Horrid Ping This morning - Which addon?

Jordan_Black · July 2

200 base, rocketing up to 400 or 500. Anyone know which addon is causing this so I don't have to try one at a time? Or is it ZOS? TY!

JB

herkemur · July 2

I'm getting severe lag with the writ crafter add on.

Jordan_Black · July 2

herkemur wrote: »

I'm getting severe lag with the writ crafter add on.

That's what I first noticed too - and then saw my ping was 200+

DenverRalphy · July 2

Yeah, I came here specifically to see if anyone else encountered this very thing on PSNA.

Easily noticed with the LWC addon. At first I started checking to see if any addon updates had landed. But then I also found that when manually opening mails (ie.. trader purchases) you can't rapid fire through them like you normally can.

Jordan_Black · July 2

It's not addons. I disabled all my addons and my ping is still horrible.

Jordan_Black · July 2

PC/NA btw

OsUfi · July 2

Turned off all Addons, PC-EU every time I set foot into a BG my game turns into a slide show. Never had that before. I know, I know, ESO lag etc etc. But never like this in simple BGs.

Editing to add, standing in Vivec city is also a slide show today. We have tried the turn it off and on again method on PC and routers.

Kaltivael · July 2

I dont use LWC but getting horrible ping all morning long, PC/NA

shadoza · July 2

I have zero add-ons and my game is the same.
Perhaps development is running telemetry software? That type of software is intrusive to a program and can cause the program to lose performance and stability.

Dolgubon · July 2

Jordan_Black wrote: »

200 base, rocketing up to 400 or 500. Anyone know which addon is causing this so I don't have to try one at a time? Or is it ZOS? TY!

JB

Addons are incapable of affecting your ping. It is not an add-on.

It is especially not LWC, since again, there is no way for it to affect your ping. If it is grabbing quests slowly, then that is solely because the ping is causing quest acceptance to happen slowly.

Jordan_Black · July 2

Dolgubon wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

200 base, rocketing up to 400 or 500. Anyone know which addon is causing this so I don't have to try one at a time? Or is it ZOS? TY!

JB

Addons are incapable of affecting your ping. It is not an add-on.

Addons are absolutely capable of affecting your ping. I used to use Master Merchant and it raised my ping. It's rare, but it happens.

However, if you read the rest of the thread, you would have seen that we already figured out it wasn't addons.

BardokRedSnow · July 2

Jordan_Black wrote: »

Dolgubon wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

200 base, rocketing up to 400 or 500. Anyone know which addon is causing this so I don't have to try one at a time? Or is it ZOS? TY!

JB

Addons are incapable of affecting your ping. It is not an add-on.

Addons are absolutely capable of affecting your ping. I used to use Master Merchant and it raised my ping. It's rare, but it happens.

However, if you read the rest of the thread, you would have seen that we already figured out it wasn't addons.

I literally came in to the thread just to see if someone told yall addons dont affect ping. They do not. What they can do is make your pc work harder if its a lower end pc, and you are witnessing performance drop

Lazy Writ Crafter definitely shouldn't be doing this and if it is, its not from the addon specifically, its server side.

Dolgubon · July 2

Jordan_Black wrote: »

Dolgubon wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

200 base, rocketing up to 400 or 500. Anyone know which addon is causing this so I don't have to try one at a time? Or is it ZOS? TY!

JB

Addons are incapable of affecting your ping. It is not an add-on.

Addons are absolutely capable of affecting your ping. I used to use Master Merchant and it raised my ping. It's rare, but it happens.

However, if you read the rest of the thread, you would have seen that we already figured out it wasn't addons.

MM doesn't actually affect ping; it's only affecting your local PC, by making it slow. That's different from ping, which is a measurement of the time it takes for a message from your PC to reach the servers. Similar gameplay effects, but different cause.

Jordan_Black · July 2

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

Dolgubon wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

200 base, rocketing up to 400 or 500. Anyone know which addon is causing this so I don't have to try one at a time? Or is it ZOS? TY!

JB

Addons are incapable of affecting your ping. It is not an add-on.

Addons are absolutely capable of affecting your ping. I used to use Master Merchant and it raised my ping. It's rare, but it happens.

However, if you read the rest of the thread, you would have seen that we already figured out it wasn't addons.

I literally came in to the thread just to see if someone told yall addons dont affect ping. They do not. What they can do is make your pc work harder if its a lower end pc, and you are witnessing performance drop

Lazy Writ Crafter definitely shouldn't be doing this and if it is, its not from the addon specifically, its server side.

