ZOS, Massive Spike in Ping/LAG in Recent Days - What Gives?

twev

I'm in rimmen crafting area doing daily writs.
I can't click on stuff in my bank and inv half the time, I have to back out of either and open them again, sometimes two or three times to be able to move something or use an item.

This is beyond 'getting old'.
And yet, The Mothership doesn't seem to be able to address things like this.

Just_Attivi

a Summary of 8 Pages

With Memorial Day in the US having been yesterday (monday the 27th) I did not expect to hear anything from ZOS. Hopefully today we get some feedback, as yesterday was unplayable for myself, a few id normally run with, and judging from comments, many others.

on Page 5 of this thread (linked at bottom of this message for convenience) Kevin asked for any specifics able to be given regarding the issues, so do please continue to note details as specific as you can, including times/server/zone.

That said, I see messages in zone chats all over asking if anyone else is lagging/getting delays doing things, be it harvesting nodes, talking to NPC's, picking up quests, dismantling the butterfly menace that plagues tamriel one wing at a time, or even joining groups/getting chat to appear, skills delaying significantly, and of course, people disconnecting constantly. These issues seem to be widespread and not isolated to any one instance nor person, but simultaneously are not effecting everyone equally, many times half of a group experiences this while the other half do not, in towns you will see numerous people teleporting around, others running smoothly. These instances have been different than the normal 'lag' some people may encounter with their ping, often resulting in what feels like everything freezing a few seconds, then catching up rapidly after 2-5 seconds. These issues are happening in PVE overland, Dungeons, Trials, and PVP (which, with pvp performance normally being mediocre at best, it has been abysmal the past.. well really 2 months starting around when cyrodiil was rolling back every 10 min toward the beginning of April, but most of these issues are cropping up more widespread since May 7, it is now May 28)

I do encourage people to troubleshoot to the best of their ability, as some issues /may/ be on client side, we all love this game, whether we continue to support it or not, so lets make sure we are doing our part and checking our own side of things. But by and large these issues do not seem to be client side, as most people report having no issues outside of ESO and most troubleshooting attempts yield no positive change, though the lagspikes do seem to have periods of time they are more frequent (someone else noted this back a few pages or in a different thread too, that around midnight/1am it does seem to get worse). I dont know enough about networking in particular, but between discord discussions and many thread comments, it does seem like it might be a networking issue.

Hopefully ZOS has a remedy #soon

(Page 5 Link for Kevins Post asking for Details, Please keep details coming in.)
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/658253/zos-massive-spike-in-ping-lag-in-recent-days-what-gives/p5

doabhi

To add further to the post above and my own observations.

When I encounter lag/High ping on a normal day, I connect a VPN to the usual nearest node point for ESO's provider which normally drops my ping down around 20ms and shrinks the jitter/standard deviation from a gap of 50-100ms down to around 10ms of divination. which usually improves the playability of the game.
- In this case, this is not working and having no effect. the ping still shows lower as normal, but the client still experiences the same mentioned issues.
- I have observed others in my group say much the same. The lag spikes happen at the same time, but one or two people may not experience them, or experience them at different times, but it's always a shared experience between those who do.

It is happening on bot NA and EU servers and based on comments across all platforms.

It does seem likely that this is more of a configuration issue,

I don't know if the console versions of the game are hosted on physically separate hardware, and if they are then a hardware failure of this scale and consistency seems unlikely, unless that failure is external to the servers themselves (Such as a core router in the data center) where there is a common path from all servers to the internet, but for it to be happening on both NA and EU at the same time makes this very unlikely, leaning more credence to the theory that a recent software change in the game server has broken something or is causing hangups or bottlenecks somewhere on the servers themselves.

thinkaboutit

Seems like something is oversubscribed on ZOS end.

Kainarel

Sakiri wrote: »

It's like something got borked when you guys fixed the NA/PTS thing, because that's about when the complaints started.

I feel this is true, something definitely went downhill after that incident, and now it's spread to all servers and platforms.

