Booted offline for farming

DrinkingKoolaid

So recently I have been facing this issue where whenever I collect resources around the Tamerial, it would just automatically boot me offline. I understand there are bots out there botting/farming resources. For me, I am legitimately farming resources, going around on a mount mining ore, cutting down ruby ash wood. Next thing you know I get booted offline. I can only farm for about 30 seconds sometimes less, and it kicks me offline. So I thought it was my internet issue so I logged back in for the 5th time and started doing Dungeons and Trials for about 45 minutes, and it went smoothly. Went back to farm some resources to collect some materials, boom goes offline.

Is this something that is supposed to happen? Is there a rule that says a character can only have x amount of materials per day otherwise go offline? I've told my guild about this and they said they have no problem for them, perhaps it's just on my account? I thought it was my add-ons, so I disabled my add-ons and it STILL does it. I've already submit a ticket about this, and explaining in details what happened. Later I get the auto "no-reply" saying that they will look forward to it and they said they won't respond back to my ticket.

Is there anything I can do to fix this? If someone knows how to fix this let me know, you'll make my day. Sooner or later I will run out of materials and it will be a disaster. Thanks.

redspecter23

It doesn't seem like this is a system response to over farming. You're not even farming that much. Certainly, they would give you longer than 30 seconds. It sounds like some sort of connection issue that just happens to have only happened while farming so far. Check your internet cable and all connections to make sure nothing is loose, restart your router and your computer and keep an eye on your connection while doing other things such as watching videos or loading web pages to see if you're disconnecting at any other times.

DrinkingKoolaid

redspecter23 wrote: »

It doesn't seem like this is a system response to over farming. You're not even farming that much. Certainly, they would give you longer than 30 seconds. It sounds like some sort of connection issue that just happens to have only happened while farming so far. Check your internet cable and all connections to make sure nothing is loose, restart your router and your computer and keep an eye on your connection while doing other things such as watching videos or loading web pages to see if you're disconnecting at any other times.

I will certainly try that and let you know.

Elsonso

If this is happening like you say it is, I doubt that it is because ZOS does not want you farming.

First, I don't think ZOS would have a system that responds to bot farming by booting offline within 30 seconds.

So, what does "boot offline" mean to you? What is happening? Back to character select? Back to login? Back to desktop?

I am going to assume the last one. I would try a Repair. There might be a bad asset on your local copy of the game and when it tries to load it, it kicks you offline.

Nightfall12

What platform and are you running any addons....?

DrinkingKoolaid

Platform PC. boot offline meaning it kicks you out of the server. Takes me back to the login screen. I will be testing it out soon and let you know if it still does it.

Mystrius_Archaion

FYI, you're in a different zone from any trial/dungeon when you're farming. Different part of the server and different load, especially during popular times in popular zones.
More detail would be helpful figuring this out like what part of what zone and at what time.

DrinkingKoolaid

It just did it again, and no it's not my internet, my ping to the game is 100ms at all times sometimes 120, it is doing it again, especially if you're in a small area, currently I'm farming in betnikh. I will be running around collecting and farming things, then it will take me out of the game and put me back to the log in screen. I'm checking my fps and pings while it is doing, it is stable and fine. So I'm not sure what is causing this.

Elsonso

Have you done a repair?

DrinkingKoolaid

Repair as in checking integrity through steam? You can't do that with ESO.

Elsonso

If you can open the ESO Launcher, you can do a Repair from the launcher. I don't use Steam for ESO, so I have no idea what happens when this is attempted.

idk

I have received higher rates of disconnects while farming resources but not every 30 seconds. Maybe 5 minutes.

DrinkingKoolaid

Here is a video of how it happened. I just recently recorded today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZe2E70lY0o

Read the description to skip to the farming part if you want to.

Trinity_Is_My_Name

Interesting. I've seen this happen a few times over the past three years. But not over and over again in the same zone. I did notice you are using Steam to login to ESO. Lot of issues with Steam lately which may be some of your issues.

Do you always run Bandicam when these disconnects occur?

Hope you find the solution soon!

