hey

i changed ISP a few weeks ago from Pipex, who were total crap and with whom LFS had stopped working online, to Plusnet

tried LFS again a few times this week, generally getting alot of lag with other cars seeming to jump around like mad, sometimes drops me and the server browser can show pings to servers as 30 one minute and 2800 the next

some servers seem better than others, from example the redline racing servers seem to run better than the CTA(i think)ones, but still arnt immune from this



is this the same packet shaping nonsence AGAIN? and is anyone else on plusnet whos currently having this, or has had it and fixed it?

i did a search but all the topics relating to plusnet are from at least 6 months ago, so i wasnt sure if they had fixed it and now this is my network or something

thanks

Quote from gishuk :

is this the same packet shaping nonsence AGAIN? and is anyone else on plusnet whos currently having this, or has had it and fixed it?

Most likely, yes. A year or so ago there was a lot of discussion on Plusnet. This thread is probably of most use to you, out of the lot of them:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showth ... 765&highlight=plusnet

I've not heard any news as to whether or not Plusnet have changed any of their policies recently, I'm afraid.

Quote from gishuk :

i changed ISP a few weeks ago from Pipex, who were total crap and with whom LFS had stopped working online, to Plusnet

Oh dear. I'm with Plusnet and things are not great. I've spent the last month trying to get them to sort things out. They made a temporary change and all was good, then thing's have taken a turn for the worse again.
I'm currently trying to get them to have another look at the problem.

At midnight it always becomes a lagfest for at least two hours.

Moving to Plusnet was a bad idea I'm afraid. (I cant change because I'm currently sharing my brothers connection and he doesn't want to change isp.) It's nothing but hassle for gamers.

If your in a monthly contract i would advise you to migrate to one of the Entanet resellers (ADSL24, UKFSN etc.)

oki ill try it again this evening and ill let you know if im still having problems

thanks

well it was great for about 20 minutes until a massive lag spike kicked me again

better but still not sorted imo

Its a complete pain in the arse.
I have notified Plusnet about loads of ports and IP's but it's still a total nightmare. Every server that has a different port needs Plusnet to approve it.
When you consider the amount of servers and ports that are used in LFS its an impossible job.

Every time i want to join a league i end up finding its running on a port not approved by Plusnet.

I opened a ticket on their support system on the 30th Dec to get the CTRA servers sorted. Over a month later and a temp fix when it worked for a couple of weeks, things still don't work and I'm back to square 1.

Ever since they introduced the traffic shaping gaming has been a complete nightmare. No matter what spin James puts on things, Plusnet is more hassle than its worth for gaming.
They may claim to want to help but they are completely inefficient at actually doing it.

Without wanting to be a paranoid dick, because I really don't, and I'd love to see this problem fixed for the afflicted, may I suggest handing across ticket numbers, rather than usernames at this point in time; in the very, very unlikely chance that Jameseh doesn't work for Plusnet and is fishing for details.

(You'd be surprised what you can get out of some ISPs with minimal details)

James works for Plusnet has done for years, and Metronet before that iirc (i spent a lot of time on Plusnets forums with the many problems I've had with them:razz He is one of the most helpful people there.

There you go James. Ticket number 23750954, the longest running ticket I've ever had.
Dave made temp changes a few weeks ago and LFS ran flawlessly 24/7, so its definitely down to your useless system.

I didn't try LFS yesterday evening, but just after midnight i fired it up and it was the same old after midnight story, pings in 3000 range and only about 10% of servers actually showing. Surely off peak is when we should expect the best performance?

As I understand it, "Off Peak" is when traffic management stops according to their site, so you have every bugger firing up the leeching software of their choice at midnight. The network gets clogged and you start to get high levels of packet loss which pretty much kill any chance of gaming.

Quote from Bean0 :

As I understand it, "Off Peak" is when traffic management stops according to their site, so you have every bugger firing up the leeching software of their choice at midnight. The network gets clogged and you start to get high levels of packet loss which pretty much kill any chance of gaming.

Oh abolutely. I'm fullly aware of what's going on mate I'm just proving that Plusnets traffic shaping doesn't work as intended. The highest priority traffic still fails to work properly. It's a rubbish system that can never cover all the ports needed for something like LFS. (or any game that doesn't run on one or two standard ports)
The fact they run on the absolute minimum capacity possible obviously doesn't help things. Profits over performance always leaves only one winner, and it isn't the customer.