Necrotech_Master

on monday (may 27), during the hours of between noon and 3 pm eastern US i was experiencing some unusual rubberbanding where i would nearly freeze up (could move around but not active skills or anything), and then everything would super speed in a half of a second as it caught up, i was sitting at stable 75-85 ping before the rubberbanding incidents, but during the incident i was sitting at like 435-999+ ping depending on how severe the rubberband was

it wasnt super consistent, only seemed to happen roughly every 20-30 min, and my cousin was playing eso with me, on the same internet connection, and not always experiencing the massive rubberband at the same time i was, or having his own lag spike

so in this instance there was definitely something janky going on with the server at least monday

Photosniper89

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

on monday (may 27), during the hours of between noon and 3 pm eastern US i was experiencing some unusual rubberbanding where i would nearly freeze up (could move around but not active skills or anything), and then everything would super speed in a half of a second as it caught up, i was sitting at stable 75-85 ping before the rubberbanding incidents, but during the incident i was sitting at like 435-999+ ping depending on how severe the rubberband was

it wasnt super consistent, only seemed to happen roughly every 20-30 min, and my cousin was playing eso with me, on the same internet connection, and not always experiencing the massive rubberband at the same time i was, or having his own lag spike

so in this instance there was definitely something janky going on with the server at least monday

Yup, the lag spikes started right around that time. I'm not sure if they were there the week prior (Cyro was having roll backs every 1-2 hours for multiple days that was never addressed from ZOS btw) so I didn't play that week.

Photosniper89

Just_Attivi wrote: »

Legit spent more time getting desync'd and moving backward despite holding forward than actually fighting. this is... honestly sad performance. like genuinely, is it april fools? because I sure feel like it must be.

I wish the dsyncs would be fixed but those have been around for so long I don't have any hopes of it being fixed. Unfortunately, that isn't related to the lag spikes we are talking about in this thread. (Please ZOS fix the dang dsyncs. Stop having toons thrown up in the air and yeeted by things).

Necrotech_Master

Photosniper89 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

on monday (may 27), during the hours of between noon and 3 pm eastern US i was experiencing some unusual rubberbanding where i would nearly freeze up (could move around but not active skills or anything), and then everything would super speed in a half of a second as it caught up, i was sitting at stable 75-85 ping before the rubberbanding incidents, but during the incident i was sitting at like 435-999+ ping depending on how severe the rubberband was

it wasnt super consistent, only seemed to happen roughly every 20-30 min, and my cousin was playing eso with me, on the same internet connection, and not always experiencing the massive rubberband at the same time i was, or having his own lag spike

so in this instance there was definitely something janky going on with the server at least monday

Yup, the lag spikes started right around that time. I'm not sure if they were there the week prior (Cyro was having roll backs every 1-2 hours for multiple days that was never addressed from ZOS btw) so I didn't play that week.

generally speaking i havent really had any issues the for at least the last month, monday was out of the ordinary even for me lol

vsrs_au

I also mentioned this in the other thread on this topic, but I'll mention it here too: I've been getting no lag, even though I'm about as far away from the EU server as it's possible to be. I'm just mentioning it to provide further information, so I'm not trying to refute anyone else's claims.

manukartofanu

vsrs_au wrote: »

I also mentioned this in the other thread on this topic, but I'll mention it here too: I've been getting no lag, even though I'm about as far away from the EU server as it's possible to be. I'm just mentioning it to provide further information, so I'm not trying to refute anyone else's claims.

The solution has been found: to avoid feeling lag spikes, simply set yourself a constant ping of 500

vsrs_au

manukartofanu wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

I also mentioned this in the other thread on this topic, but I'll mention it here too: I've been getting no lag, even though I'm about as far away from the EU server as it's possible to be. I'm just mentioning it to provide further information, so I'm not trying to refute anyone else's claims.

The solution has been found: to avoid feeling lag spikes, simply set yourself a constant ping of 500

No doubt that was intended as humour? In any case, many forum posters have mentioned lag spikes where the ping shows '999+', which is a bit difficult to ignore.

[edit] Even with my ping (see my signature), I always notice the 999+ lag spikes: that's normally just before I get disconnected.

manukartofanu

vsrs_au wrote: »

No doubt that was intended as humour? In any case, many forum posters have mentioned lag spikes where the ping shows '999+', which is a bit difficult to ignore.

[edit] Even with my ping (see my signature), I always notice the 999+ lag spikes: that's normally just before I get disconnected.