DrinkingKoolaid

No I just installed bandicam to record it, I didn't have it before. The crashing happened before Bandicam was even installed on my computer, so I don't think Bandicam is the issue.

Lexxypwns

It’s probably some weird issue with steam

Elsonso

Have you provided this video directly to ZOS? Do we need to tag @ZOS_GinaBruno so that maybe it will get mentioned upwards?

Nightfall12

Ok i see from vid you only have 3 characters, does this happen on any others?
i know it wont be efficient but try a new char without pets and buffs and speeed and stuff, see if all those buffs and stuff arnt to blame, i know i farm on a warden too and often my bear gets in the way, but I had to get rid of the netch because that would stop me from being able to interact with nodes often....also try without the mount just run with rapids see if that constant change has any effect.

I experience a similar thing but the cause of mine is my internet connection stops like everyday at the same times, 4:06 both am and pm, and you seem to stay logged in but you cant do anything and it takes a second to notice and it just boots you to login. Maybe the ping and fps showing on screen are not updating in real time, your issue seems tied to something in game.

I know you disables add ons, but you had alot and some outdated ones, they could have corrupted some files and it only hits with these conditions.

DrinkingKoolaid

Nightfall12 wrote: »

Ok i see from vid you only have 3 characters, does this happen on any others?
i know it wont be efficient but try a new char without pets and buffs and speeed and stuff, see if all those buffs and stuff arnt to blame, i know i farm on a warden too and often my bear gets in the way, but I had to get rid of the netch because that would stop me from being able to interact with nodes often....also try without the mount just run with rapids see if that constant change has any effect.

I experience a similar thing but the cause of mine is my internet connection stops like everyday at the same times, 4:06 both am and pm, and you seem to stay logged in but you cant do anything and it takes a second to notice and it just boots you to login. Maybe the ping and fps showing on screen are not updating in real time, your issue seems tied to something in game.

I know you disables add ons, but you had alot and some outdated ones, they could have corrupted some files and it only hits with these conditions.

I put bear in there so I know when I get disconnected, if I get dismounted out of no where I know that's when it takes me back to login screen, and if my bear disappear out of nowhere, then I know the game is going to take me back to the loading screen. I did try your suggestions, farming without bear, speed boost, netch. Still does the same thing, it didn't even last long, I collected like 3 rubedite ore and it kicked me offline while I was running.

See the problem is, it only happens when I farm nothing else does it. Now I'm afraid to collect wood or silk because it might crash. Yes, it does it to all characters, and I'm not about to re-install ESO just because of this issue it's ridiculous, there has to be a way to solve this problem. I think it's either something that has to do it steam or game files.

Yes please tag ZOS, I don't know how to. Perhaps they can take a look at this.

Elsonso

When people have disconnection problems, I don't usually run out and blame ZOS right away. There are too many other things going on that are not ZOS that can be checked, and fixed, so blaming ZOS too quickly could just mean the problem never gets fixed. (It was never ZOS to begin with)

In this case, I do blame ZOS. With a latency of 100ms and locked out of skills, followed by a disconnect, there are a lot fewer things that can be causing problems. Add-ons are almost certainly excluded as being a cause, at this point. Looks like we can also rule out an internet disruption, the client appears to be firmly connected to the server right up until the bear despawns.

To me, this is the classic "server lost interest in the player" situation. I have seen this in the past, but never to this degree of reliability.

My feeling is that this is caused by something happening on the server side. I tagged Gina above, but I would open a Ticket in the Support area and link to the video. Be prepared, because they will tell you to do everything you have already done, as well as wash your socks and underwear. Twice.

SpookyPickle

Myself and 3 other people that I've spoken with in the past couple of hours have been getting booted into the log in screen when doing random things. I am questing with one of them and we keep getting kicked to the log in screen randomly. Sometimes we can stay online for 5 minutes, other times it's 20 but we are frequently getting booted from the game. My internet is completely fine, speed testing at 275mb which only 25mb short of what I pay for and I have stable connection. Not sure what the other 2 people were doing but they're experiencing similar problems today as well.

