Showing posts with label Network Issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Network Issues. Show all posts

Saturday, November 20, 2010

PSU Network Lag, Now and Forever

After several weeks of no updates, things might be temporarily looking up again on the US/EU PSU servers. Friday's maintenance period kicked off another GBR -- this time on the Guardians' Colony -- and added the autumn lobbies. Plus, with the Absolute Zero event looming on the horizon, there's some hope that players might be able to stay occupied through the holiday season.

However, it's not Sega's style to hold events without some kind of huge server issue, and it looks like we have the potential for another one here. For the last month, players have been reporting irritating lag spikes that have dropped whole universes in some cases.

Things were so bad last weekend that there were actually prolonged server outages. Compensation is planned but so far nothing has been announced.

Call me crazy, but I don't think it's too much to ask to be able to play a cooperative online game without fear of being randomly disconnected or dropped from the server "just because". PSU GMs have apparently been making an effort to pinpoint the problem by surveying users, but it's been almost a month now and very little has changed.

Periodic network outages and connection drops are nothing new, either. PSO: Blue Burst players will remember the infamous 906 errors that occurred for months leading up to the shutdown of those servers.

The bottom line is that Sega should be doing more to ensure that players don't leave the game because of annoying network problems. The upcoming event will bring idle players back, but only if Sega can get things in order before then.

Monday, July 27, 2009

The Return of Error 65?

PSU PC/PS2 subscribers that had been looking to play this weekend were greeted by an Error 60 message at login for much of the time.

Now that it's Monday and everyone is back to work, Sega seems to be making progress in solving the problem: fewer players in this thread on the official forums are reporting the error message.

However, an old problem seems to be returning for some PC/PS2 players. The dreaded Error 65 message is now appearing for players whose subscriptions should have been recently renewed. Sega has acknowledged as much, and is apparently trying to fix the issue.

Compensation for the current network problems, if any, will be announced at a later date.

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse...

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Error 60 Disaster

Earlier in the month, PC/PS2 players attempting to log in and play were being hit occasionally with Error 60 messages. A few days later, Sega employees reported that the problems had been fixed. However, those fixes seem to have been short-lived, because Error 60 is back and worse than ever.

Players on the official forums are reporting constant Error 60 issues when trying to log in. As of this posting, the thread has logged more than 880 replies in just 4 days.

Not surprisingly, the thread (and the forums in general) has been devoid of any official communication from Sega regarding the issue. GM Edward posted a message on Friday saying the problem was being investigated, but there hasn't been any news since then.

In the meantime, the only way to play is to log in during the short period of time that the authentication server is online. Obviously, nobody knows when this will happen, so logging in will probably require a bit of luck.

Personally, I can't believe that this has gone on as long as it has already. It's always so nice to see our monthly subscription fees put to good use. I was forgiving of Sega during the first incident, but this is ridiculous. It's inexcusable that paying players are denied access to the game because of Sega's inability to maintain their own servers. If this goes on much longer, one can only imagine how many players will remain once the login problem is fixed.

Maybe I'll just keep my mouth shut the next time somebody writes a scathing review of PSU.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Server Problems Fixed?

Last week we mentioned that the PSU servers were experiencing bursts of extreme lag, causing players to periodically disconnect from the game. Those problems continued to frustrate players on both the PC/PS2 and Xbox 360 servers through much of this past week.

The lag got so bad that many players took to the forums to vent. Several threads have popped up over the last 24 hours, in which players complained about the server lag that didn't seem to be going away.

Now, Sega employee and PSU GM RubyEclipse is announcing that the server problems may have been fixed. Network engineers apparently identified the source of the issue and managed to correct the problem. This is good news, obviously -- it's been damn near impossible to play the game over parts of the last few days. Hopefully this will put an end to the server problems, at least until the next event rolls around.

