Who do we blame for the online problems & what can we do?

[Sick Cylinder]

Since it's a relatively new issue it must be more SEN or PD. It's not reasonable to think widespread users across the globe all of a sudden all start having home and/or local ISP connection issues. The common link and most likely is logically the servers hosting the gameplay.

@Harsk posted this in the GTP Sportscar thread - yes, you are right there is problem, which hopefully will be fixed - in the meantime I think the answer is no online racing at weekends.

I got the following message.

I had no problems so far. I wasn't disconnected until now.

 

[Famine]

Since it's a relatively new issue it must be more SEN or PD.

It's not relatively new at all. People have been complaining about this since GT first went online.

It's not reasonable to think widespread users across the globe all of a sudden all start having home and/or local ISP connection issues.

There's nothing sudden about it either. The majority of people don't know how to - or don't care or don't see why they should have to - set up their consoles properly. So the majority of consoles are not set up properly.

The common link and most likely is logically the servers hosting the gameplay.

Gameplay servers are your consoles...

Connect a bunch of PS3s together in the same room and play using only those consoles - allow no-one else in your lobby - and you'll find that you can play almost indefinitely. That wouldn't be possible if there was a single root cause of 'servers' (the matchmaking servers or SEN).

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

I was online last sunday, no DC at all hopping around lobbies cruising but I do have invisible car issue and unable to join some lobby due host incompatibility.

I have crappy internet 7.2 Mbps down, 2Mbps up, but really not that high in real NAT 2.

 

[Harsk100]

I was also online in last sunday. Everything was alright until I got DC when I was going to race. And then, @Sick Cylinder had problems on opening a lobby, so we could race. So, because of Connection issues, the race ended on being cancelled.

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

I'm in asia continent region Played with US and EU lobby hosts, will try to get online next weekend see if there's DC issue again.

 

[Gazza116]

here is a link ive found via project cars ...there might be some light at the end of the tunnell

owww cant get it to work, anyway if you go to project cars forum PS4 techinical help you can see a tweet which says that Sony has identified the problem as is working on a fix

 

[tarnheld]

Gameplay servers are your consoles...

Connect a bunch of PS3s together in the same room and play using only those consoles - allow no-one else in your lobby - and you'll find that you can play almost indefinitely. That wouldn't be possible if there was a single root cause of 'servers' (the matchmaking servers or SEN).

Do you know for sure that no external entities like PSN servers are involved in online race traffic once you have entered a room, only the PS3s of the racers in the room? If that is the case, i don't understand the recent drop in race room quality on weekends many here are experiencing for about two months. Considering no changes were done in the GT6 network code (no GT6 update, only PS3 FW update in this timespan) the only explanation would be a global decline of internet reliability during certain times on weekends -- likely for some local spots but unlikely globally. And a poorly set-up console doesn't work better during weekdays. Or maybe GT6 is using network code from PS3 firmware, and the recent firmware update made peer-to-peer networing more sensitive to a fragile network?

It's not relatively new at all. People have been complaining about this since GT first went online.

I was quite happy with the GT6 online experience, but for two months now i can be sure to have problems during weekend evenings (UTC+1 timezone here). And it's not about just me dropping out of rooms full of people happily racing -- during these times everybody has problems entering and staying in a room. If you have 1-2 days a year with network problems you would say bad luck, but if you have 8 weekends out of 8 weekends with network problems, no problems on other days and 1 year with no problems before it's hard to call it coincidental.

 

[IfAndOr]

While it's true that GT has never been the most stable of online experiences, before the Christmas period it was fine. Since then it's gone downhill. I can race during the week generally with few problems yet the weekend has become a no go.

My internet connection while not super fast is more than adequate and my PS3 and router are about as configured as they can be - wired, fixed IP address, the required ports open, DNS servers setup etcetera. And yet at the weekend I can create a room which is set to the minimum number of 2 people, sit in the lobby of that room without going on to the track or without anyone entering and then be disconnected from my own room. Now I'm either being disconnected from my own PS3 or more probably from the GT6 lobby server. While racing it's peer to peer so every PS3 can be a week link, however there's got to be a connection to a PD lobby server so that the room lists are maintained. If you loose connection to the lobby server it drops you out of the room.

They seem to have admitted there is an overload problem, particularly at weekends, so all we can do is sit tight and wait for an improvement, or not. It's out of our hands as far I can see. Obviously people can help improve their own connections, but you can only do so much.

I'm not sure if I'm correct, but I'm thinking that PD may have their lobby severs located at the same external server company that also runs PSN thus compounding the problem.

Also since it's a long holiday weekend coming up I expect with the extra traffic that Friday an Monday will be troublesome as well.

 

[Polsixe]

It's not relatively new at all. People have been complaining about this since GT first went online.
There's nothing sudden about it either. The majority of people don't know how to - or don't care or don't see why they should have to - set up their consoles properly. So the majority of consoles are not set up properly.Gameplay servers are your consoles...