Had no issues late last night when I was playing, aside from the vanishing floors/walls feature.

Shadowshire

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_Wrobel

Personally, what I suspect is that a bug has been introduced into the game client and/or into the megaserver software feature that governs the maximum Movement Speed of player characters. Either that or the performance of the Bethesda "megaserver" network has been declining to a point of increasingly falling over more often than I would prefer to believe.

DrinkingKoolaid wrote: »

Here is a video of how it happened. I just recently recorded today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZe2E70lY0o

Read the description to skip to the farming part if you want to.

Hmm..... and I thought it was only my currently flaky Internet connection at fault. For several years I've been using a "broadband" connection, currently with 32 MB/sec. downstream, and there have been recent problems. The ISP has diagnosed the issue as "signal strength". They examined all coaxial lines (cable TV) in the building where I live, and concluded that they must rewire each and every one of the 22 apartments. The project seems to currently be in the planning and organizing stage, pending permission of of the landlord.

But, after watching your video, something is happening which has been happening while I play, too. It occurs unpredictably, sometimes near the start of a session after I've logged-in and selected a character. Else, it happens eventually at least once during the following hour during which the character is collecting crafting materials. Sometimes the game client returns me to the primary game log-in screen, rarely to the desktop. Or the weirdo output is displayed very briefly, then the expected HUD is restored. The odd output might also only be shown while I am looking in one direction, and the normal output is shown when I look in another direction instead. Go figure.

Often, it seems that whether this occurs might be affected by how fast my character moves. If the character Runs normally, and I use Sprint only to go to a node which I see spawning or which has already spawned, then there is not likely to be a problem. But if I have cast a Rapid Maneuver morph and use Sprint while it is in effect, it seems that my character can "outrun" the ability of the megaserver to keep up the flow of data to the game client. Ordinarily, the FPS and Latency meters on the HUD show their usual fluctuations in their respective values, without Latency shown as red digits during the anomalous incident. Regardless, the result is a display such as the following:







Perhaps what is creating this issue is the limit to a player character's Movement Speed introduced in Morrowind (PC/Mac Patch Notes v3.0.5, Post #12: Resource Recovery Changes - General):

• You can no longer increase your total Movement Speed bonus to more than 100% of your base Movement Speed.

Developer Comment:

This change should only affect builds that are stacking all the Movement Speed bonuses in the game, and should prevent some of the extreme movement those builds are able to do in situations like Battleground flag running. This also prevents instances where those builds could run faster on foot than via a mount.

In my observation and experience, this "speed limit" has never appeared to affect any of my characters. For that matter, apparently it has not affected the Movement Speed of any of my competitors while gathering materials.

Nonetheless, so far I have encountered one or two player characters that continuously ran faster afoot than the mount on which my character was riding -- whether the character on foot was Sprinting while Rapid Maneuver (or one of its morphs) was in effect, and/or the character also had their Movement Speed increased by other buffs or bonuses. For what it was worth, I took screenshots and reported those who evidently were able to move "too fast" as potentially using an Exploit. Suffice it to say that I did not notice perchance I ever happened to see that player character again.

DrinkingKoolaid

@Shadowshire

You are totally right, like you said before your character is moving too fast to the point where the graphics are not loading properly. When I just run normally without any boost collecting things, I seem to have no problem. But when I use Rapid Maneuver and going around on my mount really fast is when I start to crash.

Technically it is not our problem, and like I said before I've submitted a ticket about this issue, they seem to not care about it since they've already closed it. Not much I can do right now, I guess I'll have to deal with it until fix it.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

Mystrius_Archaion

DrinkingKoolaid wrote: »

It just did it again, and no it's not my internet, my ping to the game is 100ms at all times sometimes 120,

Are you using the in game ping meter? I bet this is the case.

The in game ping meter is delayed, often by at least 5 seconds, maybe 10 seconds, and seems to only update when it reconnects to better ping in cases of full disconnects from the server that don't kick you offline somehow.
also, if you get kicked to login you will never see that ping meter showing correct info because it would have updated after you were kicked to where the meter doesn't show.