Friday, July 3, 2009

More Server Problems

Server problems have become a staple of PSU's in-game events. The last event, Shred the Darkness, was plagued initially with a room server error. During the Winter Mission Carnival, the game's authentication servers went down twice, preventing players from accessing the game. And of course, we couldn't forget the infamous Error 65 that cut down PC/PS2 players during MAG.

The latest server problem is actually two separate issues. Players attempting to log in on the PC/PS2 servers are occasionally seeing Error 60 messages, indicating that the game authentication servers are having some problems. And players on all of the servers are reporting unbearable lag and Error 57 disconnections. These problems come on the first day of the game's "summer event", a localized version of the Japanese Second Anniversary Thanks Festa.

Sega network engineers are apparently looking into the problem. I understand that hardware failures are not necessarily Sega's fault, but still -- is it too much to ask to have at least one event free from network problems?

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Error 53?!

The game servers must not like these in-game events very much.

You may recall that during Maximum Attack G, the last "major" event on the US/EU PSU servers, PC/PS2 players were hit with Error 65, a billing problem that prevented people from logging into the game.

The latest numerical error to hit the PC/PS2 servers is Error 53, which occurs when players attempt to access their rooms. The error message attributes the problem to "high network volume" and even forces some players to shut down their games from the Windows Task Manager (on PC).

The game is still playable, but this latest issue could turn into a major nuisance since everyone obviously uses their rooms to store weapons, armor, and other important equipment. Sega has not yet acknowledged the problem on the official forums, though there is a thread available there for players to rant.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Servers Up; Game Still Unplayable (Updated)

As mentioned in the previous blog post, PSU game servers are suffering from the aftermath of a fiber optic cable cut in San Jose, CA that occurred early this morning.

Servers were down until about 5:00 PM EDT. Access to the game has been restored, but the game servers are now experiencing extremely high latency issues. This means that attempts to log into or play the game will likely be processed very slowly, so the game will probably be difficult to play even if your Internet connection is working properly.

Obviously, this can't be blamed on Sega. AT&T hasn't really fixed the problem yet; they're currently just rerouting traffic around the cut line. This puts more stress on the entire system, which means that Sega's normally reliable ISP is probably having some trouble handling the user load with reduced bandwidth.

I'm sure some stupid players will still try to pin this on Sega, though. For those people, I'd like to offer a suggestion: try doing something else for awhile. Go outside, do something else on your computer, play another game, etc. This is not the end of the world.

The lag and intermittent outages will probably continue for the next few hours, or at least until AT&T gets the cut lines back up and running again. Just be patient!

UPDATE: Players have reported that the lag has stopped, though connections to the patch and game servers are still being dropped periodically. Poor network conditions will probably persist for at least one more day as Internet traffic in the incident area continues to be rerouted.

PSU Problems Thanks To Cable Cut (Updated)

A fiber optic cable cut in San Jose is causing some problems for PSU players this afternoon.

For several hours this morning and afternoon, some of Sega of America's Web sites and services were down, apparently as a result of the severed cable. Access to most of these sites appears to have been restored as of about 2:30 PM EDT.

However, all US/EU PSU authentication and game servers are still down due to a hardware issue. It's not clear whether or not this problem is related to the cable issue.

AT&T, the owner of the fiber optic cable, says that it is actively working to restore service to phone and Internet users in the area. San Jose police are investigating the incident as a possible case of vandalism due to the location of the cables.

UPDATE: Access to the game servers has been restored.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Authentication Servers Down Again (Updated)

For the third time in two weeks, the game's authentication and login servers are down. Attempts to access the game servers are resulting in the familiar "Error 60" message.

This issue was first reported on the official forums at about 3:30 PM Eastern time, and has not yet been fixed. Sega has not provided any information on the cause of the downtime.

You'd think that at some point somebody at Sega would try to come up with a permanent fix for this problem. People do pay to play this game, so these kinds of mid-afternoon outages really are unacceptable.

UPDATE: Access to the servers was restored around 7:30 PM Eastern, four hours after the problem was initially reported. Do I really have to say what I think about that?

