Widespread Chat Bug... anyone have any suggestions?

[Cordovan]

We definitely want to get reproducible tests for this as it would help tremendously; so far we remain unable to create a repro for this bug. We have sometimes been able to get the chat message to show up, but that is expected behavior when connecting/disconnecting, and has not then led to an inability to utilize text or voice chat. We do appreciate information being provided, so please do provide any information you can, but bumping a thread with "fix it" does not cause a not-reproducible bug given current information available to become suddenly reproducible, so frequent bumping with no information does not help resolve the issue, nor does it impact our awareness of this bug and our desire to fix it.

[Annex]

I am not a computer person but...I regularly get the chat bug when playing DDO over a VPN.

How about signing up for a free VPN service, setting the VPN server to a place far from Boston--Chicago, Las Angeles, whatever--then connecting to DDO. Even though you are located in Boston, wouldn't that trick your computer to play like we do, from places far away?

[LT218]

We definitely want to get reproducible tests for this as it would help tremendously; so far we remain unable to create a repro for this bug. We have sometimes been able to get the chat message to show up, but that is expected behavior when connecting/disconnecting, and has not then led to an inability to utilize text or voice chat. We do appreciate information being provided, so please do provide any information you can, but bumping a thread with "fix it" does not cause a not-reproducible bug given current information available to become suddenly reproducible, so frequent bumping with no information does not help resolve the issue, nor does it impact our awareness of this bug and our desire to fix it.

You’ve had more than a year to *look* at the problem that is affecting a key part of any MMO. How’s that working out? Based on the locked thread and this one, not very well it seems. In addition to not fixing the problem, you’re now also penalizing customers who are asking for your help and ****ing them off in the process.

Have you tried actually engaging directly with *any* of the numerous players who *can* reproduce it to gather additional logs, do further debugging, etc.?

No? Then it doesn’t seem like SSG is trying very hard at all because contacting affected users and working directly with them when you can’t natively reproduce a problem is pretty much IT Troubleshooting 101.

You have plenty of players who would happily work with a dev to help get this fixed (as well as other long-standing problems) but you ignore them. Doing something like that is also an excellent opportunity to generate goodwill and build a better relationship with the community. As usual though, SSG continues to squander it.

[Assassination]

No. We were lenient last time about you deliberately violating the forum rules, even after it kept getting reported by other users of the forums as spam behavior. As with everything, the work needs to be scheduled, done, tested, and deployed, an that process is not immediate, especially when dealing with a so-far-not-reproducible bug like this. We do appreciate continued actual information being provided, but random spam bumping in the belief it will somehow cause an action to occur will not be allowed.

Nice example of Customer Service. Good lord. Fix the problem, say you can't fix the problem. Say we refuse to fix the problem. I have the same issue at least 2 to 3 times a week. Typically I'm forced to disconnect at a stuck loading screen, come back and no chat for 3-10 minutes or so. Everyone I run with on Ghallanda has similar issues.

This is the type of embarrassing customer service that makes it hard for players to keep supporting this game.

[slarden]

We definitely want to get reproducible tests for this as it would help tremendously; so far we remain unable to create a repro for this bug. We have sometimes been able to get the chat message to show up, but that is expected behavior when connecting/disconnecting, and has not then led to an inability to utilize text or voice chat. We do appreciate information being provided, so please do provide any information you can, but bumping a thread with "fix it" does not cause a not-reproducible bug given current information available to become suddenly reproducible, so frequent bumping with no information does not help resolve the issue, nor does it impact our awareness of this bug and our desire to fix it.

This is really hard to understand given how frequently this happens. The problem started with the data center changes a few years back.

When I see this most is when someone switches characters during a raid on the same account. When they come back they often can't use chat right away (which includes voice). In most cases this clears up after some time.

I've had the same issue in 2 different residences with different internet providers (FIOS and cable). I don't think this is a service provider issue.

