So, this looks like it is an issue with your network connection. I would call whoever you pay for internet and ask them about it. Explain the situation and then see if they can hook you up.
They are telling me that since my internet otherwise works completely fine, the problem has to be with the program or the servers I'm trying to connect to.
I can tell you that having a router in your path with 100% drop rate is not unusual or bad. All it means is that the router in question is not responding to pings (which is an option most routers have). This is commonly used in locations with concerns of DDoS attacks.
Think about it this way: If you can ping hop 11, then you are getting past hop 10. If hop 11 has no dropped packets, then hop 10 is not dropping packet either.
I am going to review what other data might be gleaned from your logs...
There's a yellow flag in that you are running 32bit windows on a 64bit capable processor. You might research if it's possible to install the 64bit version of windows with that same cd key. if you are desperate enough to get this game working for you (I would be)
The local server behavior in no way rules out NS2. All it rules out is NS2 ideal conditions (No players, practically no networking, very little resource usage w/no memory swapping)
Do you notice that you have a harder time with fuller servers? Servers with more players? That could indicate the memory issues that 32 bit players are having.
There's a way to make NS2 address more memory and be more stable in the above link. While the most recent patches will have made NS2 more stable on 32 bit, this tech tip can still beef up your 32 bit performance.
Seeing as how you only have 4 gigs of system memory however, I would make sure that your pagefile is turned on (is by default but some hokey performance tops suggest turning it off). If you get yourself into 64bit, I would suggest another 4gb of ram as well. It should be unnecessary, but every little bit. Note: without 64 bit windows you are already over your memory cap (3.6 gigs addressable memory). Keep in mind that NS2 can address 2 gigs of memory by default on 32 bit and this was not enough for NS2 to run stable as recently as last patch.
If you would like to pursue potential networking errors further (you have nothing conclusive for or against networking) my first step has always been to just run 'ping <ip> -t'
This will run ping forever until you press ctrl+c (which attempts to break any command line activity in process)
Once that's running, go play a match on the server you are pinging. When you get back, look for spikes in ping, dropped pings (ping timeout) and other erroneous behavior. Tracking down networking errors is a statistics game, on par with playing the lottery. The more times you play, the higher your chance to win. However, your ping times are reasonable, you haven't dropped any packets, and your misbehavior is static (death and spawning).
I honestly believe I've experienced performance hitches around spawn time as well, so there could be a deeper underlying code issue that's just effecting you worse with your setup than some. Just based on your reaction time and persistence, you are a tech supports wet dream (hence why I gave you my time) and I hope you can get this sorted out.
I have the pagefile turned on and it's set to be managed by Windows. I did the 3GB switch, but no change to the situation.
I don't find that the situation changes based on player numbers. There have been servers that I have joined and filled up and I have no problems, while there are empty servers that I join, and upon picking a team and spawning in I'll get a red plug. Many servers I can't join at all.
I tried running ping on a server that I usually can't join. I tried to join in and I timed out. When I checked to find anything weird or out of the ordinary I didn't see anything. Even when I was timing out everything was consistent across the board - 87 ms average, no packets lost, even while in-game I was timing out.
Dunno what to make of it. I can keep trying it on other servers, I suppose.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
If you used net_stats 1, what does netstat say when you connect and fail? I didnt see any answer on that.
(If you are loading / precaching, it will choke 100% and thats normal)
Tried to get into a server and I just stayed at "Waiting for server..." forever.
Ping: 97-122ms When I took a screenshot it went to 578.
Av sent: 0.01 kbs
Av rec :0.02 kbs
Last sent: 1 byte
Last rec: 5 byte
Client rate: 30 ticks
Everything below this was 0 per second.
I don't know what I'd look for in event viewer but I took a look and didn't see anything that might be related.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited November 2013
Still Sounds like flooding.
I bet if you joined off of a friend through steam, while not utilizing your internet very much (no server browser!) you'd connect just fine..?
At least until you spawn that is..
Can you take pictures of every single page of your router /modem 's configuration and settings? (generally 192.168.0.1 but yours may be different)
Making sure to blur or black out any sensitive information like ips or Mac addresses or passwords.
Link the imgur links /album here please.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
I have the red plug of doom whenever i use wireless internet, because of flooding my router, and no options on the router to change it. By connecting via a cable to the router, I have no issues whatsoever. This sounds like the same problem to me. Are you wireless or wired?
No. I live in Puerto Rico and I don't know of even a single server that's here...
I'm consistently getting 0% packet loss, even while trying to connect to a server I can't connect to on NS2.
It could be where you live, but that would probably result in higher pings and not dc. Can you try wired connection and then try this site: http://www.speedtest.net/
Show us the results (for both your location and a US server)
I'm wired to my router. I tried following the instructions to remove any flooding options through telnet that were linked in one of the threads around here but it didn't seem to work. I don't remember seeing any settings that might be flooding related, but I guess it couldn't hurt to take another look. Edit: Are there any names for the setting that might be weird or that might cause me to overlook them? I'm not suffering on other games that are prone to problems with flood settings.
Also, on a pure whim, I tried playing today, and managed to get in to about 3 servers and on these servers I had no problem. There are still many servers I simply could not join. Still have no idea what's up.
Today I managed to get into one of the UWE servers. After loading in, I get a momentary red plug while spawning into marine team. Everything is fine - until the com does a beacon. Once he beaconed I got a perma red plug and had to dc.
Edit: Also when I try to join a server I red plug in through a friend I get a "server not responding" message. Edit2: Nvm, joined in but still got red plug.
