up to 10 seconds for the program to release the memory it has been allocated. Turbine is definitely getting sloppy with their code base of late. I would not be surprised to find that related temporary files are not properly cleaned up in this case either.

I think once U11 is release I will do a full re-install of the client to see if that clears up some of these issues.


Lo and behold I tried to log to the game just now and was in within seconds, so at least for now I am satiated. Thanks for the insight though - off to catch up on some raid timers now...

[Smitey]

The last 4 lines of the log seem correct to me - the launcher hands over to the main ddoclient.

The ddoclient does retain your last characters loaded texture files for around a minute so if you quickly switch alt>alt>alt it doesn't completely clear the cache but this is probably for historic reasons in case you return to a previous alt.

Not ideal for those that switch around a lot but it doesn't rise of it's own accord and if a gap between alts occurs DDO does release a portion of the memory.

800Mb is correct for the launch and the closure time does indeed increase in relation to the amount of alt-switching that occurs.

If you have an update 8 or lower install then a fresh install would be recommended once the new client is available to download.

Glad you got in ok this evening.

[RuneStriker]

I was able to log in and play for 4 hours straight today with no issues at all. And yet tonight I can't even connect to the data centers. This is really starting to **** me off.

tracert to www.turbine.com shows 12 hops with 50ms being the highest latency seen (most 32ms and under)
tracert to gls.turbine.com shows 12 hops with 38ms being the highest

I've tried shutting down the router and pc, waiting 3 min, reboot router and wait 3 min for it to finish, then boot pc and attempt to log in with no success. I have no other issues with any games or programs other than DDO, which is the only one I want to access, so this is really frustrating.

[Smitey]

Hi,

If you didn't contact Turbine yesterday I would do so on Monday and see if your ISP can assist in the meantime.