Massive game lag/freeze on SC II patch 4.9.3

Petroff-1838 · July 14, 2019, 1:30am

Hi,

I updated my SC II to patch 4.9.3 a few days ago. After that, I have been unable to play normally. The patch notes say that there were some network corrections performed, but I think something was messed up in my case. I can log in and navigate the menus, lobbies, etc. normally. Games even load normally. However, once in a game, every 5-8 seconds the game freezes for 1-3 seconds. Character portrait animations appear normally, but their dialogues are cut short. This obviously did not happen before updating.

Some more information that can be of help:

I use Windows 10.
My computer specs allow for everything at the highest graphics and sound settings. Computer resources are not an issue, it is never close to being overloaded.
Internet connection is 20 Mbps. Like I mentioned, the issue only occurs during games, everything else is not affected. I don’t have any other network consuming programs opened when I play.
All required ports are forwarded to my computer’s IP address.
I tried things I saw on other posts like running the game in compatibility mode, running SCII.exe as administrator and changing graphic settings. I have not yet tried reinstalling the game, though, as I want to exhaust other options first.

Can you help me out with this? Let me know if there is any other information I can provide.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT:

Though I feel that network connection is not the problem, I ran a looking glass test just to make sure. MTR and Traceroute look ok. Ping test was weird. Below are the detailed results:

TRACEROUTE:
traceroute to 189.217.10.9 (189.217.10.9), 15 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 Blizzard Blizzard 0.383 ms 0.360 ms 0.355 ms
2 24.105.18.131 (24.105.18.131) 1.187 ms 1.190 ms 1.194 ms
3 137.221.105.16 (137.221.105.16) 1.161 ms 1.172 ms 1.175 ms
4 137.221.66.22 (137.221.66.22) 2.532 ms 2.536 ms 2.535 ms
5 137.221.83.72 (137.221.83.72) 25.852 ms 25.856 ms 25.853 ms
6 137.221.65.66 (137.221.65.66) 25.728 ms 25.768 ms 25.736 ms
7 137.221.74.34 (137.221.74.34) 25.682 ms 25.685 ms 25.906 ms
8 * * *
9 .201-174-253-3.transtelco.net (201.174.253.3) 58.316 ms 58.336 ms 58.333 ms
10 .201-174-251-15.transtelco.net (201.174.251.15) 64.008 ms 64.951 ms 64.583 ms
11 .201-174-20-122.transtelco.net (201.174.20.122) 32.393 ms 32.086 ms 31.616 ms
12 145.189-204-204.bestelclientes.com.mx (189.204.204.145) 38.120 ms 38.107 ms 38.077 ms
13 129.189-204-129.bestelclientes.com.mx (189.204.129.129) 58.868 ms 57.698 ms 57.702 ms
14 customer-189-216-2-13.cablevision.net.mx (189.216.2.13) 56.886 ms 62.917 ms 62.387 ms
15 * * *

14/07/2019 03:05:01 UTC

TRACEROUTE:
traceroute to 189.217.10.9 (189.217.10.9), 15 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 Blizzard Blizzard 0.302 ms 0.311 ms 0.321 ms
2 24.105.18.131 (24.105.18.131) 0.714 ms 0.900 ms 1.018 ms
3 137.221.105.16 (137.221.105.16) 0.580 ms 0.729 ms 0.851 ms
4 137.221.66.22 (137.221.66.22) 1.682 ms 1.724 ms 1.735 ms
5 137.221.83.72 (137.221.83.72) 25.747 ms 25.774 ms 25.790 ms
6 137.221.65.66 (137.221.65.66) 25.423 ms 25.754 ms 25.742 ms
7 137.221.74.34 (137.221.74.34) 25.668 ms 26.128 ms 26.007 ms
8 * * *
9 .201-174-253-3.transtelco.net (201.174.253.3) 58.407 ms 58.394 ms 58.526 ms
10 .201-174-251-15.transtelco.net (201.174.251.15) 64.009 ms 64.096 ms 64.058 ms
11 .201-174-20-122.transtelco.net (201.174.20.122) 31.247 ms 31.102 ms 31.175 ms
12 145.189-204-204.bestelclientes.com.mx (189.204.204.145) 38.275 ms 38.021 ms 38.196 ms
13 129.189-204-129.bestelclientes.com.mx (189.204.129.129) 57.709 ms 58.458 ms 58.368 ms
14 customer-189-216-2-13.cablevision.net.mx (189.216.2.13) 60.060 ms 57.723 ms 57.599 ms
15 * * *

14/07/2019 03:05:01 UTC

PING:
PING 189.217.10.9 (189.217.10.9) 56(84) bytes of data.

— 189.217.10.9 ping statistics —
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2998ms

14/07/2019 03:05:01 UTC

PING:
PING 189.217.10.9 (189.217.10.9) 56(84) bytes of data.

