High Latency when routed through Cogent Communications

I’ll preface this by saying that I just read where Drakuloth replied to that mess of a thread made 11 hours ago with 1.7k replies.

Drakuloth said “Not currently, and technically it’s still under investigation. Some players may still see some weird behavior, like more minor connection issues/disconnections or higher than normal latency due to the detour they’re taking. All we did was work with the ISPs involved and some of our other peers to route people around the issue until they can get it resolved. The backbone providers are still working on the core problems.”

Well here I am and I’m still over 200ms. The same 200ms I’ve been at for weeks. Please, for the love of god, “work with” Cogent. I know I’m not the only one with this problem so don’t give me that spiel. I’m just one of the few that actually decided to make a post here. You might’ve “worked with” other ISPs to fix the logging in issue but it doesn’t appear that you “worked with” Cogent.

On August 8 I logged into the Classic stress test to find that my latency was 220ms. I contacted my ISP on August 9. They sent someone out but there was nothing they could do. They said nothing was wrong. The ping from the road read 2ms and the internet speed was where it should have been (60 Mbps download / 30 Mbps upload). I logged into retail to make sure it wasn’t just the Classic stress test. The latency on retail was the same. 220ms. So the tech left my house since there was nothing wrong, nothing he could do. A day or so later I called my ISP back and was told to email one of their level 2 techs that worked there.

On August 12 he emailed me back and said “We will contact Cogent to see if we can get someone to look at and work on this for us. It would be a loss to replace the router or the equipment on the outside of the home. My testing here indicates the same thing that you are seeing. I will keep you informed of what we find out."

On August 16 I logged into retail to find that my latency was great. 59ms. I was a happy camper but tempered my expectations. I emailed the tech and told him that the problem seemed to have been fixed and that I would let him know if anything changes. He replied that they had sent a ticket into Cogent but haven’t heard anything back.

On August 17 I logged into retail and was back at 220ms.

I’ve asked for help from some other people during this whole ordeal and was told by one person that it looks like a peering problem between AS174 Cogent Communications and AS57976 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. Said it looks like the traceroute is going from IP addresses registered to Blizzard US, to Blizzard Europe (Netherlands), to a Singaporean Telecom Company, then back to Blizzard US.

Things that I have tried:
-checked other computers to make sure it wasn’t just one
-flushed dns
-reset router
-vpn - this worked. my latency was around 50ms. obviously I don’t want to have to rely on a vpn but this just reaffirms the fact that my house isn’t the issue

Things I haven’t tried:
-opened ports

With Classic just one week away I’d really like to get this figured out. I had to level a character to 10 just to make this post

Tracing route to 137.221.105.2 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 199.59.168.1
3 3 ms 2 ms 2 ms 199.59.174.244
4 7 ms 8 ms 8 ms te0-19-0-2-2.ccr41.atl04.atlas.cogentco dot com [38.122.46.149]
5 8 ms 8 ms 7 ms be2788.ccr22.atl02.atlas.cogentco dot com [154.54.5.193]
6 8 ms 7 ms 8 ms se3-1-7-0.ca01.atl02.atlas.cogentco dot com [38.104.2.1]
7 241 ms 241 ms 241 ms ae1-br01-eqat2.as57976 dot net [137.221.75.33]
8 228 ms 227 ms 227 ms xe-0-0-0-0-br01-eqda6.as57976 dot net [137.221.65.48]
9 228 ms 228 ms 228 ms et-0-0-29-br02-eqda6.as57976 dot net [137.221.65.101]
10 56 ms 56 ms 56 ms et-0-0-2-br02-swlv10.as57976 dot net [137.221.65.67]
11 238 ms 239 ms 295 ms et-0-0-67-pe01-swlv10.as57976 dot net [137.221.83.71]
12 228 ms 228 ms 227 ms 137.221.105.2

Trace complete.

They don’t care.

2 Likes

EDIT: Temper is getting the better of me. Please. Just please. Get with Cogent and work this thing out. I believe in you guys. There are so many more people having issues with Cogent than you think.

I made this post over a month ago and they still have been no help. Sorry to disappoint you but it’s probably a problem that will never be fixed. I talked to over 20 different techs for my ISP over the past month, and even went straight to Cogent tech support and they all blame blizzard. Something tells me there is more to the story of why Blizzard is the only company that has servers with these type of routing issues.