Connect a bunch of PS3s together in the same room and play using only those consoles - allow no-one else in your lobby - and you'll find that you can play almost indefinitely. That wouldn't be possible if there was a single root cause of 'servers' (the matchmaking servers or SEN).

This thread was created in Feb, the buzz is the problem is notably worse than before Christmas. Where there's smoke....

I don't claim to be an expert on Playstation network architecture, I'm assuming when you create a room, everyone who connects does through a Playstation or Polyphony node. You have to log into PSN in order to anything online. A small group of folks who have hard wired their PS3 together is so micro it doesn't count. Does PSN designate your IPN as a hub? I didn't think so, but if so, so be it.

 

[Famine]

Do you know for sure that no external entities like PSN servers are involved in online race traffic once you have entered a room, only the PS3s of the racers in the room?

Yes. Set up a 'LAN' and, once the lobby is running, you'll find that there is a tiny exchange of data with the outside world. Introduce a single external console and it becomes huge*.

The race traffic data is peer-to-peer. There is a small amount of data required to keep everyone in the lobby.

If that is the case, i don't understand the recent drop in race room quality on weekends many here are experiencing for about two months. Considering no changes were done in the GT6 network code (no GT6 update, only PS3 FW update in this timespan) the only explanation would be a global decline of internet reliability during certain times on weekends -- likely for some local spots but unlikely globally. And a poorly set-up console doesn't work better during weekdays. Or maybe GT6 is using network code from PS3 firmware, and the recent firmware update made peer-to-peer networing more sensitive to a fragile network?

I was quite happy with the GT6 online experience, but for two months now i can be sure to have problems during weekend evenings (UTC+1 timezone here). And it's not about just me dropping out of rooms full of people happily racing -- during these times everybody has problems entering and staying in a room. If you have 1-2 days a year with network problems you would say bad luck, but if you have 8 weekends out of 8 weekends with network problems, no problems on other days and 1 year with no problems before it's hard to call it coincidental.

I don't think I've played GT online since the back end of the GTPES season last year, so I can't state any familiarity with the emergence of an apparent additional problem. However, from how it's been described it certainly seems like SEN is radically misbehaving at peak times.

This thread was created in Feb, the buzz is the problem is notably worse than before Christmas. Where there's smoke....

I don't claim to be an expert on Playstation network architecture, I'm assuming when you create a room, everyone who connects does through a Playstation or Polyphony node. You have to log into PSN in order to anything online. A small group of folks who have hard wired their PS3 together is so micro it doesn't count. Does PSN designate your IPN as a hub? I didn't think so, but if so, so be it.

You still have to log into PSN even when in 'LAN' in order to create and maintain the room. However, you miss the point of why I brought it up. The fact that you can do it and it stays stable is very much an indicator that when you all-but remove internet infrastructure from the equation there is no problem* - which is, in turn, an indicator that improperly set up connections and sheer physical distances are behind most issues that most people encounter. But then that shouldn't be even a fraction of a shock on peer-to-peer architecture - with fixed servers, the people experiencing the problems would be the people who are the problems. With P2P we're all dragged down to their level.

I don't doubt for a second that an additional problem with SEN can cause more issues and I don't doubt for a second that the people saying it's been worse for the last two months are right - I've not been playing and they have. But people have been complaining about GT online since GT went online, and the majority of online problems are... people.


* If you have even two consoles you can test this yourself. Set up a room on one, join it with the other. Have some trouble-free races. Monitor your network traffic and you'll see almost nothing external - I think we had it at no more than 250kB/hr for 10 consoles - even when you're racing. Rope someone in from the other side of the planet with a wireless console and watch quality plummet and network traffic spike

 

[Sick Cylinder]

here is a link ive found via project cars ...there might be some light at the end of the tunnell

owww cant get it to work, anyway if you go to project cars forum PS4 techinical help you can see a tweet which says that Sony has identified the problem as is working on a fix

Is this what you were after:

Project Cars have been told by Sony this morning that Sony have identified the problem on PSN. Now we wait for Sony to fix it.

Will find the source shortly. Think it's Facebook

Edit. No its twitter.

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/psn-connection-issues-identified-by-sony.344271/

 

[Gazza116]

yup thats it, thanks.

btw this is worth looking at ...scroll down to Joseph Barron's post

http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/sh...MS-investigation-into-connection-issues/page9

 

[Sick Cylinder]

Does anyone know if Sony made any fixes to PSN. I read that they had identified a problem and were planning to fix it.

I hosted a room for an hour or so this afternoon specifically to check if the network is now stable enough to return to online competition on Sunday's, (it was for nearly 5 years before the problems which started 2 months ago) but after about one hour I was disconnected then got various messages and was unable to log on to PSN at all. I presume that the problem of lack of weekend capacity therefore hasn't been fixed. Anyone got any info on PSN fixes etc?

 

[northway]

thank you for sharing.