Latency / Ping spikes every game

Technical Support
1

I get 2-5 ping spikes every game, whether comp or quick play, from 100 to 250+ ms every minute. My connection is wired. These spikes only happen in Overwatch and are so annoying and barely playable.

Here are my Looking Glass results. Please help me figure out the problem:

TRACEROUTE:
traceroute to 197.55.239.36 (197.55.239.36), 15 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 Blizzard Blizzard 0.407 ms 0.397 ms 0.397 ms
2 37.244.24.2 (37.244.24.2) 0.603 ms 0.754 ms 0.773 ms
3 Blizzard Blizzard 1.054 ms 1.121 ms 1.206 ms
4 137.221.66.46 (137.221.66.46) 1.651 ms 1.652 ms 1.652 ms
5 * * *
6 137.221.78.34 (137.221.78.34) 1.608 ms 1.254 ms 1.219 ms
7 adm-b2-link.telia .net (62.115.178.202) 1.018 ms 1.173 ms 1.162 ms
8 213.155.137.210 (213.155.137.210) 1.345 ms 1.407 ms 1.419 ms
9 adm-b1-link.telia. net (62.115.136.195) 1.510 ms 1.524 ms 1.538 ms
10 telecomitalia-ic-327065-adm-b1.c.telia. net (62.115.9.33) 20.106 ms 20.119 ms 20.118 ms
11 telecom-egypt.palermo16.pal.seabone. net (195.22.197.49) 73.000 ms 72.936 ms 72.975 ms
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 host-197.55.128.1.tedata .net (197.55.128.1) 74.847 ms 75.159 ms 75.093 ms
15 * * *

18/08/2019 20:21:47 UTC

TRACEROUTE:
traceroute to 197.55.239.36 (197.55.239.36), 15 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 Blizzard Blizzard 0.338 ms 0.329 ms 0.332 ms
2 37.244.25.130 (37.244.25.130) 0.608 ms 0.627 ms 0.702 ms
3 Blizzard Blizzard 1.077 ms 1.413 ms 1.440 ms
4 137.221.66.34 (137.221.66.34) 1.271 ms 1.275 ms 1.278 ms
5 137.221.77.66 (137.221.77.66) 26.209 ms 26.238 ms 26.240 ms
6 137.221.77.32 (137.221.77.32) 1.191 ms 1.105 ms 1.051 ms
7 7-1-23.ear2.Paris1.Level3 .net (212.73.205.157) 1.152 ms 1.176 ms 1.460 ms
8 TelecomItalia-level3-30G.Paris1.Level3 .net (4.68.62.22) 14.128 ms 14.438 ms 14.400 ms
9 telecom-egypt.palermo16.pal.seabone .net (195.22.198.61) 62.746 ms 62.763 ms 62.763 ms
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 host-197.55.128.1.tedata .net (197.55.128.1) 64.040 ms 63.677 ms 63.819 ms
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *

18/08/2019 20:21:47 UTC

PING:
PING 197.55.239.36 (197.55.239.36) 56(84) bytes of data.

— 197.55.239.36 ping statistics —
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2999ms

18/08/2019 20:21:47 UTC

PING:
PING 197.55.239.36 (197.55.239.36) 56(84) bytes of data.

— 197.55.239.36 ping statistics —
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2999ms

18/08/2019 20:21:47 UTC

MTR:
Start: Sun Aug 18 20:21:47 2019 Blizzard 1.|-- Blizzard 0.0% 10 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.6 0.0
2.|-- 37.244.24.2 0.0% 10 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.8 0.0
3.|-- Blizzard 0.0% 10 1.1 2.1 1.1 5.9 1.5
4.|-- 137.221.66.46 0.0% 10 1.1 1.7 1.1 5.6 1.2
5.|-- 137.221.78.72 10.0% 10 6318. 6905. 6318. 7542. 454.5
6.|-- 137.221.78.34 0.0% 10 1.3 3.2 1.1 19.7 5.8
7.|-- adm-b2-link.telia .net 0.0% 10 0.8 1.0 0.8 1.3 0.0
8.|-- 213.155.137.210 0.0% 10 1.4 1.4 1.2 2.0 0.0
9.|-- adm-b1-link.telia .net 0.0% 10 1.2 1.4 1.2 1.7 0.0
10.|-- telecomitalia-ic-327065-adm-b1.c.telia .net 0.0% 10 19.9 20.8 19.9 27.4 2.3
11.|-- telecom-egypt.palermo16.pal.seabone .net 0.0% 10 72.4 72.7 72.4 73.0 0.0
12.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
13.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
14.|-- host-197.55.128.1.tedata .net 20.0% 10 74.9 75.0 74.7 75.7 0.0
15.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