I understand Blizzard does not control the route of traffic that ISP’s use, but there is something oddly fishy. I can connect to multiple other games I play that also have servers located in Chicago and have no problems.

In regards to getting in touch with my ISP provider: This is impossible, I live in India and the people here would NEVER care to contact blizzard on behalf of some foreigner who plays a game, are you kidding? We need a better solution that this, I have played since CATA in India without problems, and I really don’t know what it falls to ME to do some kind of technical legwork here. I will never be able to log in to the game again if this is what is needed to happen internationally

2 Likes

It’s unlikely that they don’t care. It’s more that they can’t do anything at Blizzard tech support level or they would have by now. WoW’s IPv6 access has been broken for two weeks already. I wonder if it’s all interrelated.

It looks like the problem is still in the hand-off between cogent and equinix. I’ll check on the progress of the investigation. In the meantime, the more reports for an issue we get the easier it is to escalate the issue since we have more data to work with. All we need for each report is a traceroute or winMTR.

Thanks for all your patience in these matters. I know it’s not fun to play with such high latency.

Where do we report this?

For me it has been going on for at least two months. I should have 30ms or less on the server I play on. Now all American servers have over 200ms and its only WoW. I can play any other multiplayer game and my ping is fine.

Tracing route to 24.105.62.129 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 3 ms 1 ms 1 ms 111.111.1.1
2 2 ms 2 ms 3 ms 74.123.16.1
3 3 ms 3 ms 2 ms 199.59.174.244
4 8 ms 7 ms 8 ms te0-19-0-2-2.ccr41.atl04.atlas.cogentco com [38.122.46.149]
5 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms be2788.ccr22.atl02.atlas.cogentco com [154.54.5.193]
6 8 ms 9 ms 8 ms se3-1-7-0.ca01.atl02.atlas.cogentco com [38.104.2.1]
7 231 ms 231 ms 232 ms ae1-br01-eqat2.as57976 net [137.221.75.33]
8 26 ms 26 ms 26 ms et-0-0-4-br02-eqch2.as57976 net [137.221.65.46]
9 233 ms 234 ms 233 ms be2-pe01-eqch2.as57976 net [137.221.69.71]
10 232 ms 232 ms 232 ms chi-eqch2-ia-bons-02.as57976 net [137.221.66.11]
11 232 ms 233 ms 232 ms 24.105.62.129

Trace complete.

Tracing route to 137.221.105.2 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 111.111.1.1
2 3 ms 2 ms 3 ms 74.123.16.1
3 3 ms 4 ms 3 ms 199.59.174.244
4 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms te0-19-0-2-2.ccr41.atl04.atlas.cogentco com [38.122.46.149]
5 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms be2788.ccr22.atl02.atlas.cogentco com [154.54.5.193]
6 8 ms 8 ms 9 ms se3-1-7-0.ca01.atl02.atlas.cogentco com [38.104.2.1]
7 224 ms 224 ms 223 ms ae1-br01-eqat2.as57976 net [137.221.75.33]
8 231 ms 231 ms 231 ms xe-0-0-0-0-br01-eqda6.as57976 net [137.221.65.48]
9 231 ms 246 ms 230 ms et-0-0-29-br02-eqda6.as57976 net [137.221.65.101]
10 56 ms 57 ms 56 ms et-0-0-2-br02-swlv10.as57976 net [137.221.65.67]
11 250 ms 223 ms 225 ms et-0-0-67-pe01-swlv10.as57976 net [137.221.83.71]
12 223 ms 223 ms 224 ms las-swlv10-ia-bons-02.as57976 net [137.221.66.19]
13 224 ms 223 ms 224 ms 137.221.105.2

Trace complete.

1 Like

I just wanted to add to this list. My main server (Stormrage), has basically been unplayable to me for the past 3 weeks. This is throughout the day and into the evening, at one point seeing my lag going up to 62,192 ms (never seen it this high before). I had to crash my computer to get out (could not get into Taskmaster to stop WoW from running), because of the high lag). Normally, Stormrage is right at 94ms home/92ms world, for me.

Surprisingly, my secondary server, Norgannon, which is also in Chicago, has been playable except for one or two short hickups.

Also had some minor problems on the Mok’Nathal server which is in LA.

