Instances where I lock up but the world around me continues, plus massive packet duplication

[ZorkNemesis]

I don't know exactly how to describe this, but it's weird.  So what's been happening, since at least the May 4th patch (this is when I started noticing things happening) I've been experiencing sporadic instances where my connection freaks out in such a way that I cannot activate powers and while I can move i'm not actually moving, though if it happens during a power activation i'm stuck in place until it resolves.  The game is still running as normal and enemies targeting/attacking me or pets following me stop at the spot these issues started and treat me as if i'm there.  Should I die during this period I can also move around in a dead state.  Basically I cannot send any inputs to the game, including movement, powers, advancing mission text, auto-exiting completed missions, going to the hospital, etc.  After about 20 seconds of being unable to act I snap back to where it started and can use powers and move proper again as if nothing happened and any prompts advance as if I clicked them multiple times. 

 

When this happens I occasionally bring up the Netgraph to see what's going on if anything.  The graphs don't show any yellow or red spikes, but I often see evenly spaced gaps appear as the event is going on.  Once it clears up, the graph looks normal from then on however it reports something like 100+ packets duplicated in when it resolves.  Here's one instance I recorded the graph as it happened (Netgraph 2).

 

This is what it looked like before, the large green spikes are likely due to fighting large amounts of Rikti at once.:

 

Here's what it looked like as it was happening

 

And when it cleared up, this was the result.

 

I see this usually several times during my play sessions but often without any consistent timing.  Sometimes it's minutes between hiccups, sometimes an hour.  This also isn't exclusive to being in-game as i've had it happen on the character select screen a couple times (it freezes when picking a character before clearing up 20-30 seconds later, sometimes loading the character costume missing textures at first).  I also had it happen on the login screen itself today where it threw up the "cannot connect to server, check your connection/firewall settings) popup.  Once this caused a full "Lost connection to mapserver" though logging back in threw up the "this account is already logged in" message.  There's also been a couple instances where it locked up while changing zones and threw me back to the login screen without an error popup whatsoever.

 

What's making me wonder however is that i've monitored other resources as things happen.  My own networking shows no errors/hiccups and no other connections are being interrupted.  No other online games I play do this sort of thing either on the same network, PC or otherwise.  I'm thinking it's a problem with the client but verifying files didn't solve anything.  It could also be a firewall thing though i'm hesitant to make adjustments without knowing how.  I'm not too well versed on network diagnostics so troubleshooting this sort of thing isn't quite up my alley.  But, i'm hoping maybe someone else knows what might be happening and if there's maybe something I can do or try to fix this.  I was hoping it would be fixed in a patch following May 4th's, but that doesn't seem to be the case, and I also don't really see anyone else mentioning similar issues.  If anyone's got advice for me i'm all ears, this is getting really frustrating to deal with; playing a click-heavy build becomes a case of waiting for death when the issue arises.

[Marine X]

There are some things that you can open up in your router that might help. Below are the ports CoH uses to communicate:

 

Game Ports

The game client is somewhat Firewall and NAT friendly. However any issues can be resolved by ensuring the following ports are open:

• TCP 2104
• TCP 2106
• TCP 443
• UDP 7000-7200

Hope this is some help.

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Marine X

[RogerWilco]

Could it be something else on your network, or even the connection to your ISP?

What network are you using?

[ZorkNemesis]

Sorry if it seemed like I've been ignoring this thread, I promise I haven't.  I did some additional troubleshooting and it seems to be the issue is absolutely the network or ISP.  I'm just not exactly in a position to reset the router as I never know what the other people on the network have going and of course American ISPs, i'm sure we all have something to say about our providers.  The main takeaway is that it's a me problem and not something caused by that patch, just a coincidence.  Thanks for the suggestions anyhow.

[Mr. Vee]

I've not had it happen at login screen or map loading as you described but I have had the in mission problem since a patch prior to the May 4th. Mentioned in this thread 

 

Would love to know what it is you think is wrong on your network's end as I have reset my modem since the problem started and don't see any other problems on my end when the problem occurs (on a couple of occasions was able to tab out, do a speed test which came out fine, then tab back before the problem resolved itself.) I'll look at the netgraph the next time it happens, though.