Improve client reconnecting after connection drop

[Zilvador]

I've got a very unstable internet connection and get a lot of connection drops during the day in the game client. The connection usually takes a few minutes to come back. Sometimes the client realizes this and gives me the option to reconnect. Unfortunately mostly it doesn't. It freezes and I've tried leaving it there for nearly an hour both while clicking and typing regularly (attempting to send commands to the server) and while keeping still within the game. This usually ends up in quitting the client and restarting manually.

 

I was wondering if it would be possible to implement better recognition for a missing connection offering the opportunity to reconnect more often without restarting the client, either by creating a command for resynchronizing with the server (and detect missing connection) or maybe an automated feature elaborating the one already implemented.

[dipi]

I vote a YES for this suggest. I dont have too many connection drops, but when i got one, its really annoying to wait until the server recognice that the connection had fall.

 

 

Dipi

[bigkav]

Yea ditto, same thing has happened to me before when i was forced to use wireless or my Ethernet cord was knocked out of the router(damn clumsy family). It's not such a big hassle to re-start a client but I personally like to set goals in time frames(see how much exp I can get in such time frame) etc etc.

[Zilvador]

Yes, that's another thing....the counters.

 

And it does get a bit aggravating when you have to restart the client four times an hour at times

[bluap]

I don't understand this problem. My machine clearly behaves differently. I don't loose my connection often, but I if disconnect the network, obviously commands stop working. If I reconnect the network, one of two things happen. 1) If it has been longer than the 20-30 seconds of the server heartbeat, I get the "Disconnected from server" message and a key-press will reconnect me immediately. 2) If the disconnect has been less than the server heartbeat, the client just continues uninterrupted. This is on Linux BTW.

 

Weird you folks get different behaviour.

[Aislinn]

I have windows xp and ubuntu (2 different laptops) and both have the same behavior as bluap describes.

[bluap]

I wonder if the behaviour is different, if on network reconnection, the machine has a different IP address. That would be very difficult for me to test however. Even if I could take my entire home network down (would not be popular with the rest of the family), I would very likely get the same IP back. I guess I could initially connect from home and try to reconnect from someone else's network......

[Learner]

Some disconnects that the client/server have problems detecting is if the connection is broken in one direction only. I've seen my client freeze totally, and never time out, or I can't do anything, and then eventually I get my own grue message and get disconnected.

[Aislinn]

I wonder if the behaviour is different, if on network reconnection, the machine has a different IP address. That would be very difficult for me to test however. Even if I could take my entire home network down (would not be popular with the rest of the family), I would very likely get the same IP back. I guess I could initially connect from home and try to reconnect from someone else's network......

Zilvador: dynamic IP

dipi: dynamic IP

bigkav: dymanic until about 2 weeks or so ago)

Aislinn: static IP

bluap: static IP(did see it change once)

[Zilvador]

Very dynamic even. It could be related to the router problem I have. It has a bad tendency of resetting the connection (and thereby the IP addresses) every now and then :S

 

Thank you for the explanation. Now at least I have something to blame.

[groomsh]

Maybe this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/283375/...ient-disconnect coded on client side could probably help ?

Check the last reply in comments. I think it could be used in this scenario...