[TitusOvid]

We definitely want to get reproducible tests for this as it would help tremendously; so far we remain unable to create a repro for this bug. We have sometimes been able to get the chat message to show up, but that is expected behavior when connecting/disconnecting, and has not then led to an inability to utilize text or voice chat. We do appreciate information being provided, so please do provide any information you can, but bumping a thread with "fix it" does not cause a not-reproducible bug given current information available to become suddenly reproducible, so frequent bumping with no information does not help resolve the issue, nor does it impact our awareness of this bug and our desire to fix it.

I feel I am talking to a wall.
We gave you every information we can think of. It is your turn to ask follow-up questions!

Titus.

[SisAmethyst]

I don't know what is causing it nor how to fix it and only get it very infrequently and play often solo so it doesn't bother me as much.
Said that some ideas to get to the root of this:

• maybe it is related to the DNS or network provider, maybe players struggling with it can fill out a survey or share their information about
  
  • location (east coast, west coast, africa, asia, europe...)?
  • which network provider?
  • which DNS provider?
  • wifi or lan connection to the router?
  • 32bit or 64bit client?
  • which network card driver (intel, broadcom, ...)
  • which antivirus system?
  
  maybe we will find a pattern?
• ask for a full DxDiag report
• maybe we can get under Options > Troubleshoot a dedicated checkbox 'debug logging' that players can enable when they encounter such difficult to trace issues, which will create some debug logging that could be sent in for analysis (if you are worried about missuse obfuscate the content?

[FableFan]

I get numbers 1 and 2 on the list fairly regularly, with no way to fix them other than to wait. 5 and 6 are ways to trigger it for me if I didn't already have it. It could take a minute or 5+ minutes to connect. Similarly, I lose chat connection at times while in groups and thus have loss of the communication (kind of hard for a group to all send tells to communicate, especially with fights).

[rayworks]

Maybe if SSG staff played the game regularly over a non-SSG connection they would get reproducible results. Play the game at home, not on the company network. Play it more than once a week for a live stream. Its painfully obvious at times that few, if any, of the staff plays enough to be intimately familiar with the player side of the game.

[SockyMcSockerton]

We definitely want to get reproducible tests for this as it would help tremendously; so far we remain unable to create a repro for this bug. We have sometimes been able to get the chat message to show up, but that is expected behavior when connecting/disconnecting, and has not then led to an inability to utilize text or voice chat. We do appreciate information being provided, so please do provide any information you can, but bumping a thread with "fix it" does not cause a not-reproducible bug given current information available to become suddenly reproducible, so frequent bumping with no information does not help resolve the issue, nor does it impact our awareness of this bug and our desire to fix it.

Have you tried reaching out to the people who reported this bug?

[PedXing20]

It's bleed through from the customer service upgrades. New software made it so paying customers can't connect with customer service (no ability to chat = no complaints = game must be perfect!!). Now it's drifting into the game environment.

[Epicsoul]

The problem has been happening consistently for months now to almost everyone I play with. Telling the players to provide you more information or don't comment is poor community engagement. We're not SSG employee and shouldn't be expected to solve this longstanding issue.

[Belzidar]

We definitely want to get reproducible tests for this as it would help tremendously; so far we remain unable to create a repro for this bug. We have sometimes been able to get the chat message to show up, but that is expected behavior when connecting/disconnecting, and has not then led to an inability to utilize text or voice chat. We do appreciate information being provided, so please do provide any information you can, but bumping a thread with "fix it" does not cause a not-reproducible bug given current information available to become suddenly reproducible, so frequent bumping with no information does not help resolve the issue, nor does it impact our awareness of this bug and our desire to fix it.

Exactly what information would be helpful? I honestly do not know what I could report that will help. I'm not being sarcastic here, I'm just a player with very limited knowledge of how programming works.

Please don't ask me to make a video of the chat issue when it happens to me, I don't know how and frankly don't want to know how. But I am more than willing to offer up any information that is within my ability to pass on.

I believe a video has been posted already showing the chat issue when it happens but I don't think anyone from SSG has acknowledged the video or commented if that was helpful or not.


Thought I would add this. Before I made this post I logged into the game and made it to the character screen and realized I needed to do something before I started playing.
Closed out the game before I logged a character.
Did what I needed to do, started the game again, logged in a lvl 20 toon and chat was out. Chat was out for 4 minutes.
Not sure if this is the type of info that helps or not.