I’m with Verizon DSL out of Virginia, and I’m going to talk to the company tomorrow morning about this. I’m not sure that my problem is the same as everyone else’s. I lost my phone line/DSL on 27 July, and the problems started shortly after after they supposedly fixed it. I just think it’s weird that for me, it’s also Stormrage that gives me the biggest problem.

Forgot to mention that I have the same problems when playing Rift, ESO, etc.

1 Like

Any update yet? I was told over a month ago that Blizzard techs were looking into it and obviously nothing has been fixed yet. I’m no expert, but it doesn’t seem like a routing issue would take such a long time to fix.

IT’S FIXED. I’m down to 60ms. Here’s the thing… it was fixed like this for 1 day last week and went back to where it’s been holding steady for weeks = 230ms

I’ll hold my breath like last time ha

We’ll see how long this lasts

IT’S FIXED!!!

For now…

Thank you for reporting the latency has gone back to normal! We’ll continue to monitor to see if the issue resurfaces. Please continue to report if you are experiencing High Latency while routing through CogentCo.

I’ve been having the same super high latency lately as well

TRACEROUTE:
traceroute to 97.117.87.93 (97.117.87.93), 15 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 Blizzard Blizzard 0.321 ms 0.301 ms 0.296 ms
2 24.105.18.3 (24.105.18.3) 0.557 ms 0.624 ms 0.774 ms
3 137.221.105.12 (137.221.105.12) 0.886 ms 0.890 ms 0.887 ms
4 137.221.66.20 (137.221.66.20) 2.873 ms 2.878 ms 2.877 ms
5 137.221.83.68 (137.221.83.68) 3.878 ms 3.883 ms 3.881 ms
6 137.221.65.68 (137.221.65.68) 24.568 ms 23.401 ms 23.395 ms
7 137.221.68.32 (137.221.68.32) 5.955 ms 6.764 ms 6.739 ms
8 te0-0-0-0-5.ccr41.lax05.atlas.cogentco. com (38.104.84.12) 6.716 ms 6.380 ms 6.338 ms
9 ctl.lax05.atlas.cogentco. com (154.54.12.66) 6.290 ms 9.786 ms 9.821 ms
10 slcy-agw1.inet.qwest .net (67.14.134.186) 18.728 ms 18.585 ms 18.574 ms
11 207-108-177-162.slkc.qwest .net (207.108.177.162) 19.738 ms 18.566 ms 18.604 ms
12 97-117-87-93.slkc.qwest .net (97.117.87.93) 27.947 ms 28.034 ms 28.037 ms

25/08/2019 03:51:35 UTC

PING:
PING 97.117.87.93 (97.117.87.93) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 97.117.87.93: icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=30.8 ms
64 bytes from 97.117.87.93: icmp_seq=2 ttl=53 time=27.0 ms
64 bytes from 97.117.87.93: icmp_seq=3 ttl=53 time=27.2 ms
64 bytes from 97.117.87.93: icmp_seq=4 ttl=53 time=26.6 ms

— 97.117.87.93 ping statistics —
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 2997ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 26.633/27.935/30.804/1.679 ms

25/08/2019 03:51:35 UTC

MTR:
Start: Sun Aug 25 03:51:35 2019 Blizzard 1.|-- Blizzard 0.0% 10 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.5 0.0
2.|-- 24.105.18.3 0.0% 10 0.6 3.2 0.5 26.6 8.2
3.|-- 137.221.105.12 0.0% 10 1.0 0.9 0.7 1.1 0.0
4.|-- 137.221.66.20 0.0% 10 1.1 2.8 0.9 16.9 5.0
5.|-- 137.221.83.68 0.0% 10 8.7 8.0 0.9 39.3 11.4
6.|-- 137.221.65.68 0.0% 10 5.8 44.3 5.7 168.2 55.3
7.|-- 137.221.68.32 0.0% 10 6.0 7.7 5.9 23.4 5.5
8.|-- te0-0-0-0-5.ccr41.lax05.atlas.cogentco. com 0.0% 10 5.7 6.0 5.6 8.1 0.5
9.|-- ctl.lax05.atlas.cogentco .com 0.0% 10 7.0 11.4 6.1 29.0 6.8
10.|-- slcy-agw1.inet.qwest .net 0.0% 10 18.6 18.7 18.6 19.0 0.0
11.|-- 207-108-177-162.slkc.qwest. net 0.0% 10 18.7 19.9 18.7 30.3 3.6
12.|-- 97-117-87-93.slkc.qwest. net 0.0% 10 27.1 27.0 26.5 27.5 0.0

