9 replies to this topic

[Wildstreak]

Don't normally do rants but had to make an exception this time.

I have had problems with my connection to MWO on the NA server since June and all 3 this month with rubberbanding/warping. I tried living with it but after last weekend I just up and stopped playing when half my shots are missing despite looking on target for me then suddenly warping after the shot, I just had to stop to sort this out. I also discovered a strange oddity with connecting to Europe where my connection would reach Newark, NJ, USA, from there go to London, UK, then for some unknown reason go to New York City, NY, USA, finally go to France followed by a few hops to the Europe server.
Someone is playing Mark of Zorro with my connection to Europe across the Atlantic Ocean.
In addition, somehow part of my NA server connection was changed from one route that worked to the current one that is broken between June and July.

After doing the usual work with PGI, since no one else is having these issues, no other program on my computer is having any nor is the computer itself and tracerts showing problems on the line, I contact my ISP Spectrum about this. Now I have worked telecom before for other companies, when you have a customer with a connection problem you first work to see if the problem is on you company's equipment, if not, you contact other companies on the connection and work to see which one has the issue and follow up until it is fixed.

But no not Spectrum.

I did not contact customer service through the phone because I knew what they would do, run through the usual steps checking if the modem was fine, unplug and restart your box, etc., same for the 'Virtual Assistant.' I knew all the home equipment was fine and had proof the problem was on the lines to the 3 MWO servers. So I needed some other way to contact Spectrum and reach someone who would not go through the 'usual steps,' rather someone who would do what I know other telecom companies do, work with telecom companies on the line to clear these issues up. If I am having problems, other customers may be too.

But that's not what I get.

I had to contact them through Facebook to get an actual person. I sent them an image file of the tracerts showing the line outages.
First person I get says they have problems seeing the image and asks me to email.
I email a ZIP attachment of images showing line outages, I get a Facebook response saying they have problems getting attachments.
I send another email copying and pasting all the tracerts into the email body, while I am doing this a second person on Facebook says he found a way to read the image and asked for something called a service address and the name on the account.
I respond with not knowing what a service address is hoping he would clarify and saying I sent the email with all the tracerts in the body.
I get a a response form a third person saying the outages are not on their network (duh) and the companies with the outages has to be contacted BY ME and gave no answer on why part of the NA server route was changed.

So I have to be my own customer service and tech personnel.

I found the Canadian outages on what look like some Québec government service that I sent a message to, another outage on the New York-France connection I have no idea who it is, an outage on Oceania appears to be a reverse DNS lookup so I have absolutely NO ONE to contact to fix, another company (Level 3) that has problems on 2 connections (NA and EU) I contact and they say what I already knew. Spectrum, NOT ME, should be contacting them about fixing the issues. That means Spectrum, NOT ME, should be contacting everyone on all 3 connections that have problems to get this fixed, that is STANDARD PROCDURE in telecom.

I feel like I am back at work again except I am not getting paid.

So I contact Spectrum again through FB telling them what Level 3 said. I FINALLY have clarified what a service address is and give it to them.

Today I get a response that the Spectrum equipment is fine so there is nothing they can do. Did they just NOT EFFING HEAR what I and Level 3 said? Just because the problem is not on their equipment does not mean they are done, they have to contact other companies on these lines to follow procedures to get these outages fixed, I AM NOT ALLOWED TO DO IT.

Honestly, I am wondering if I can just go to the FCC to get some kind of action done about this. This isn't even about MWO anymore, I have been without MWO for a week and no problems. This is about not following the **** procedure that I and other telecom techs have done for YEARS to fix line problems.

Eff you Spectrum, no wonder you have workers on strike.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Time Warner cable. Service so bad, they rebranded themselves as Spectrum so that hopefully people would stop dropping them and going to their competitors.

Hopefully there's a competitor where you live? I switched to Wide Open West. The switches in my local neighborhood are old, but other than that they're pretty cool.

[InspectorG]

Slime Warner rebranded as Speculum. Now bend over and give them a good cough.

[Wildstreak]

Actually when they were Time Warner, they were very good here.

Problems have only started cropping up since Charter bought TWC who I think owned Bright House and is now changing all of them into Spectrum. They have other issues with their TV service based on changes made to it.

As if that was not enough, local workers in this are have been on strike since March. This resulted in a number of service calls going to third party contract companies.

[Jackal Noble]

Ever think that maybe... I know this is hard for some to swallow.... but maybe it's not your ISP?
Like it might be the other aspect that you require to play this game?
The very same aspect that churns out all that quality we all enjoy and communicates and keeps things up to date?

[FireStoat]

I live in Shasta County, Northern California, and I have limited choices for an ISP provider. I'm having no issues with Charter here, and in fact they are far, far more stable than what I had been using before (AT&T).

Perhaps you already heard this, but perhaps not - either way, this game is somewhat sensitive to other processes running in the background when it's in use. MWO is also very single core process intensive. If you have not already done so, I would suggest using a set of free Malware / Virus search and removal tools (Malwarebytes Free anti malware, Spybot, & JRT removal tool work fine) to make sure your system is clean. Then use a free registry cleaner like Slimcleaner or something similar. Try running the game with as few programs running in the background as possible, and see if your stability improves.

Another thing to consider is that modem / router hardware does go sour over time. If it's been 5+ years and you've been using the same ISP hardware, there is a small chance that it's simply getting worn out and dropping packets. So that's something to check for as well. Speaking of data packets, MWO is NOT the most efficient game on the block when it comes to communicating to PGI's servers. If you're running too many programs that are constantly sending / receiving packets while using a standard SATA hard drive, problems can happen there as well.

There IS the real chance that your local provider just plain sucks. But there's a lot of other elements that you can check for at home, so best of luck with it.

[JediPanther]

Spectrum does indeed suck but where I live they have a monopoly even though there is one sole competitor in allo. I went to them first but was told no simply because land lords don't want them drilling or diging through things for fiber equipment. So I was left with spectrum or no internet. So far I've had ok service from them and have been blaming my mwo in general problems on the very old gtx 660 which will be replaced once price drops on a 6gb video card. I've been able to play mgs v, skyrim and sniper elite 3 just fine on the gtx even though I have them all on medium graphics.

[SIN Maruzen]

Century Link did the same ****. Even Comcast does occasionally. Usually I have to be an ******* and keep asking for the supervisor's supervisor. otherwise I'll get what you mentioned, "unplug modem, wait 30 seconds, did it fix itself? No? Ok, let's pull pull the plug from the wall this time..."

[Shifty McSwift]

Yeah it's fun when one telecommunications company holds a monopoly over massive sections of densely populated land. They get to set the rates and conditions to best suit them, their service can be minimally productive at maximum costs and if people have a problem with it, they can always outsource their customer support departments and give average 4 hour wait times for basic switch flipping issue solving.

[YourSaviorLegion]

The people that work for Spectrum don't like them either, don't tell them I told you that.