I have found that there is one server I can seem to join no matter what. Russia #2 (Moscow). The only thing in particular that it seems to have is that it doesn't have any mods, but there are other servers that don't have mods that I can't join. Again, ¯\(°_o)/¯
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
Have you tried turning down the number of attempts steam makes to contact the master servers? Sometimes this can be an issue. On most of the routers, the settings are hidden, and that is the problem.
How do I do that? Is that when you go to Steam settings and change the Max pings per minute setting? If so then I have, but I don't know if that's what you mean.
I posed about this on reddit and they are telling me to check out some other settings on my router that might be related to bandwidth and protection and I'll be checking that out.
I think this might be done. I just overlooked all of the router settings (again) with my father and the QoS and DDoS protection settings are nowhere to be found and can't be configured, at least through the user interface, and that's what was suggested to me to check on Reddit.
Should I just ask Steam for a refund? I don't know what else to do.
Is it possible to configure your PC as demilitarized zone (DMZ) from your router? I would not advice using this as long term solution but you should be able to confirm if it's the router.
Edit. To be clear, this should disable pretty much every security setting from router to your PC.
Also checking your antivirus software settings and excluding your ns2 folder might do the trick.
Comments
Should I try bribing someone for help? Like, say "I'll give you money for that Reinforcement stuff if I can just play the game again!"?
Think about it this way: If you can ping hop 11, then you are getting past hop 10. If hop 11 has no dropped packets, then hop 10 is not dropping packet either.
I am going to review what other data might be gleaned from your logs...
There's a yellow flag in that you are running 32bit windows on a 64bit capable processor. You might research if it's possible to install the 64bit version of windows with that same cd key. if you are desperate enough to get this game working for you (I would be)
The local server behavior in no way rules out NS2. All it rules out is NS2 ideal conditions (No players, practically no networking, very little resource usage w/no memory swapping)
Do you notice that you have a harder time with fuller servers? Servers with more players? That could indicate the memory issues that 32 bit players are having.
If Windows 64bit is out of the question, check out: http://unknownworlds.com/ns2/32bit/
There's a way to make NS2 address more memory and be more stable in the above link. While the most recent patches will have made NS2 more stable on 32 bit, this tech tip can still beef up your 32 bit performance.
Seeing as how you only have 4 gigs of system memory however, I would make sure that your pagefile is turned on (is by default but some hokey performance tops suggest turning it off). If you get yourself into 64bit, I would suggest another 4gb of ram as well. It should be unnecessary, but every little bit. Note: without 64 bit windows you are already over your memory cap (3.6 gigs addressable memory). Keep in mind that NS2 can address 2 gigs of memory by default on 32 bit and this was not enough for NS2 to run stable as recently as last patch.
This will run ping forever until you press ctrl+c (which attempts to break any command line activity in process)
Once that's running, go play a match on the server you are pinging. When you get back, look for spikes in ping, dropped pings (ping timeout) and other erroneous behavior. Tracking down networking errors is a statistics game, on par with playing the lottery. The more times you play, the higher your chance to win. However, your ping times are reasonable, you haven't dropped any packets, and your misbehavior is static (death and spawning).
I honestly believe I've experienced performance hitches around spawn time as well, so there could be a deeper underlying code issue that's just effecting you worse with your setup than some. Just based on your reaction time and persistence, you are a tech supports wet dream (hence why I gave you my time) and I hope you can get this sorted out.
I don't find that the situation changes based on player numbers. There have been servers that I have joined and filled up and I have no problems, while there are empty servers that I join, and upon picking a team and spawning in I'll get a red plug. Many servers I can't join at all.
Guess I'll try running ping next.
Dunno what to make of it. I can keep trying it on other servers, I suppose.
(If you are loading / precaching, it will choke 100% and thats normal)
Anything in windows event viewer? (eventvwr)
Ping: 97-122ms When I took a screenshot it went to 578.
Av sent: 0.01 kbs
Av rec :0.02 kbs
Last sent: 1 byte
Last rec: 5 byte
Client rate: 30 ticks
Everything below this was 0 per second.
I don't know what I'd look for in event viewer but I took a look and didn't see anything that might be related.
I bet if you joined off of a friend through steam, while not utilizing your internet very much (no server browser!) you'd connect just fine..?
At least until you spawn that is..
Can you take pictures of every single page of your router /modem 's configuration and settings? (generally 192.168.0.1 but yours may be different)
Making sure to blur or black out any sensitive information like ips or Mac addresses or passwords.
Link the imgur links /album here please.
I'm betting there's a setting being overlooked.
It could be where you live, but that would probably result in higher pings and not dc. Can you try wired connection and then try this site: http://www.speedtest.net/
Show us the results (for both your location and a US server)
Also, on a pure whim, I tried playing today, and managed to get in to about 3 servers and on these servers I had no problem. There are still many servers I simply could not join. Still have no idea what's up.
Edit: Also when I try to join a server I red plug in through a friend I get a "server not responding" message. Edit2: Nvm, joined in but still got red plug.
I even read the whole user guide for the router and there's no mention about anything flood related or protection from DDoS attack.
I posed about this on reddit and they are telling me to check out some other settings on my router that might be related to bandwidth and protection and I'll be checking that out.
Should I just ask Steam for a refund? I don't know what else to do.
Edit. To be clear, this should disable pretty much every security setting from router to your PC.
Also checking your antivirus software settings and excluding your ns2 folder might do the trick.