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Auth. Server Outage (Updated)

According to this announcement posted on the official PSU site, the PC/PS2 authentication servers are currently offline. Players attempting to log in are receiving Error 60 messages.

Apparently this outage started at about 1:30 PM Eastern time. No word yet on when access to the servers will be restored.

So how many more times is this going to occur before Sega finally decides to permanently fix the issue? It's not like this is the first (or second, or third) time that this has happened...

UPDATE: The servers are back online as of 7:00 PM Eastern.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Stage 7 Bug

Continuing with our latest theme of update screw-ups, a new and more ridiculous bug has cropped up in one of the bonus stages in the Winter Mission Carnival.

According to posts in this thread on the official PSU forums, many players' games are either crashing or freezing during Stage 7 of World of Illusion: Alpha. Sega has not said much at this point other than that they are looking into the issue.

I haven't tried the mission yet, but I do have this to say: Does anyone at Sega actually test things on the servers before they go live? Testing probably could have identified the Stage 7 glitch, and it probably could have fixed the disappearing mission glitch that came up yesterday afternoon.

Because the maintenance periods are so late in the evening, I bet that Sega of America employees skip extensive testing so they can get some sleep. This is absolutely no excuse, though. Some level of detailed testing is always necessary. Just because it worked on the test server doesn't mean it automatically works on the live servers. Putting out buggy content doesn't do much for customers, either (especially in this case since the last event we had was MAG and we all know how well that turned out).

For now, I imagine that it would be a good idea to just continue collecting Event Tickets. It's not worth anyone's time or effort to spend tickets on a mission that is randomly impossible to complete. Fix it, Sega!

Friday, January 23, 2009

Colony Free Mission Bug

Just when you thought Sega finally managed to pull off an update correctly, we have a new issue courtesy of this thread on the official PSU forums.

Many of the free missions on the Guardians' Colony, the HIVE, and Rykros are currently not appearing on Universe 1 (Leo) and Universe 2 (Caelum). On PC, selecting a free mission that does show up causes the game to crash to the desktop.

If that wasn't enough, there are a few reports that the Colony rare mission is randomly appearing at some of the bugged counters. Selecting it also causes the game to crash. This rare mission has not yet been released nor was it announced for the past update, so it's safe to say that this was probably an oversight.

Similar problems have occurred with other missions in the past, and they were fixed by taking the servers down for a little while. The same thing will probably happen here, so a rollback is not likely. I imagine that the only reason it was not noticed sooner is that everyone is busy with the Mission Carnival.

UPDATE: Sega apparently is aware of the problem, but is choosing not to deal with it at the moment due to a Carnival-related bug which occasionally freezes the game at Stage 7 of the bonus mission.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Rare Mission Notification Not Working

PSU GM Edward has confirmed that the rare mission notification feature supposedly included in Wednesday's patch is not working properly.

Sonic Team is apparently aware of the issue, but there's no information given on when or how the bug will be fixed. In the meantime, players will have to continue checking for rare missions the old-fashioned way.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Tuesday Maintenance Scheduled (Updated)

According to this post on the official PSU message boards, an additional maintenance has been scheduled for next week.

The servers will be taken down at 2 AM Eastern Time on Tuesday morning. It's not known at this point whether or not new content will appear after this maintenance -- no details are available yet.

In addition to this new Tuesday maintenance, it was announced earlier this week that the regular Friday maintenance period will begin three hours early, at 11 PM Eastern Time Thursday.

Stay tuned for more information.

UPDATE 1/19/08: This server downtime has been cancelled. Maintenance that was to be done tonight will now be part of Friday morning's regularly scheduled maintenance.

In another post, however, GM RubyEclipse seems to be hinting at a maintenance period scheduled for 1 AM Eastern on Wednesday morning. We'll attempt to sort out the details when more information is available.

UPDATE 2: See this post.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Xbox 360 Servers Rolled Back

Sega has responded to the latest maintenance glitch with a rollback.

