Keep getting dropped from multiplayer

Hey, I'm new and I looked for similar threads but didn't seem to find any so I decided to post my own.

Lately (since the latest patch it seems) I have been getting dropped from multiplayer games about 7-10 minutes in. I get "Lost connection to server" message on my screen, then get notified I have been disconnected from battle.net. I also use a game client called xfire and I am disconnected from that as well.
When I exit the game I can reconnect to the internet quickly. I checked my firewall and there are no issues there, and no other computer is losing connection to the internet.

I'm not sure if this issue is caused by the patch or not, but it certainly has not happened until I downloaded it. If anyone has any suggestions or a possible fix that would be awesome.

Thanks in advance.

 

So you're losing connection to Xfire as well?

What about other programs like AIM or Skype? Do you get disconnected there? It SOUNDS like your internet is just chipping out. The Battle.net menus will allow it but the games themselves will not.

 

I lose connection to Skype as well. But, the Internet dropping seems to be directly related to multiplayer. It is not something that seems to occur at any other time.

 

Well once we establish that you're losing connection (which you are apparently) now we can look for the problem.

Let's try disabling all of your firewalls one by one. You have one on your PC, one on your router, and one on your modem. Make sure they're all off.

Also, try running the game in administrator mode (right click -> run as administrator).

See if that helps.

 

There's really no technical reason whatsoever why a firewall would cause SC2 to lose connection to battle.net. Maybe refuse it all together, but not lose it during games.

But in the beta, there's all these threads with people talking about which ports to open and disabling firewalls. Has that ever fixed anything? I'm just curious.

 

Yeah, for some people, it has. Some people have disabled the prompt Windows Firewall let you know when a program is trying to access an outside port altogether. For those people, knowing how to manually open ports is a must.

You can also open a command prompt (cmd.exe) and try using the command "ping google.com -t" which will keep pinging google (press ctrl+c to stop it after running it for a bit). If you see packets randomly dropping, you need to call up your ISP and tell them your connection is going to crap. I had a DSL connection do that after it got hit by lighting! They had to replace the entire phoneline between my house and the phone box, and I had to get a new router because random ports went toasty.

If the above is not the case, it could be a DNS issue. If your machine is having trouble loading websites you type in (meaning you have to press refresh/reload just to get some sites to load), and applications like Skype and other IM's randomly loose connection, that just adds to the likeliness of it being DNS. This commonly happens when a machine is behind a router and the router isn't very capable of forwarding DNS request (which is pretty much all @home routers).

Go here to find instructions on changing your DNS settings. You don't have to use the Google DNS server I listed there (I only use that because its stupid easy to remember), its usually better to use the DNS server your router uses.

Let me know how both methods turn out.

 

If you can browse the web, you should be able to play SCII without getting dropped. Period. Otherwise its on their end.

There's no reason why one would need any ports forwarding unless one was hosting a game and SCII doesn't host. Otherwise, who cares if windows firewall has everything blocked. SCII shouldn't need to open a port and, aside from the many tech support threads I've read where this has been suggested, I've seen it run fine without any ports open.

As for DNS, I find it hard to believe that routers drop DNS forwards, that's crazy. Most of them have good default settings. Plus, DNS would have nothing to do with randomly being dropped from bnet, since those ip addresses would be cached.

You're right about lightning damage, that can cause drops in connection speed that one can miss sometimes, but then web browsing would be slow as well. The thing is, if you check on the SCII tech forum, there's tons of people getting disconnected constantly or crashing and I feel like its way too many to blame on anything but SCII.

Check this out: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/145934624
That's got to be a problem with SCII, they can't all have the same router, and there's nothing else they have in common.

 

You really... REALLY overestimate what Windows can do as far as caching is concerned. I've seen this issue happen just as frequently on XBox Live and PS3 as I have on PC. This doesn't account for people who buy the cheapest router they can at Walmart, or have had a router for quiet awhile. If its not broke, don't fix.. but if its broke.. it needs fixed.

 

Wow, I'm glad I'm receiving all this feedback. I have not tried playing without firewalls yet, but I have a feeling that is not the problem seeing as I made sure that Starcraft.exe was allowed through. As for my router, this happens in no other game, pc or xbox and I have a hard time believing my router would all of a sudden started dropping me from the Internet completely.

I have a feeling the issue is with Starcraft, like I said, this issue did not start happening until after the most recent patch.

Ok I played for a good bit tonight, and in about 8-9 games I didn't drop out once with the firewalls on my router and pc down. I'm not sure if this is the fix or not, but so far so good thanks guys.

Please don't double post. You must wait 24 hours before bumping a thread!

 

@ peterius,

The reason we asked him to check his firewalls is that the OP indicated he was losing his ENTIRE internet connection. Which either means an intermittent problem as TheXev suggested, or a software blocking issue.

That's why as part of tech support we try to eliminate specific issues until we narrow down what the real problem is.