Slick_007

lordrichter wrote: »

In this case, I do blame ZOS. With a latency of 100ms and locked out of skills, followed by a disconnect, there are a lot fewer things that can be causing problems. Add-ons are almost certainly excluded as being a cause, at this point. Looks like we can also rule out an internet disruption, the client appears to be firmly connected to the server right up until the bear despawns.

To me, this is the classic "server lost interest in the player" situation. I have seen this in the past, but never to this degree of reliability.

My feeling is that this is caused by something happening on the server side. I tagged Gina above, but I would open a Ticket in the Support area and link to the video. Be prepared, because they will tell you to do everything you have already done, as well as wash your socks and underwear. Twice.

this is exactly what people saw when nvidia graphics drivers were causing disconnects in this game a few years ago. to simply say this shows its a server problem is false. It still could be a pc problem.

The fix for that particular issue was to roll back nvidia driver to a particular version and it was like magic, no more disconnects. weird things can cause problems even when everything says they shouldnt

Elsonso

DrinkingKoolaid wrote: »

@Shadowshire

You are totally right, like you said before your character is moving too fast to the point where the graphics are not loading properly. When I just run normally without any boost collecting things, I seem to have no problem. But when I use Rapid Maneuver and going around on my mount really fast is when I start to crash.

Technically it is not our problem, and like I said before I've submitted a ticket about this issue, they seem to not care about it since they've already closed it. Not much I can do right now, I guess I'll have to deal with it until fix it.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

Regarding the closed ticket... I think 'closed' means dispositioned. Who knows what that disposition is, but the public facing ticketing system seems to be well separated from the internal one. There is a point where the ticket is no longer used, but it might live on in whatever they use internally (JIRA, probably).

Shadowshire

Slick_007 wrote: »

....

this is exactly what people saw when nvidia graphics drivers were causing disconnects in this game a few years ago. to simply say this shows its a server problem is false. It still could be a pc problem.

The fix for that particular issue was to roll back nvidia driver to a particular version and it was like magic, no more disconnects. weird things can cause problems even when everything says they shouldnt.

For what it is worth, I upgraded the installed nVidia GeForce GTX 460 to an nVidia GeForce GT 730 in the second week of June (2018). Suffice it to say that I've experienced much better video performance, if only because the GT 730 has 2 GB DDR5 RAM.

IIRC, when I checked after the upgrade, version 382.33 was the most recent driver, so there was no need to change it. That version was released in March 2018. So far, I have not upgraded to the version which was offered by Windows Update on July 10. Nonetheless, I have not checked the nVidia website, yet, to download a more recent version (assuming that there is one).

That said, problems with the video display shown by the screenshots in Post #22 began about two weeks ago, long after the video graphics card upgrade. Again, IIRC, they began after the most recent patch maintenance, one in which the game client was upgraded, over two weeks ago. The next patch maintenance begins at 04:00 AM EST, Tuesday 17 July 2018.

As to the HUD meters, I agree with your remarks, except that I have seen the Latency meter change more often than after 5 or 10 seconds. Sometimes it changes as rapidly as at least once per second -- whether with single-digit increases or decreases, or with jumps or declines in value between 5 - 50+. On the face of it, there is no reason to believe that the data is incorrect, or that its display ordinarily lags the "actual" latency by more than a second or two, at most.

For what it is worth, I've never seen Latency go above between 135 and 140 without jumping to show three digits in red with a value between 300 to "999+". I suppose that the red signifies a "disconnect" condition. Sometimes the meter returns to displaying lower values in white digits, but usually the game client displays the primary log-in dialog page instead.

On the screenshots to which I referred, you can see the Latency displayed in white digits. Although the numbers are a bit tiny and indistinct, they are within the normal range that the Latency meter typically displays. As I described in Post #22, either the output eventually returns to the normal HUD display, or I might be returned to the primary log-in screen instead. The latter outcome implies that the Latency increased above approximately 250 ms. and was thus considered by the game client to be a "disconnect" with the megaserver.