[rcmcneil]

Been here for 12 years, had this exact same issue since it started for everyone else. There seems to be no consistency with where, how, or why it happens. It just happens. All we can hope for is that it doesn't happen when we're actually doing something important, like running quests.

Blaming customers for trying to do engineering work for you guys is NOT a good look, nor is punishing customers mentioning that an issue exists, or that it still exists after a supposed fix. And supposedly violating some forum rules seems like a far cry from violating customer trust in the current stability & future viability of the product attempting to be sold. Destroying trust in a company is a great way to ensure future funding doesn't happen.

Stop spending energy, time, & money blaming customers for pointing out a product that is degraded compared to previous iterations of it, & put that energy, time, & money into actual, functional, "wow I haven't seen that issue show up ever since they said they fixed it a couple months ago" improvements. Claims of improvements & fixes come across as lies when the customer doesn't see the improvements on their end.

If the company is choosing to use customers as free labor to get this solved, I highly suggest not also suppressing those same customers' dissent when the claimed fixes are demonstrated to be false from the client side of things.

We are denied access to non-client information. That's fine. But if you want customers to be useful, then maybe sharing a bit of info as to what's been observed, attempted, & what info is still missing would be a place to start.

-Cuyar

[superevbully]

The problem has been happening consistently for months now to almost everyone I play with. Telling the players to provide you more information or don't comment is poor community engagement. We're not SSG employee and shouldn't be expected to solve this longstanding issue.

this +1

[Seph1roth5]

I normally only get that bug after switching chars, but last night I got it on a brand new client, first character, after like 30 min of isle of dreading. It was weird.

[Dalnarac]

We definitely want to get reproducible tests for this as it would help tremendously; so far we remain unable to create a repro for this bug. We have sometimes been able to get the chat message to show up, but that is expected behavior when connecting/disconnecting, and has not then led to an inability to utilize text or voice chat. We do appreciate information being provided, so please do provide any information you can, but bumping a thread with "fix it" does not cause a not-reproducible bug given current information available to become suddenly reproducible, so frequent bumping with no information does not help resolve the issue, nor does it impact our awareness of this bug and our desire to fix it.

I am not sure what you mean by reproducible. Log in a character, you look good and chat is fine. Quit the game completely then log back into the game and log into a different character. You will most likely have no friend's list and chat wont work. Tells will work. If this does not come true, you got lucky. Get completely out of the game again and log in again. If you still do not get the issue then you are a dev and I need your login info

[zappy]

I have also had this exact problem for years, and know several people in our guild and friendly guilds that also get this problem.

I don't worry about it at all, we got discord, we have server wide discords that anyone can access, or lock down however they like. the voice quality makes several people go from completely not understandable, to perfectly fine when we use discord over the in game voice chat.

it seems that people that live farther away from Boston get the problem more often, had a guildy living in Santiago, Chili that had the problem nearly every single day for 30+ minutes at a time, when I get the chat bug from the pacific northwest, it happens for 3-5 minutes at a time.

however, my friends that play in new zealand and australia have the problem less or speak about it less than some others, however, there is no real reason to even worry about it for us, cause we just use discord.

[Valeryan]

It would be very useful to get some video of this issue happening; if anyone who experiences this regularly gets the chance to do it, please get the video to us.

What does the video has to show besides the obvious 'Chat is unavailable' message? Please elaborate so we can provide what you need.

Why in video format if a screenshot can show the same? Curious abot this.

Please advise of an easy-friendly way to take videos of the game because it is not something I have done before.

As many have already said, the chat-not-working issue is not that hard to reproduce and happens quite frequently....but if what you are looking for is proof, I am willing to provide it.

[Moribund_the_Greater]

it seems that people that live farther away from Boston get the problem more often, had a guildy living in Santiago, Chili that had the problem nearly every single day for 30+ minutes at a time, when I get the chat bug from the pacific northwest, it happens for 3-5 minutes at a time.

Can confirm. In our tiny guild of 4, the person who lives in MA never has this issue. Guildy who lives in Midwest...happens occasionally. I live in the west coast, happens at least once a play session sometimes more.