Sure. Just to clarify something. I can no longer look at this situation without some humor. The problem with lag spikes and freezes in PvE has been around for about a year. And someone still bothers to write something:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/655474/unexpected-internal-error-when-is-this-gonna-get-fixed/p2

And I just find it funny.

thinkaboutit

manukartofanu wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

No doubt that was intended as humour? In any case, many forum posters have mentioned lag spikes where the ping shows '999+', which is a bit difficult to ignore.

[edit] Even with my ping (see my signature), I always notice the 999+ lag spikes: that's normally just before I get disconnected.

Sure. Just to clarify something. I can no longer look at this situation without some humor. The problem with lag spikes and freezes in PvE has been around for about a year. And someone still bothers to write something:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/655474/unexpected-internal-error-when-is-this-gonna-get-fixed/p2

And I just find it funny.

This is much more aggressive - usually the unexpected internal error is if your connection lags out and the server doesnt realize you are offline..

People here are talking about 6 out of 12 people in a raid group dropping at the same time while in different geographical areas.

manukartofanu

thinkaboutit wrote: »

This is much more aggressive - usually the unexpected internal error is if your connection lags out and the server doesnt realize you are offline..

People here are talking about 6 out of 12 people in a raid group dropping at the same time while in different geographical areas.

Their connection just lags out and the server doesn't realize they are online.

Photosniper89

manukartofanu wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

No doubt that was intended as humour? In any case, many forum posters have mentioned lag spikes where the ping shows '999+', which is a bit difficult to ignore.

[edit] Even with my ping (see my signature), I always notice the 999+ lag spikes: that's normally just before I get disconnected.

Sure. Just to clarify something. I can no longer look at this situation without some humor. The problem with lag spikes and freezes in PvE has been around for about a year. And someone still bothers to write something:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/655474/unexpected-internal-error-when-is-this-gonna-get-fixed/p2

And I just find it funny.

To be fair my original post was centered more around PvP.. but has not become a much more widespread issue than seems to be in the thread you linked.

manukartofanu

Photosniper89 wrote: »

To be fair my original post was centered more around PvP.. but has not become a much more widespread issue than seems to be in the thread you linked.

We've been in the same boat for over a year now. Exclusive PvP problems were introduced in spring 2023 into PvE.
What do you mean by "has not become a much more widespread issue than seems to be in the thread you linked"? Many people in this and neighboring threads have mentioned random DCs. However, they did not specify what errors they encountered DCs. I suppose it's because no one pays attention to the descriptions.

Jaraal

Lost another coldfire ballista to the bug, firing on a ball group and my screen went gray, then kicked to log in with "An Unexpected Error Occurred, contact customer service."

Nah, wasn't unexpected at all. It's becoming as regular as clockwork.

Sambucca1973

May 28. PC/NA. 6:00-7:30 pm Eastern time US.

Windows 11 desktop, Nvidia chip. All software and drivers up to date.

This has been going on for at least last three weeks.

Rawl’kha: took 5 minutes to do daily writs. Always a loading screen just as arriving at turn in chests. Every day.

Serenity Falls: went to place five furnishings. Constant FPS shifts from 60 to 40s to 20s and back up. Every couple of seconds.

Farming mats and treasure chests in Northwrn Elsweyr, Vvardenfell, Galen, High Isle, and Khenarthiks Roost. Constant FPS shifts from 60 to 40s to 20s and back up. It’s seriously all over the place (60, 23, 42, 7, 53, 22……) every few seconds. Is
It’s disorienting. It seems to be more frequent in highly-populated areas and if there are a lot of graphical things going on (mount animations, pets, armor effects, etc.).

Kainarel

PC EU, had a lag episode while doing Frostvault with a friend. Everything stood still except for me, my ping was 90-100 at that time, and then after a while it all caught up in a split second, powers firing all at once and ping getting 999+, and then back to normal.

Getting lag spikes during fishing and gathering and all normal activities at random times regardless of how populated the area is.

No amount of relogging or rebooting solves it because it's the servers, not our connection. We get no issues outside of the game.

Photosniper89

Massive server wide crashes in cyro tonight. Multiple times a significant amount of people have been kicked from game at the exact same time.

Vulkunne

I've noticed it too. Lost a fight in IA because of it and yet ironically won a fight because of it.