No one said Lazy Writ Crafter was causing it, we just noticed it while doing our morning crafting writs. Lazy Writ Crafter normally helps us zip through those writs and the high ping was giving a large delay. The problem is high ping. I understand that Lazy Writ Crafter is not causing high ping.

DenverRalphy · July 2

Yeah, add-ons don't affect the ping. When I mentioned LWC in my earlier comment, I meant only that it highlighted the issue by making it more noticeable. My first impulse was to consider whether the rate of quest acquisition was intentionally slowed, but when it became obvious it was server behavior I'd abandoned that notion.

virtus753 · July 2

Dolgubon wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

Dolgubon wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

200 base, rocketing up to 400 or 500. Anyone know which addon is causing this so I don't have to try one at a time? Or is it ZOS? TY!

JB

Addons are incapable of affecting your ping. It is not an add-on.

Addons are absolutely capable of affecting your ping. I used to use Master Merchant and it raised my ping. It's rare, but it happens.

However, if you read the rest of the thread, you would have seen that we already figured out it wasn't addons.

MM doesn't actually affect ping; it's only affecting your local PC, by making it slow. That's different from ping, which is a measurement of the time it takes for a message from your PC to reach the servers. Similar gameplay effects, but different cause.

ZOS (Rich specifically, iirc) once said the ping meter in game didn’t actually measure ping but something about a number of things including frame times? (Is this why it spikes when porting?)

Could the ping meter be spiking here and causing people to think ping has gone up when it’s something else that the meter reflects?

I wish they’d fix the meter or at least rename it so it isn’t spreading misinformation.

code65536 · July 2

virtus753 wrote: »

Dolgubon wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

Dolgubon wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

200 base, rocketing up to 400 or 500. Anyone know which addon is causing this so I don't have to try one at a time? Or is it ZOS? TY!

JB

Addons are incapable of affecting your ping. It is not an add-on.

Addons are absolutely capable of affecting your ping. I used to use Master Merchant and it raised my ping. It's rare, but it happens.

However, if you read the rest of the thread, you would have seen that we already figured out it wasn't addons.

MM doesn't actually affect ping; it's only affecting your local PC, by making it slow. That's different from ping, which is a measurement of the time it takes for a message from your PC to reach the servers. Similar gameplay effects, but different cause.

ZOS (Rich specifically, iirc) once said the ping meter in game didn’t actually measure ping but something about a number of things including frame times? (Is this why it spikes when porting?)

Could the ping meter be spiking here and causing people to think ping has gone up when it’s something else that the meter reflects?

I wish they’d fix the meter or at least rename it so it isn’t spreading misinformation.

"Ping" in ESO is a holistic measure of the total response time, so it is affected by

Server response time (overloaded server = higher ping)
Network transit time (congestion, bad routing, Akamai-gone-wild, playing from across an ocean = higher ping)
Client response time (overloaded client = higher ping)

So, yes, if there is an addon that's gobbling up CPU cycles, it can result in high ping.

If it can be affected by so many things, how do you tell what the cause of the high ping is?

If the ping spike is accompanied by "slideshow" FPS, then it's likely an addon issue. The only way in which addons can affect ping is to overload the CPU so much that it severely impacts the client response, but overloading the CPU will also cause massive framerate issues (specifically, the game won't draw a new frame until an addon that is running code in the current frame is done). And since server and network issues don't affect FPS, it's a pretty good indicator of addon culpability.
If everyone gets it, then it's a server issue. People misunderstanding this one annoys me a little bit, because I've been in trials where half the group gets a lag spike and people immediately complain about the server being crap. No, because if it's server-side, then that affects everyone. Not one person. Not half the group. Everyone. Imagine a city with three highways leading into it, and a major multi-car crash on the highway leading in from the north could delay a lot of people--everyone coming from that direction--but not everyone. Network issues are the exact same thing, and can affect large numbers of players all at once, but not everyone.

So, let's say you get high ping. Question 1: Do you get slideshow FPS? If so, then probably an addon issue. If not, move on to question 2: does everyone (not "most people", but literally everyone) get it? Then that's a server issue. If not, then it's a network issue. And the number of people affected give you an idea of where that issue might be. If it's just you, then it's probably a more local problem--the networking equivalent of "roads in your local neighborhood are flooded". If it's lots of people, then it's probably the networking equivalent of "major accident on one of the major highways entering the city".