At about 5:10 PM EST, Sega took down the Xbox 360 servers for emergency maintenance involving the latest room-corrupting glitch. Access to the servers was restored around 6:00 PM EST, and posters in this thread on the official PSU forums are reporting that their character data have been rolled back to last night, right before maintenance began.

PC/PS2 servers were not affected by the glitch and will not be rolled back.

Comments on the rollback from the Sega of America GM team are posted here.

More Maintenance Glitches: Rollback Imminent?

If you haven't logged onto PSU yet after this morning's maintenance, you may want to sit tight.

According to this thread on the official PSU forums, some players on the Xbox 360 servers are currently experiencing room glitches. These include the loss of items and meseta as well as room appearance and bulletin board bugs.

There's no word right now on whether or not the glitch is affecting the PC/PS2 servers. At any rate, it's probably a good idea to avoid playing for the moment until Sega provides more information on the issue.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Rollback Compensation?

It looks like the character-destroying glitch that occurred at the end of the past weekend's downtime was more serious than originally believed.

At approximately 11:00 PM EST Sunday evening, the Xbox 360 PSU servers were taken down for maintenance after players reported their characters and equipment gone. Unfortunately, Xbox 360 players got the short end of the stick here: not only did their maintenance last for a full six hours, server data was rolled all the way back to Friday morning, meaning that two days' worth of gameplay was lost.

By comparison, PC/PS2 server maintenance lasted only one hour, and servers were rolled back to Saturday evening's backup. PC/PS2 players lost approximately one hour of gameplay.

Now players on all of the servers are looking for compensation, and according to GM Edward, Sega of America may be willing to provide it:

We will be using what we cull from this thread to help fuel our discussion with Sonic Team on ways to compensate all players for this.

We will be posting something more official in a little bit regarding what happened & what we'd like to do. We'll be repeating there what I'm going to say here -- 3* luck will NOT be the only compensation awarded. That was something immediate & easy to do, so we did it.

Considering the fact that the PC/PS2 rollback was almost a complete non-issue, any compensation we get is just a bonus. I'll be eagerly awaiting this announcement!

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Downtime Ends With Rollback

Here's a shock: Sega of America's building power maintenance downtime has ended with a major glitch.

According to Sega GM RubyEclipse, the PC/PS2 game servers came back online at approximately 7:15 PM EST this evening. Soon after, players on a popular PSU fansite began reporting that their rooms had been completely reset, destroying PMs and equipment in the process.

Sega must have been informed of the problem, and at 8:15 PM EST the PC/PS2 servers were down again for maintenance. Let's hope things are sorted out quickly, because this is the kind of glitch that makes players quit forever.

Stay tuned for more updates.

UPDATE: According to Sega, the maintenance and rollback was completed as of 9:30 PM EST.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Servers Down This Weekend

According to Sega of Japan's Xbox 360 site (untranslated), the PSU game servers will be down this weekend for a "server relocation" project.

Maintenance will begin at 8:00 PM EST on Saturday 12/6, at which time players will be kicked from the game. The announcement says the work could run for a full 24 hours. The details are few at this point, but I expect that the Sega of America people will probably give some notice before the end of the week.

In the meantime, still waiting on the maintenance announcement for Friday...

UPDATE: This announcement on the official PSU forums states that the downtime will be for the electrical work at Sega of America headquarters that had been postponed way back in October.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Acknowledgment, Some Action

After days of endless criticism and complaint on the official PSU forums, Sega of America has acknowledged that the lack of update content in recent weeks might be a problem.

In this thread, Sega employee and occasionally-GM Clumsyorchid has asked players for feedback on what kinds of content they'd like to see in upcoming weeks. Personally, I'm just holding out for any significant content update at all - I really don't care what kind of content it is.

In related news, there's still no word this Wednesday on whether or not the game will see a content update this week, though Sega of Japan's PSU site for XBox 360 was updated today with an announcement (untranslated) for Wednesday 11/26. It appears to be information about a server maintenance next week, but the details are vague at this point. Stay tuned.