Was in Cyrodiil recently and was kicked several times, always in the middle of a fight. Very annoying.

edward_frigidhands

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, sorry about the slow response. We've seen your comments and have been investigating what's happening here. After yesterday's maintenance, we made a change that we believe should have helped, but given some of the comments this morning, the situation still persists for some of you.

We're continuing to take feedback, so if there is anything specific you've noticed, let us know in the thread. Anything is helpful, like is it specific to a megaserver? Does the situation changes if you fully shut down and reboot? Is it specific to an area or specific content? We'll take your specific issues to our team to further investigate.

Just had several massive lag spikes between 9:45 PM and 10:08 PM EST.

I was in IC and these were felt by several other players I was in comms with who were also playing. They connect from several different parts of the US between East Coast, West Coast and some in Texas.

This was happening when I tried to play yesterday afternoon as well.

We have got to have this addressed in some way.

EDIT: This has been happening for several days. I just happened to only login and stomach tonight the amount of time stated.

vsrs_au

Although I mentioned I haven't been getting lag spikes, I have had the game stuck while trying to travel between wayshrines, or porting to a house, in the last several weeks. It's occurred enough times recently to make me notice it. By "stuck", I mean that the game shows a loading screen after I've selected the wayshrine/house I intend to travel to, and then... nothing. The loading screen stays displayed for minutes, until I eventually get tired of waiting, and force-kill the game process.

thinkaboutit

Hello this is happening all night 9:30-11:30PM est

VisitHammerfell

This was happening to me Saturday in nMA on PS EU around 10pm EST so dead hours it was very severe lag with light attacks, and Sunday on PS NA around 8:30-10:30pm during a trifecta prog with bad skill and light attack and block lag, and yesterday evening in vMA on EU with bad skill lag. Been noticing other lag here and there, but especially in arenas, trials, and public dungeons, both servers any time of day.

Also had 2 infinite loading screens where I had to close, one on logging onto a toon and the other when travelling somewhere

Just_Attivi

Photosniper89 wrote: »

I wish the dsyncs would be fixed but those have been around for so long I don't have any hopes of it being fixed. Unfortunately, that isn't related to the lag spikes we are talking about in this thread. (Please ZOS fix the dang dsyncs. Stop having toons thrown up in the air and yeeted by things).

oh Im used to the usual desyncs/cyro lag, this 100% was related to the issues presently occurring . I did not do a good job explaining in that post, as I was just... very frustrated by that point lol. But it was lag levels I've never experienced before in cyro even around pop lock ball groups with a hammer up. any character attacking me while I was dealing with an EP zerg in a tower literally sent my character backward, not just knock backs and the likes. I wish I was recording it as Michael Jackson would have been envious of my moonwalking skills going backward down the stairs in that tower. Beyond getting zerged, even in 1v1's, mid fight I was routinely getting the sort of 'delay then speed ups' as we are seeing outside of PVP now. skills not firing. Im not the best pvp'er in the land, but I hold my own decently, and there wasnt a single fight I could do much more than runaway and pray my heals worked (spoiler: they didnt work lol).

Ive spent a lot of time in cyro/IC in the last 2 years, Ive complained about lag in the past, but this was a whole new level. Genuinely unplayable.

manukartofanu

vsrs_au wrote: »

Although I mentioned I haven't been getting lag spikes, I have had the game stuck while trying to travel between wayshrines, or porting to a house, in the last several weeks. It's occurred enough times recently to make me notice it. By "stuck", I mean that the game shows a loading screen after I've selected the wayshrine/house I intend to travel to, and then... nothing. The loading screen stays displayed for minutes, until I eventually get tired of waiting, and force-kill the game process.

Wow, I've had that happen to me too. Usually, during the loading, it kicks you out with a random error if something goes wrong. But this time, it was hanging for about 5 minutes with no result.

edward_frigidhands

Any updates on this matter?

Just_Attivi

@edward_frigidhands none that Ive seen in any threads since Kevin's Comment on page 5.

just doing daily writs in Reapers march today, approx 7:11am EST, PC NA, 999+ pinging at blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking stations.

I joked about how theyll kill off cyrodiil for performance reasons in another thread, but at this rate, maybe it'll be all of Tamriel. Next Years Chapter: The Moon!