(There's also the Akamai-gone-wild scenario which has happened a lot in the past. But that falls under networking too. Akamai provides DDOS protection for ESO, and it does that by routing all incoming traffic through one of their datacenters to scrub that traffic. But sometimes they end up routing people through the wrong datacenter, and people end up getting sent to Akamai's servers in Australia before being sent back up to Texas. Um. I guess the real world traffic analogy of this one is "electronic road signs glitch out and send drivers entering the city into a crazy thousand-mile detour". LOL.)

virtus753 · July 2

code65536 wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Dolgubon wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

Dolgubon wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

200 base, rocketing up to 400 or 500. Anyone know which addon is causing this so I don't have to try one at a time? Or is it ZOS? TY!

JB

Addons are incapable of affecting your ping. It is not an add-on.

Addons are absolutely capable of affecting your ping. I used to use Master Merchant and it raised my ping. It's rare, but it happens.

However, if you read the rest of the thread, you would have seen that we already figured out it wasn't addons.

MM doesn't actually affect ping; it's only affecting your local PC, by making it slow. That's different from ping, which is a measurement of the time it takes for a message from your PC to reach the servers. Similar gameplay effects, but different cause.

ZOS (Rich specifically, iirc) once said the ping meter in game didn’t actually measure ping but something about a number of things including frame times? (Is this why it spikes when porting?)

Could the ping meter be spiking here and causing people to think ping has gone up when it’s something else that the meter reflects?

I wish they’d fix the meter or at least rename it so it isn’t spreading misinformation.

"Ping" in ESO is a holistic measure of the total response time, so it is affected by
Server response time (overloaded server = higher ping)

Network transit time (congestion, bad routing, Akamai-gone-wild, playing from across an ocean = higher ping)

Client response time (overloaded client = higher ping)

So, yes, if there is an addon that's gobbling up CPU cycles, it can result in high ping.

If it can be affected by so many things, how do you tell what the cause of the high ping is?
If the ping spike is accompanied by "slideshow" FPS, then it's likely an addon issue. The only way in which addons can affect ping is to overload the CPU so much that it severely impacts the client response, but overloading the CPU will also cause massive framerate issues (specifically, the game won't draw a new frame until an addon that is running code in the current frame is done). And since server and network issues don't affect FPS, it's a pretty good indicator of addon culpability.

If everyone gets it, then it's a server issue. People misunderstanding this one annoys me a little bit, because I've been in trials where half the group gets a lag spike and people immediately complain about the server being crap. No, because if it's server-side, then that affects everyone. Not one person. Not half the group. Everyone. Imagine a city with three highways leading into it, and a major multi-car crash on the highway leading in from the north could delay a lot of people--everyone coming from that direction--but not everyone. Network issues are the exact same thing, and can affect large numbers of players all at once, but not everyone.

So, let's say you get high ping. Question 1: Do you get slideshow FPS? If so, then probably an addon issue. If not, move on to question 2: does everyone (not "most people", but literally everyone) get it? Then that's a server issue. If not, then it's a network issue. And the number of people affected give you an idea of where that issue might be. If it's just you, then it's probably a more local problem--the networking equivalent of "roads in your local neighborhood are flooded". If it's lots of people, then it's probably the networking equivalent of "major accident on one of the major highways entering the city".

(There's also the Akamai-gone-wild scenario which has happened a lot in the past. But that falls under networking too. Akamai provides DDOS protection for ESO, and it does that by routing all incoming traffic through one of their datacenters to scrub that traffic. But sometimes they end up routing people through the wrong datacenter, and people end up getting sent to Akamai's servers in Australia before being sent back up to Texas. Um. I guess the real world traffic analogy of this one is "electronic road signs glitch out and send drivers entering the city into a crazy thousand-mile detour". LOL.)

Thanks for the explanations! Really appreciate you taking the time.

ZOS_Hadeostry · July 2

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic, as it's addon troubleshooting

heaven13 · July 2

Dolgubon wrote: »

Jordan_Black wrote: »

200 base, rocketing up to 400 or 500. Anyone know which addon is causing this so I don't have to try one at a time? Or is it ZOS? TY!

JB

Addons are incapable of affecting your ping. It is not an add-on.

It is especially not LWC, since again, there is no way for it to affect your ping. If it is grabbing quests slowly, then that is solely because the ping is causing quest acceptance to happen slowly.

Can you please tell this to ZoS customer support, lol? I've been getting horrid lag spikes that end up disconnecting me and then go through the 103/307/201 errors before, eventually, I can log back in. Support has insisted that I not only disable all my addons but remove them from the game folder, as well as removing their SavedVariables and settings folders.

Oh, and also make sure to completely disable Minion if I have it.