18/08/2019 20:21:47 UTC

MTR:
Start: Sun Aug 18 20:21:47 2019 Blizzard 1.|-- Blizzard 0.0% 10 0.4 0.4 0.2 1.1 0.0
2.|-- 37.244.25.130 0.0% 10 0.5 0.6 0.4 0.7 0.0
3.|-- Blizzard 0.0% 10 1.0 3.3 0.9 23.2 6.9
4.|-- 137.221.66.34 0.0% 10 1.0 1.1 1.0 1.2 0.0
5.|-- 137.221.77.66 0.0% 10 0.8 0.9 0.8 1.1 0.0
6.|-- 137.221.77.32 0.0% 10 1.2 1.3 0.9 2.8 0.5
7.|-- 7-1-23.ear2.Paris1.Level3 .net 0.0% 10 1.3 1.3 1.1 1.6 0.0
8.|-- TelecomItalia-level3-30G.Paris1.Level3 .net 0.0% 10 14.1 14.3 14.1 15.9 0.3
9.|-- telecom-egypt.palermo16.pal.seabone .net 0.0% 10 62.6 62.9 62.4 64.9 0.5
10.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
11.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
12.|-- host-197.55.128.1.tedata .net 20.0% 10 63.8 64.8 63.6 71.4 2.6
13.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

18/08/2019 20:21:47 UTC

2

Hey CamNewon157,

The only thing that stuck out in this test is the packet loss near your location:

In this case, it would be helpful to run a WinMTR test which will show the reverse path (your computer to our servers) and may help provide more details on what is happening.

  1. Download WinMTR
  2. Unzip the WinMTR.zip file to the Desktop.
  3. Open the WinMTR folder and select the 32 or 64 bit version. Choose whichever one corresponds to your version of Windows.
  4. Run the WinMTR.exe
  5. Type the IP address you want to trace in the “Host” field. To get the correct IP you will actually need to open up the game and go Practice Vs AI or Quick Play and if you are on PC hit Ctrl+Shift+N and it will bring up the ingame network diagnostic graph, or go to Video > Options > Display Network Performance Graph if you are on any platform including Console. In the top left corner is the IP address you want to run WinMTR to.
    Network Graph
    note When looking at the IP it will show up ingame as something like 12.34.56.78:12345. You will want to leave the last 5 digits and the colon at the end off and the IP you want to use is just the 12.34.56.78
  6. Once you notice the connection issue while playing, play for about 6 more minutes, minimize the game and click on “Stop”.
  7. Click on “Copy text to clipboard”, then return to this forum thread.
  8. Type two sets of four squiggly lines and then paste the contents of the WinMTR test between: ~~~~ Paste WinMTR Test Results Here ~~~~
3

I played a game of quick play where I had 4 ping spikes, and here are its results:

|                                      WinMTR statistics                                   |
|                       Host              -   %  | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
|                             192.168.1.1 -    0 |  713 |  713 |    0 |    0 |    1 |    0 |
|            host-197.55.128.1.tedata.net -    2 |  678 |  669 |   25 |   26 |   28 |   26 |
|                              10.36.27.5 -    2 |  678 |  669 |    0 |   31 |   34 |   31 |
|                            10.36.23.158 -    2 |  678 |  669 |   27 |   27 |   38 |   27 |
|                             10.36.21.33 -    1 |  689 |  683 |   27 |   27 |   31 |   28 |
|                            10.38.112.29 -    2 |  674 |  664 |   29 |   30 |   64 |   30 |
|    te0-12-0-5.palermo17.pal.seabone.net -    3 |  654 |  639 |   52 |   55 |   70 |   55 |
|           ae11.milano58.mil.seabone.net -    5 |  614 |  589 |   77 |   80 |  132 |   78 |
|       blizzard.milano58.mil.seabone.net -    6 |  594 |  564 |   78 |   81 |  164 |   78 |
|              ae1-br01-eqml2.as57976.net -    4 |  634 |  614 |   92 |   94 |  148 |   92 |
|       xe-0-0-1-1-br01-eqpa4.as57976.net -    2 |  668 |  660 |   90 |  127 | 4404 |  109 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|                   No response from host -  100 |  143 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
   WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider ~~~~
4

It looks like you are hitting the Milano Seabone server, and we have received similar reports of people having issues at this point. We are getting this investigated but in the mean time you may want to try testing a free VPN to see if it routes you around this location.

5

I have NordVPN, but the latency spikes a lot while using it to play.I even used 3rd party apps like Haste and Outfox, but they don’t stop the spikings that happen. How do I stop connecting to the Milano Seabone server?

6

It’s possible that you can’t avoid the Milano Seabone due to your location. We aren’t able to provide support for VPNs but typically you can choose your server location in the program, and you would want to select a location that is either close to your location or close to the destination location. If you are connecting to the EU Overwatch servers, they are hosted in Netherlands, France and Germany so picking a location in one of those places could help.

7

Hello.

For some reason I don’t understand, changing the DNS I was using solved the latency problems I had been having all week. Only thing that finally worked.

Google’s one gave me occasional spikes, so I used DNS Benchmark to test the fastest ones. The first one gave me the worst latency despite being first, but I went down the list and the 2nd one did the trick.

Again, I don’t understand why. But I tried it on another user’s suggestion, and it worked for me. Maybe it can work for you too.

1 Like
8

Yeah trying Google DNS may be worth a shot, CamNewon157.

9

Thanks for helping. I tried changing my DNS to Cloudfare’s (#1 on the benchmark test) on my pc in Network and Sharing settings, but there were still some spikes. Did you change the DNS in your router’s configuration page or just on your PC ?

10

Funny, CloudFlare was my first pick too, the one I said got me the worst ping yet.

So try your second best next, and if that fails, keep going down till you get one that works. In my case this was OpenDNS, my second best.

I did this change on my router btw, so my whole household could benefit from it, but I’m completely sure it should work just as well changing it locally.