Increased delay with the league bot?

[mynth]

I was just wondering if there might be a bandwidth bottleneck with the server that is hosting the league bot?

I'm suspecting this because my ping seems fine in the lounge before the game starts... It's usually fine the first few minutes in game also but after that my ping seemingly doubles and some commands don't even register, especially in a hot battle.
The !ping command doesn't always reflect the increased delay, but it's quite noticeable to me at least.

I'm playing from Finland over a 3G connection, so that could be something that adds to the instability, but I didn't experience anything like this last year with the league bot.

Can anyone offer some feedback?

[eSVau]

There is almost no traffic between you and the bot while being in lobby. As soon the game starts it will increase. As far as i know there is currently no general problem at the server (or close to it).
A "trace route" towards the server (league.btanks.net) might tell you more about the bottle neck. Lqast time we had a general problem close to the server only large packets where dropped, small packets like a common ping reached the server without problems and show (almost) every player a smooth ping.

Bot's !ping shows the average of the last three pings (one every 15 seconds).

Maybe Velo can tell you more.

[mynth]

Thought i'd just report that the bot has been unplayable again this week for me. Last week I had a few good lag free games, so I was hoping that the problem was solved, but no.
I have horrible packet loss in game, especially in battle and last game my ping went up about 30ms in-game compared to the ping I had in the lobby(50ms).

I did some testing with pingplotter and a normal ICMP packages is perfectly stable up to 1500 bytes, but at 1501 bytes all hell breaks lose basically. This only happens with the league server, so I have to wonder why? Maybe it can offer some explanation to my lag/packet loss in-game?

You can see in the picture when i switch between a 1500 bytes large ICMP pkg and a 1501 bytes one.

   

[Velocity2k]

There shoudnt be any packets greater than 1500 Bytes. This is the MTU. And this should also happen on other servers, maybe test it again with other servers. If packets are greater they will be fragmented.

[eSVau]

The maximum of TCP packets is 1500 bytes!

[Velocity2k]

You should also have a look at the upper part of the screen. There you might see where the packet-loss happens. The first hops would be interesting too. You also have packet loss before the packets reach the destination.

For me there is no packet loss:

Code:

--- league.btanks.net ping statistics ---
1200 packets transmitted, 1200 received, 0% packet loss, time 600582ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 32.452/32.824/35.272/0.340 ms

I did 2 pings in one second over 10 minutes (with the maximum size of 1500 Byte). And also the ping variation is minimal.

EDIT:
Again pinged for half an hour:

Code:

--- league.btanks.net ping statistics ---
3600 packets transmitted, 3600 received, 0% packet loss, time 1802761ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 32.324/33.100/36.572/0.499 ms

[mynth]

You should also have a look at the upper part of the screen. There you might see where the packet-loss happens. The first hops would be interesting too. You also have packet loss before the packets reach the destination.

For me there is no packet loss:
--- league.btanks.net ping statistics ---
1200 packets transmitted, 1200 received, 0% packet loss, time 600582ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 32.452/32.824/35.272/0.340 ms

I did 2 pings in one second over 10 minutes (with the maximum size of 1500 Byte). And also the ping variation is minimal.

There's no problems with the hop's closer to my node. And I understand the basics of packet fragmentation and network layering etc.
Packet fragmentation however shouldn't be causing 80% loss imo, without there being some underlying problem with the server or with its neighboring routers.
As I said a simple unfragmented ping package stream is perfectly stable, but is that really the ultimate test?

Anyway your ping test offers nothing of interest really, without knowing what hops your packages are taking.

[Velocity2k]

My ping tests DO offer the information that not the server is causing the problem but your route to it.

My traceroute also shows i'm not using the hops where you experience the packet loss (but the ping test already suggested so).

[mynth]

My ping tests DO offer the information that not the server is causing the problem but your route to it.

My traceroute also shows i'm not using the hops where you experience the packet loss (but the ping test already suggested so).

And I guess improved international peering is too much to hope for anytime soon?

Here's some interdependent tests I did, if interested:

bt league server: (only passes basic ping)
http://www.broadbandreports.com/pingtest...5802?r=878
my connection:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/pingtest...5807?r=128

Too bad... I really enjoyed playing btanks daily, but I guess I'll have more time for other stuff now.

[gozo1985]

griffin and me also noticed some "minor" lags especially at the start of a map... but as we are same location in vienna we thought maybe it has something todo with our connection. sometimes the lag is gone on few minutes sometimes it takes a bit longer till the game runs lagfree. just some feedback from here.

[Velocity2k]

I think they have some problems in their backbone atm and i don't think this will be a permanent situation.

And I guess improved international peering is too much to hope for anytime soon?

The peering was fine in the past so i guess it will be fine again in the future (hopefully very soon).

[mynth]

Found a good work around with a help of a of a proxy server hosted by battleping in Germany, that changes my route to the bot just enough to avoid all the lossy routers.

For those interested it's the "Germany 2" proxy server that is free of loss... you need to install the client though. The software is a bit buggy, but connection type 2 seems to be working well for me.

http://battleping.com/

[Velocity2k]

Looks like the packet loss decreased. But it's still not completely fixed.