— 189.217.10.9 ping statistics —
4 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2998ms

14/07/2019 03:05:01 UTC

MTR:
Start: Sun Jul 14 03:05:01 2019 Blizzard 1.|-- Blizzard 0.0% 10 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.0
2.|-- 24.105.18.131 0.0% 10 0.7 0.8 0.5 2.6 0.6
3.|-- 137.221.105.16 0.0% 10 0.6 0.6 0.5 0.7 0.0
4.|-- 137.221.66.22 0.0% 10 1.0 1.1 0.8 1.9 0.0
5.|-- 137.221.83.72 0.0% 10 25.5 28.9 25.5 49.2 7.6
6.|-- 137.221.65.66 0.0% 10 25.7 25.8 25.5 27.4 0.5
7.|-- 137.221.74.34 0.0% 10 39.7 27.3 25.7 39.7 4.3
8.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
9.|-- .201-174-253-3.transtelco.net 0.0% 10 58.5 58.9 58.4 63.0 1.3
10.|-- .201-174-251-15.transtelco.net 0.0% 10 64.1 64.1 64.0 64.2 0.0
11.|-- .201-174-20-122.transtelco.net 0.0% 10 31.2 31.4 31.2 32.8 0.3
12.|-- 145.189-204-204.bestelclientes.com.mx 0.0% 10 37.9 39.3 37.9 49.7 3.6
13.|-- 129.189-204-129.bestelclientes.com.mx 0.0% 10 57.5 58.7 57.5 59.5 0.5
14.|-- customer-189-216-2-13.cablevision.net.mx 0.0% 10 61.1 60.8 57.7 64.0 1.9
15.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

14/07/2019 03:05:01 UTC

MTR:
Start: Sun Jul 14 03:05:01 2019 Blizzard 1.|-- Blizzard 0.0% 10 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.0
2.|-- 24.105.18.131 0.0% 10 1.0 3.5 0.6 27.3 8.4
3.|-- 137.221.105.16 0.0% 10 0.7 0.7 0.5 0.9 0.0
4.|-- 137.221.66.22 0.0% 10 1.0 1.4 0.9 4.1 0.9
5.|-- 137.221.83.72 0.0% 10 25.9 26.3 25.6 31.1 1.6
6.|-- 137.221.65.66 0.0% 10 25.7 28.4 25.6 52.1 8.3
7.|-- 137.221.74.34 0.0% 10 25.6 25.8 25.6 26.0 0.0
8.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
9.|-- .201-174-253-3.transtelco.net 0.0% 10 58.4 58.5 58.4 58.6 0.0
10.|-- .201-174-251-15.transtelco.net 0.0% 10 64.1 64.1 64.1 64.3 0.0
11.|-- .201-174-20-122.transtelco.net 0.0% 10 31.3 31.4 31.2 32.2 0.0
12.|-- 145.189-204-204.bestelclientes.com.mx 0.0% 10 38.1 39.1 37.9 47.6 3.0
13.|-- 129.189-204-129.bestelclientes.com.mx 0.0% 10 58.0 58.2 57.5 59.5 0.3
14.|-- customer-189-216-2-13.cablevision.net.mx 0.0% 10 56.9 60.0 56.8 63.5 2.3
15.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

14/07/2019 03:05:01 UTC

Jambrix · July 14, 2019, 5:48pm

Hey there,

Thanks for providing all the extra info. There may be something else on the system that is conflicting with the connection to the Starcraft 2 servers, and it’s possible that whatever was changed with the patch doesn’t agree with it.

Here’s what I would suggest trying:

Selective Startup

Press Windows Key+R .
Type msconfig and press Enter .
Select Selective startup and uncheck Load startup items .
Select the Services tab.
Check Hide all Microsoft services .
Note : Skipping this step may prevent your computer from rebooting correctly.
Click Disable all .
Click Apply then click OK .
Click Restart .

If the issue occurs after doing that you can go back in and change it back to Normal Startup.

I’ve also seen a few instances where a driver issue can cause the stuttering like you’re seeing. You may want to try uninstalling and reinstalling your display drivers to see if that clears it up.

Beyond that, the next step would be to send us your MSINFO file so we can take a closer look at the system. Since we can’t have MSINFOs posted on the forums please submit it via ticket and we’ll go from there.

Petroff-1838 · July 17, 2019, 7:21am

Hi,

Thanks very much for the feedback. I did the selective startup and indeed it seems that a service is causing these problems. I had previously disabled most of the non-Microsoft services for other reasons, but I left a few running (like a couple of services from my graphics card and several program updater services). Is there an effective way to determine which one is causing these problems (other than enabling a service, restarting the computer, testing the game and if everything was good, repeating this process with another service)? And is there a way to correct this issue on the service causing problems?

Jambrix · July 19, 2019, 3:36pm

Hey again,

The best way to narrow it down further to find out which service is causing the issue would be just to turn on a couple at a time and then test the game again. Unfortunately there’s no way to really verify which one specifically is causing issues other than enabling it to see if the problem returns.

Once you find out which service is causing the issue, try looking for an update for that piece of software or reinstall the software to see if that solves it.

Petroff-1838 · July 24, 2019, 4:02am

I did a few tests and finally found a couple of services which are causing all the problems. I just reinstalled them so I hope everything will be fine now.

Thanks for the help!