I moved away from Pipex due to the same problems mentioned above with Plusnet and I moved to UKFSN (after a few recommendations from people on this forum).

Since I've been with them I've not had any packet loss or disconnects from any online games at any time of the day or night.

The way their traffic management system works is very clever, see here:
http://www.ukfsn.org/betterbroadband.html

It might cost more, but it's definately worth the extra money for a stable 24/7 connection.

Quote from mr_x :

The way their traffic management system works is very clever, see here:
http://www.ukfsn.org/betterbroadband.html

It might cost more, but it's definately worth the extra money for a stable 24/7 connection.

Firstly, it costs far less for what you get compared to Plusnet.

The Entanet traffic management solution is so much better and fairer, they also get more capacity online when its needed a hell of a lot quicker than Plusnet.

18 months/2 years ago i was told by Plusnet staff in their forums that Entanet's business model couldn't possibly carry on like it was
They look to be doing fine still and providing a quality service.

Quote from Jameseh :

Their network also appears to be fully saturated during most of the weekend, but that's another story!

I wouldn't say that at all, I've not once noticed dropped speeds in the 1 month I've been with them so far. But then again, I was used to ~2meg (90% of the time alot slower than that) Pipex.

Quote from Jameseh :

I haven't seen you around for awhile The Moose!

Hehe, to be honest i didn't have any issues with you for a long time. LFS was working perfectly and as it was the only thing i played at the time i was happy. Then i stopped gaming completely.

Several months later i come back to LFS and nKPro and it's the same old story.
Plusnet have some great people working for them, especially in Comms, but the slow and frustrating process of getting games to work really is such a huge pain in the arse that you cant be recommended to gamers at all.
When it does work it's great. The thing is, people want to play now, not in a months time.

Entanet's system may be fully saturated all weekend and i guess the people who want to be permanently downloading stuff at a gazillion KB/s may not be so happy, but Gamers don't seem to be having any problems, and that the perspective I'm looking at it from.

Cheers for the reply James. Daves made changes so I'll see how it goes tonight. What's this 'sponsored gamer' stuff all about then?

@gishuk I'd be interested to hear how it's working for you.

i havnt had a chance to play since my last post, i hope to be able to tommorow and will see how it goes

It's been perfect for me tonight. Even the usual midnight guaranteed lagfest didn't strike.

Hopefully this is a permanent solution this time.

For the sake of balance i will say that when Plusnet get their act together everything works fantastically, no complaints there.
Once they find a way to make the changes a lot quicker i think there will be a lot less critical posts like some of my earlier ones.

Thanks James for getting personally involved. You are a model of good customer support

raced a bit tonight, no lag, no disconnects, fantastic

hopefully it will stay this way but its perfect atm

and like moose said, cheers james, best customer support ive had from a ISP lol

Woah, this is Customer Support.!
you Rock!

Quote from gishuk :

best customer support ive had from a ISP lol

That's certainly one thing that Plusnet are very good at.

It's sometimes very frustrating the generic answers you get to support tickets, and i do end up having to rant a little to get some action ,but when you eventually get hold of the right people it's amazing what can happen.

I must say that the first time I've ever seen someone from an ISP join a forum to help out off their own back. Those Google alerts sound useful I'm very impressed with that, thanks James

Heh, Now your here can we intrest you in LFS

to Plusnet and James in particular Sysadming and support is a thankless job and you certainly deserve thanks

problem seems to have returned at the time of this post

fine for the last 30 mins, then started to lag, thought it was the server but all the servers are now pinging over 1000

I have the same problem as you guys. due to plusnet's system, my server list shows around half the servers with normal pings and the other half (the servers i want to actually use) with pings of 3000+

It's infuriating, my friends are there but I can't race with them.

I've been with plusnet for 6+ years. This officially sucks. I don't want to fanny about with wireshark captures or tracking down vague numbers from every server, i just want it fixed, because I pay so much for a freakin premier package that isn't premier.

edit: switching ISP now. It's tricky to get a migration code out of them. You can be as polite as pie and they still sounded downright offended at such a request. They're simply not the same ISP that I signed up to.