A problem since 2014 when I began playing the stress test Beta

Balorah

I was originally a paid subscriber and then have had to spend money elsewhere. During this period I am allowed to play for one hour and a few minutes. I can relogon after being dropped though occasionally it takes multiple attempts. I have assumed all along that this time period limit was due to my having had to drop my subscription and originally to my participation in the Beta, though I know the Beta was only distantly related to the game release. I have finally been able to resubscribe. The one hour limit is still in place and I am asking if it can be removed? I have looked through the files in the game's directory and haven't found an obviously relevant line item. Can you folks help?

Betheny

You're not on a timer, you seem to be having connection problems. Try messing around with permissions like in your firewall and antivirus, open ports if you have to, and look sideways at your ISP if all else fails.

Balorah

I would be interested in some guidance from the ISP point of view. When I am dropped from active play I am dropped to the sign in page where name and password are applied. Is that not still a portion of the active game? I have never been dropped back to the launch program.

Betheny

The login server (sign in page/character select) is a different IP address to the zone map server you are placed on. You're getting dropped from that zone server each time.

Balorah

I just combed through the settings for my router, though the computer I play on now is a direct connection. The ISP provider is Frontier. The Actonic router and software controls have no limits upon usage and firewall is set to medium which applies control to inbound. No way to access the information that is involved in that control. So, you are pointing to something actively disconnecting a specific IP address after one hour. Norton controls my firewall and I have added ESO as a preferred program. Do you know of further detail I need? This is a win 7 ultimate operating system and though I played on a laptop for quite a while the same problems have persisted continuously, without change and the operating system has always been Win 7 with Norton in control of the firewall.. I will dig into Norton to see if I can locate any mention of ip addresses. If you know them don't hesitate to tell please.

Betheny

I'd try turning off Norton for long enough to test running the game for over an hour (your usual cutoff point) just to see if it actually is a firewall/antivirus issue, then go from there.

Balorah

K tomorrow...I will be back and thank you for your time and thought.

Balorah

Well, does not look as though Norton is the culprit. There are three controls to turn off and on, fire wall, auto protect and silent model, and no combination of them off or on made any difference in the hour time limit. Both ESO 32 and ESO 64 are enabled as trusted programs. Do you have any further ideas please?

Betheny

You could try opening ports in your router, if that doesn't work then you might need to talk to your ISP. You sure you don't have something else running that might interfere with your internet?

Also try actually turning the process for Norton off, rather than allowing it to keep running in some form, just in case a "silent" scan is disconnecting you.

Balorah

I find that I have over 100 TEREDO UDP ports and one TCP port tied to my ISP address. I am not comfortable trying to modify them, do still you want me to add another UDP or TCP port?
Only way to turn Norton off is to uninstall it. Those three switches I tested are the only controls available. However, this problem has remained over two computers, three Win 7 operating systems and 3 years of Norton and no other long term internet connection seems to be affected. 2 hours of facebook, which is an hour and a half more than I can stand, does not provoke anything other than myself and those whom I find I must respond to.

Betheny

Here's the ports that you could try - link

The ones for PC below:

TCP / UDP Ports 24100 through 24131
TCP / UDP Ports 24500 through 24507
TCP / UDP Ports 24300 through 24331
TCP Port 80
TCP Port 433

If that doesn't help and you don't want to temporarily uninstall Norton in case that's the issue, maybe the problem is the ISP you're with.

ESO connections seem to be easily shaken, things like facebook won't show any connection issues that something like ESO does. ESO seems to be ready to boot us off the server at the slightest sneeze.

Thorvarg

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/239130/crashing-to-desktop-have-a-g502-mouse#latest

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/337655/constant-disconects#latest

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/312939/lag-random-disconnects-fixed-pc-na#latest

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/334347/crash-to-login-no-error-comes-in-mysterious-waves-solved#latest

Conclusion: If possible, disable IPv6 on the Router and/or delete ShadowCache.cooked in your Documents Folder.

Balorah

You two are awesome. Thank you. Off to batter away at my ignorance.

Balorah

Progress of an odd vector sort. I added all of the ports you specd. Fps basically doubled and latency hangs around 100. Even during the light storm that is a mass attack on the premier spriggen doleman, fps stays above 70. Much smoother game play indeed, but now only for 1/2 hour. Which I find weird and inexplicable.

I did investigate the mouse issue and the IPV4 issue. My modem will not do IPV6. I changed from an IR connected logitech trackball to an microsoft usb mouse without affecting anything. Besides I don't seem to have the issues those other folks were experiancing, once I learned long ago to update my launcher for every patch.

So some nice steps forward, thank you again. I will contact my ISP and inquire about a new modem and any hidden timeout issues they have built in. I will also contact Norton before I dump it and rely on microsoft's firewall, until I can reactivate Norton, which is neither straight forward nor in any way intuitive.

Balorah

Frontier, my ISP, can find no reason for the drop outs. My plan does not have any data limits. They are sending a new router however in hopes that will eliminate the problem. Of course I didn't actually talk to a technician.

Rhoric

It's possible that your computer is over heating. What are your computer specs and what is the setting you have set for your graphics in game.