25/08/2019 03:51:35 UTC

Tracing route to 137.221.105.2 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 13 ms 14 ms 20 ms slcy-dsl-gw21.slcy.qwest net [207.108.176.21]
3 26 ms 34 ms 76 ms 207-108-177-161.slkc.qwest. net [207.108.177.161]
4 107 ms 48 ms 11 ms 207-108-179-2.slkc.qwest. net [207.108.179.2]
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 60 ms 26 ms 59 ms BLIZZARD-EN.ear3.LosAngeles1.Level3. net [4.71.135.106]
7 224 ms 94 ms 46 ms ae1-br01-eqla1.as57976. net [137.221.68.33]
8 44 ms 36 ms * et-0-0-2-br01-swlv10.as57976. net [137.221.65.69]
9 234 ms 76 ms 76 ms et-0-0-31-pe01-swlv10.as57976 .net [137.221.83.67]
10 33 ms 28 ms 28 ms las-swlv10-ia-bons-02.as57976 .net [137.221.66.19]
11 58 ms 34 ms 29 ms 137.221.105.2

Trace complete.

Hi Youmyboyblue

Run a WinMTR test - will give us a better look at things.

The instructions are on this Blizzard Support page:

Once you have the tool open enter the IP number for the server group you play on in the WinMTR box then hit start.

137.221.105.2

(include periods)

Leave it run for 5 minutes or so. Doesn’t matter if you are playing or not. Then use the button that copies Text to your clipboard. Paste that on your thread here.

*You may need to alter or remove any URL addresses to paste on forum. You could also place the test results in a code block:

Open chat box - paste test then right click - “select all”. Should highlight everything. Then press the preformatted text button along top of chat box. Looks like this </>.

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                                      WinMTR statistics                                   |
|                       Host              -   %  | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
|                             192.168.0.1 -   95 | 6298 |  344 |    0 |    6 |  217 |    2 |
|            slcy-dsl-gw21.slcy.qwest.net -   96 | 6226 |  255 |    8 |   57 | 4535 |   17 |
|                slcy-agw1.inet.qwest.net -   96 | 6239 |  268 |    9 |   76 | 4536 |   17 |
|            207-108-179-2.slkc.qwest.net -   96 | 6225 |  257 |    9 |   74 | 4535 |   16 |
|                   No response from host -  100 | 6024 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |
| BLIZZARD-EN.ear3.LosAngeles1.Level3.net -   96 | 6255 |  288 |   22 |   33 |  323 |   40 |
|              ae1-br01-eqla1.as57976.net -   98 | 6129 |  134 |    0 |  144 | 2174 |   31 |
|        et-0-0-2-br01-swlv10.as57976.net -   96 | 6226 |  252 |   27 |   49 | 2276 |   31 |
|       et-0-0-31-pe01-swlv10.as57976.net -   96 | 6266 |  301 |   27 |   51 | 2285 |   29 |
|       las-swlv10-ia-bons-02.as57976.net -   96 | 6260 |  293 |   27 |   39 |  274 |   29 |
|                           137.221.105.2 -   96 | 6258 |  292 |   27 |   47 | 2262 |   30 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
   WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider

Look like some packet loss issues or oddities going on starting on the home network. Have you tried the standard Power Cycle of network devices:

Describe how you connect - wireless or Ethernet cable. Is it a Router then a separate Modem or a combination Router/Modem. Any other devices in the line such as switches - splitters - VoIP things?

The amount of packet loss we see there would cause a no connection at all situation. It looks like the router/modem is discarding packets. Those packets are different than game packets which may be getting through for the most part.

Yes I’ve reset everything flushed and renewed dns.
Wireless signal router modem/modem no other devices like a switch at all.

Moved my pc to the router and with an ethernet cord everything is fine, looks like an issue with my wireless. Thought it may be related when I saw cogent in the MTR.

Thanks for looking though!

You got ahead of me there. That would be the next test. Have you tried the 2.4 GHz band on the wireless?