I get timeouts and memory stash errors alot on full grid servers. I have no idea what it can be. I feel like i have tried everything

I have tried
- removed all Telephones.
- Bought new filters.
- Tried different Ethernet cables.
- Trying all different modem/windows settings.
- Bought brand new Billion Modem 7300G RA.
- Tried Windows XP, XP Pro, Vista, Windows 7.
- Bought new TP-Link Network card.
- Ran Memtest all is fine.

Computer Specs
1.5mb ADSL Internet
Intel Core 2 Duo e6600
Gigabyte 965 S3
Ati HD 4800
Harddrive 160gb - (60gb free atm)
2Gb Ram
Billion Modem 7300G RA
TP-Link Network Card

Im really desperate to fix this problem, and not spend and more money than i already have

Hope you can help thanks guys!

test your power supply? how long did you run the memory test for? (some people run it for one loop and think all is well)

The Out Of Stash Space message is to do with someone elses lag, if that's what you mean...

Quote from Scawen :

The MP Replay stash space message is not really related. It's just another symptom of the lagging and causes the replay to have a slight gap in it.

The thing is, at least one player is lagging (still connected - in theory - but no packets are arriving at the host or anyone else). So your MPR saving system can't save to file, because it is waiting to process the game turn that is relying on the packets that haven't yet arrived. The time-out is quite long so eventually there are too many pospackets to keep in memory (actually I could increase that buffer size). And that's when the stash space message comes up.

Then finally the player who hasn't sent any packets to the host for a long time, gets kicked so the game can continue. It should say that X timed out, I think. At that point you don't have to wait for his game packets any more and the MPR can continue to be saved to file, and that's when you get the stash space recovered message.

The only thing a bit mysterious about what you are saying is that two people disconnect. Really, only one person should disconnect - the one who was lagging for some reason. You should have seen his network connection bar stay at the bottom while everyone else's bars rose for a while. Please keep an eye on that.

Turning off replay recording altogether may help.

Quote from SilverArrows77 :

Hmm doesnt sound good at all mate.

You say you have tried different ethernet cables, but have you tried a different phone cable from the wall socket to the modem too? I had a dodgey one once that caused me problems and as soon as i replaced it, all my problems were fixed. Thats just a hopeful "easy" suggestion, but really i have no idea.

Who is your ISP, Bigpond? and does it happen with any other games, or while surfing net in general, or just in the large grid servers as you mentioned?

Thanks for the reply guys..
I have tried different phone cables as well with one that came with the new modem.
My ISP is aanet, it will sometimes say "page could not be found" roughly once every 20 pages i try load. i hit refresh and it loads fine..

Tried emailing aanet twice still no reply,,

Happened during Kyoto 250 for me... How frustating !

I spoke to my ISP today they said something like they are investigating the problem and they thinking its a problem with there Peer 2 Peer shaping software would this make sense?

aaNets Peer 2 Peer shaping software they said.

Definitely got nothing running in the background.
My connection tonight was fine.. no timeouts a little laggy at times though i nearly timed out once though red bar was raising but lucky it fixed its self.

i never timeout from aussie servers, only euro servers with 20+ cars

Yes i thought that as well mate,
but Ducky uses the same ISP and same plan 1500kb ADSL.
He very very rarely lags out of a big server.

I guess they detect lfs traffic as p2p traffic, the default lfs server port is pretty high (40000 something) and most of the torrent stuff also runs over these ports. Best bet would be to keep complaining and hope they completely get rid of the traffic shaping or find a solution to identify lfs' traffic.

OK, well I am with Primus on a 1500/256K plan. I am in Hobart to. So I already got a 49mS ping to Sydney and then a 330mS further to get to UK servers.

So most of UK servers are around 375mS ping for me and pretty much I can get flawless connection everyday, anytime. I might get 1 time out every day in a 6 hour session, but it is so rare it is irrelevant. Usually it's the game server playing up when I got issues. Of course, sometimes things get a bit hairy and it goes a bit wobbley, but 99% of the time it's awesome for the distance I am covering.

You're getting memory stash errors from lack of packets comming through to your PC. I NEVER get this STASH ERROR now I have a proper PC. I used to get that issue when I only had 300MB free Hard Disk space on a 6GB drive, so that was fault on my end. I don't think you should accept that the servers are too far away. I got no problems coneecting to the UK servers and staying conencted and I am in Tassie which has the worst internet connection flexibility due to the bottle neck across the Bass Straight link.

I think you're getting shapped on your data if your problem is so consistant. Can you get borrow a mates PC and router to test out LFS at your house on your line?

Maybe you got water in your phone lines. Does your phone conversations sound kinda scratchy or noisy and especially worse after it rains?

Quote from troy :

I guess they detect lfs traffic as p2p traffic, the default lfs server port is pretty high (40000 something) and most of the torrent stuff also runs over these ports. Best bet would be to keep complaining and hope they completely get rid of the traffic shaping or find a solution to identify lfs' traffic.

Get rid of the shaping? Bah they are in the business of making money not making people happy. Would be nice if they allowed the LFS ports to open... who knows if they would come to that party.

Hopefuly you're not on a contract and you can swap to a more customer friendly ISP. I hear internode is good for gamers and cater to that crowd.