Balorah

Running too hot was definitely a problem for the lap top I used for two years. The current machine is not having that problem, 11 Nocturna fans in the case, 1200 watt power supply seeing 900 watt peaks, AMD 8350 FX 8 core with large heat sink and two fans stays under 50C even at peak use, two recent Nvidia GTX 970 video cards in SLI , 16 gig Kingston Hyperex memory, Seagate 1 TB lap top size HD and a .8 TB SS drive for programs, all run off an an Asus 990 FX MB. Unfortunately nothing changed, other than that the hour I get to play is quite a bit more fun. I actually thought everyone had to deal with this if they were not tithing and that it would be an easily solved situation. Just my usual insular idiocy at play here.

Balorah

Oh and the graphic settings are one step back from maximum because I cannot deal with all of that detail, though the machine doesn't appear to be stressed when running fully detailed, anti aliased, full shadow, water and distance resolution.

Betheny

Still watching thread btw hoping to see a miracle fix, hopefully the new router will sort it out.

Balorah

Well, I just got a call from Frontier telling me that another router was not going to happen. They apparently have done all of their tests and are certain their service is not the issue. I did query about my service having a hidden total data over time limit and because of the tech woman's redirection from that question to one of "was my ethernet cable too long", causes me to think that may be the issue. The router speed test shows an interesting variability in download speed, from 17 to 33 mb/s but the upload speed is very constant at 6 to 6.3 mb/s. So, I will just have to put a chew toy in my mouth to protect my teeth from grinding and remember to warn any groups I am in to expect me to disappear unexpectedly. The actual reason I know so little about group dungeons and surface bosses is because of my reluctance to saddle others with this demented problem. But hey, I am special, one of a kind, right? Sigh

Thank you for your concern Betheny, you are a jewel.

Betheny

Any chance you could change your internet provider and/or change your router yourself?

It's possible they are routing you badly also, so that you have to go through some kind of weak spot on the internet to get to ZOS servers.

Balorah

And the saga continues. I just dropped $15 on WOW for a month. Signed on, revived my characters and spent 5 hours in the game without any hint of a drop out. I have no idea how data depth compares between the two games but frame rates were consistent with what I get on ESO.

Darlgon

Sillly suggestion.

You have totally uninstalled the game? Then....
Deleted all files from C:\Program Files (x86) \ Zenimax Online\ (All files and folders here) , since their uninstaller wont.
Deleted all files at Documents\ElderscrollsOnline\(All files and folders here)
Rebooted

Then reinstalled?

Oh, and.. before you do all that, do you know if your desktop is 32-bit or 64-bit? When you hit your launcher, click the gear at top right before login and make sure it is check if 64-bit and not checked if 32-bit...

MissBizz

Darlgon wrote: »

Sillly suggestion.

You have totally uninstalled the game? Then....
Deleted all files from C:\Program Files (x86) \ Zenimax Online\ (All files and folders here) , since their uninstaller wont.
Deleted all files at Documents\ElderscrollsOnline\(All files and folders here)
Rebooted

Then reinstalled?

Oh, and.. before you do all that, do you know if your desktop is 32-bit or 64-bit? When you hit your launcher, click the gear at top right before login and make sure it is check if 64-bit and not checked if 32-bit...

I wouldn't recommend reinstalling today. Some people are having issues downloading the game so may want to wait until that is sorted out.

Balorah

Thank you Darlgon, a pertinent point. Does a fresh install on a new machine and an upgrade in operating system stamina with Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit count? So, if the installer made the correct choice on it's own do you know if there is a record of that bit depth choice?
The previous install was in a lap top and it was just able to support the lowest data rate choices for detail in graphics in ESO. The overall behavior has not changed, aside from a doubling of frame rate and that with max detail on for all surfaces. Both have been downloads set up as an installation from ZOS. The time interval between program shut down has shortened from an hour to 45 minutes, plus or minus a bunch. I did make the additions of ports Betheny suggested and the doubled frame rate came from that change, not a new install.

Balorah

Thanks MissBizz. Not to worry I have no intention of uninstalling now or likely soon.
I may be able to obtain and hook up a non Frontier sponsored router, but I am not holding my breath for different results.

Balorah

And so....time passes and suddenly, the very day the Black Wood land opened, in fact within moments of that I opened my first EU server account. Three hours of uninterrupted play later I switched to my NA account and 3 hours after that I closed down. No other changes from ISP, or my system, or pings, or speed in game, or routers ..... just the opening of Black Wood and an EU server account. Of course, there is a price to pay. My chat on the NA server became completely inactive. I can type a message and when I go to mount it, nothing. P chat allows one of my toons to contact my guild, but not the 10 others. Naturally the EU server has no problems with chat.....sigh.

Icy_Nelyan

Try to set your modem/router IP as static and not Dynamic, dynamics IP aren't handled very well for ESO; of your modem Is connected to a router and your router generate a new connection over the One you are using Is adviceable to set the router IP as static like on your modem.

You can find that option easly inside your modem/router IP configurations (every modem/router has a different Place for this option, but usually Is under IP general configurations of your modem/router).

I had many many problems in the past about crashes, did everything and finally thanks to an ESO log file sent to some ESO support staff he told me to set IP to static on my modem and puff, no more crashes.

Hopefully this Will help You and everyone with frequent crashes.

PS: static IP Is awesome but in crowded living places (like city center) Is really really hard to have a stable connection with static IP (this means that You Will continue to be online but you could suffer paket loss from time to time for some seconds before returning to a stable connection), a fix to this Is to contacting YouR ISP to provide You a unique IP and this Will solve all your internet problems from now to Forever, but they are not so inclined to give unique IP.

ZOS_Bill

As this discussion is nearly four years old we've decided to close the thread. For anyone running into similiar issues in ESO, please go ahead and start a new thread for assistance.