Disconnections are a normal occurance?

Gamebrew · Post by **Gamebrew** » 30 May 2008, 16:44

Hi I'm using SFS PRO for Linux 1.6.2, 1G of memory, 512M of VM Max on a dedicated server. I have about 50 users on at a time avg during the day. The server doesn't reboot ands runs okay, but I always get complaints of disconnects. I don't know what % of total is complaining but people are always on so I assume the problem isn't happening to everyone or else they wouldn't keep playing. Everything seems fine on the server side and the logs don't report anything unusual.

Could disconnects be a normal occurance for a certain % users based on their own connection to the internet? Like maybe they have dial-up or their ISP doesn't maintain their connection well? Or maybe my own dedicated server has problems? I don't see anything on the error logs so its hard for me to pin down what's wrong.

Just wondering if other people who have more users on at a time than me also get complaints about disconnections, is it something I can act on or its just a normal occurance? I got the idea that it could be normal when I saw that Kongregate also had some users complaining about the connection to the chat room wasn't always there, and their infrastructure should be much better than mine.

darnpunk · Post by **darnpunk** » 31 May 2008, 02:24

I am facing these issues too. My users complain of mass disconnections every now and then. This means everyone gets disconnected up to 4 times a day. Server doesn't hang or restart. I am running SFS 1.5.5 PRO on Windows Server 2003 1GB memory on a dedicated server. The bandwidth line is at 10mbps. On low peak days of about 60 to 70 users online, they face the disconnections as well.

I don't find anything unusual in my logs but I see a frequent message saying something like "Messages were dropped as queue is full". I am guessing it could be my server is sending too many messages to the client that they are not able to keep up. Dropped out messages showed 2.0K in less than 2 days. Bandwidth graph shows only half is used up.

I did a ping on normal hours using roundTripBench code example from API docs and I get results of 8ms to 11ms on average and this is from my home computer.

Most of my users are from my area and I guess latency should not be too much of an issue unless, I am really overloading them with too many messages. I am trying to revisit all my update systems and see where is it going wrong. On that note, how about yours? Do you send many messages to your clients at a burst?

I've discussed this on another thread. You might want to take a look here -
http://forums.smartfoxserver.com/viewtopic.php?t=2415

Regards,
darnpunk

Gamebrew · Post by **Gamebrew** » 31 May 2008, 15:12

Thanks for the info, I don't send quick bursts of many messages. It's a chat room and two turn-based games. I read that you get mass disconnects, I don't see that on mine, I just get complaints of straight disconnects for no reason.

Post by **Lapo** » 02 Jun 2008, 08:29

Could disconnects be a normal occurance for a certain % users based on their own connection to the internet? Like maybe they have dial-up or their ISP doesn't maintain their connection well?

While this is not trivial to determine you could run a number of simple tests to see what the cuplrit(s) could be.
Have you tried yourself from a couple of different connections?
This is the first thing to do in order to see if it's a hosting problem.
You could also add a simple feedback form on your website in order to allow users to report disconnection problems. Ask them to specify their type of connection and country.

Additionally if you suspect it's an hosting problem try with another service that uses socket connections (netcat, red5, and ftp server) and see if you experience similar erratic disconnections.