Saying things like "I don't think this could possibly be the issue" or "it must be on their end" really doesn't get anyone anywhere, now does it?

Giving up and not going through the process never helped anyone.

And look, he disabled his firewalls and it appears his problem has met at least a temporary solution.

 

Please don't quote the post above your own.

He said that the internet dropping seemed directly related to multiplayer and didn't happen at any other time. That seems like SCII is doing something it shouldn't.

I'm glad that his problem is temporarily fixed, but there's no technical reason why firewalls would be the issue.

 

okay, I was playing fine on multiplayer a few days ago, but since yesterday, I LAG everytime a multiplayer game starts. The game itself works fine, I beat the campaign and I even lowered the settings, but it keeps on lagging on multiplayer. What must I do to stop this lag? I can only play in single player now.

 

Alright I was playing some campaign this morning and whilst playing it dropped me out of battle.net, achievements disabled and xfire disconnected all at the same time.

I don't think the issue is the firewall, as it is still disabled. I have a hard time believing this is not some issue with SC2 and I'm considering a reinstall, or a reinstall of the patch.

 

Reinstalling StarCraft II may not help. If you run the repair tool for it (which was installed with the game) and that says everything is okay, is most likely is. This isn't the days of Windows 98 people, reinstalling crap for the sake of doing it isn't necessary and waste time. I still have not seen any response from you, Chadimus, to see if you have tired ANYTHING I have recommended, and the results of those recommendations "Like, what did google do when you pinged it, etc", "did updating the DNS do anything?"

As this point, it looks like you are just griping about your issue instead of trying anything to solve it. I know others are having the same issue of you currently. Please, tell me the results of the test I asked you to run. Post a screenshot of google ping. Anyone know the gateway servers that he can try pining? That might also be useful.

 

You say "xfire" disconnects as well. I assume that's one of those gaming chat things that might link up with SCII somehow. Can you definitely run other games for a while without losing connection? Can you run something like http://www.d3tr.de/ (ping a site like www.google.com) in the background for a while with and without games? This would just make sure its not your internet connection.

There was also a bug where SCII didn't play well with certain network cards causing them to crash. You could try updating your network card driver or if its onboard, the motherboard bios.

But yeah, there are a huge number of "keep getting dropped from bnet" threads out there:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/165186838
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/374717674
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/375109205
That last one has somebody who gets disconnected but his buddy, on the same router can still play fine.

So if you want to make sure you've done all you can, try the stuff above and Xev's suggestions, and otherwise just hope for a patch. If you're just playing single player, you might also try guest or offline mode and then just disconnect your internet before playing.

 

I tried posting my results from pinging google, but it said a administrator had to approve and I guess he never did. However there was no real fluctuations or packet loss.

 

Yeah, defiantly not a DNS issue. Maybe it is as peterius says, might just have to wati for a patch.

This 1.0.2 patch is like Diablo 2 1.04 all over again.. except its not being addressed quick enough.

 

I had the dropped connection issue, and I thought I would post my solution to the problem. Luckily I spoke to someone at Blizzard that knew about the issue, and how to resolve it.

The lady at Blizzard had me go to the command prompt and type Tracert us.logon.battle.net and here were the results (I cut off the first few lines for privacy):

4 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms dist1-vlan60.ksc2mo.sbcglobal.net [151.164.29.130]
5 25 ms 25 ms * bb1-tg3-0.ksc2mo.sbcglobal.net [151.164.40.85]
6 67 ms 67 ms 69 ms gar5.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.129.25]
7 68 ms 68 ms * 12.122.255.74
8 68 ms 68 ms 68 ms 12.129.193.242
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 12.129.211.34 reports: Destination net unreachable.

Trace complete.

I was getting dropped by my ISP in between line 4 and 5 (an * indicates a dropped connection). I had to call ATT and have them "repack my line" and "Refresh the circuit"

Once this was complete, my new tracert looked like this:

4 74 ms 74 ms 76 ms 67.64.49.1
5 36 ms 36 ms 38 ms bb1-tg3-0.ksc2mo.sbcglobal.net [151.164.40.85]
6 70 ms 72 ms 69 ms gar5.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.129.25]
7 86 ms * 68 ms 12.122.255.74
8 89 ms 92 ms 97 ms 12.129.193.242
9 12.129.211.34 reports: Destination net unreachable.

Notice how line 4 and 5 are now clear with no asteriks indicating a broken connection. I had already tried everything I could think of before the nice lady at Blizzard solved my dropped connection problem. I did however have to spend 2 hours on the phone with good 'ol ATT, Gosh what HORRENDOUS customer service.

Anyways, I hope this solves your problem.

 

Interesting information to keep in mind! Now we know what url to ping!

 

I've had a similar issue when I only use my wireless connection, during beta about half my loses were caused by drops. However, once I was able to get a wired cable and used that as well, I never drop from SC2. So I new it was a wireless issue, but not something I can control since it's a collage's wireless/router.