Riverne A/Riverne B/Mis Coast/Monarch Linn - R0

[Talisien]

Hiya,

I'm wondering if there's a way to identify specific ports that are being blocked or accessed on your computer from FFXI. I'm not sure if that's the definition of a port sniffer, but in the zones listed above I consistently R0 (for 1-3 seconds without a red dot and then resume playing normally without disconnecting) but in every other zone I never R0.

Speaking to tech support it seems that different zones use different ports, and I'm just wondering if anyone else has a problem in these zones, and if there's anyway to force FF to use a different port in these zones.

Thanks for any help you might be able to come up with

-Talisien

[Zosi]

Tech support is full of shit, port blocking wouldn't cause that kind of lag.

[Talisien]

Wow! So sorry I was just looking in tech support forum and I was like where the damn hell is my post ><

Can someone move this please? sorry.......

[Killgannon]

who's tech support told you different zones use different ports???

any ways you can try ethereal or netstat (though netstat only produces results at the time you do the command... though i think theres an arguement to keep it running and updating (dont ask me what though))

but in reality port blocking wouldnt cause it, and different zones wouldnt use different ports....

[Koga]

PlayOnline and Final Fantasy XI uses the following ports for various functions:
• TCP Ports: 25, 80, 110, 443, and 50000 - 65535
• UDP Ports: 50000 - 65535

But I doubt this is related to blocked ports...
Are you on a shared/network? Are you running background apps? I mean this is minimal information...

It could be software related in that your PC is getting lag due to trying to accomplish too much at once.
Could be caused by server>client lag in that you have too much downloading/streaming going on at the same time.
Could be caused by client>server lag and your information isn't hitting the server fast enough for real-time updating.
Could be the zone was filled up at the time and you lagged.
Could be related to your video card not being able to render the graphics properly in that zone or corrupted data in that zone's .DAT

If you had a blocked port you wouldn't be able to use the AH/or log into ffxi/or log into POL.

[Talisien]

Sorry shared network, no background apps.

FFXI/SE tech support was the person who told me that different zones use different ports.

A new router prevented me from R0 -> disconnect, so I assumed that this 1-3 second R0 issue (without the disconnect) was related to that.

Is there anything that could be causing this issue besides ports? Once I warped out of Monarch Linn/Mis Coast to Whitegate (in the middle of the mog house area) I sat and watched the S/R numbers and they never hit R0 for 1-3 seconds like it was doing in Riverne B01.

Just to note when I come back from the 1-3 second R0 everything speeds up like a rubber band effect. So the information I guess isn't being blocked, that makes sense, but it's as though the information is getting impeded...idk. The fact that it was tied to a specific set of zones is what made me think ports.

[Koga]

Are you the only one lagging like that?
SE is full of BS. Their tech support told me that I should resort back to the inital release of the drivers that came with my video cards release (like 2 years ago) when I tried to go through them for help.

Your still talking through the same port no matter what zone you are in, the information gets routed differently per zone but its still the same ports. The same reults you are describing right now can be duplicated by one of 2(and a half) things which can prove its not a port issue.
1: Go to a lag infested zone with 500+ people in one spot: See Beseiged when it was first released.
2: Download loads of things in the background.
2.5: get a bandwidth limitation program and run it.

If the port is blocked you would not be able to connect. Your seeing an excess of information get put into your memory but then the computer is lagging and so when it catches up you see everything happen at once or everyone move really fast short bursts.
it is possible however that the port is being used by something else and causing traffic on that specific port and is causing the intermittent lag.

[Killgannon]

could be that the zone server those zones are on, and your pc dont have a good connection, since most of those zones are in the same area, id assume they'd be on the same zone servers.... now i dont know how SE's network is set up but lets say that those zone servers are on zoneserver3.se.com and that has some random ip that idc about and its on router3.se.com which connects through some back bone... now it may be that your isp and that backbone have a bad hop somewhere in there... and its timing out for a second as it loses some packets...

only way to really test this is to run something like ethereal or something, and tracert to the ip that you get when you zone into those particular zones... if something times out that may be your problem...

[Koga]

Found more info no Port Issues.
This guy had the same problem and this is what he did to fix:

FFXI and PlayOnline requires the following ports to be allowed through for the following reasons:

TCP 25, 110, and 443 for e-mail
TCP 80 for web access
And dynamic ports 50000 to 65535 for various communications

UDP ports 50000-65535 for various communications

There should be a setting to allow you to specify that when your computer requests a port, it will trigger the rule to allow access activating all the other ports for a specific communication with a server. You can set it so that one or more of these ports will trigger the rule:

TCP 51220 (Authentication Login)
TCP 53001 (FFXI Patch Connection)
TCP 54001 (FFXI Connection)
TCP 51300 (PlayOnline Menu Update)
TCP 54000 (PlayOnline Patch Connection)
TCP 51240 (PlayOnline Redirection Connection)

or you can just set it as a range from 51000 to 55000 TCP.

It is usually safe to make it so at out going request on that port to a certain server will allow that server to connect back on the other ports. You may have to fiddle with the settings a bit. Maybe I will post up a guide at the end of the month on configuring your firewall.

Please find a place for your router configuration that has "PORT TRIGGERING" or "APPLICATION TRIGGERING" and enter 51000-55000 TCP for the trigger ports! Then input all the ports as specified in the manual to allow access after those ports are triggered.

All this information should be on one line, for ONE APPLICATION. So, an example of this might be:
TRIGGER START PORT: 51000
TRIGGER END PORT: 55000
TRIGGER TYPE: TCP
PUBLIC PORT: 25, 80, 110,443, 116,118,443,50000-65535
PUBLIC TYPE: BOTH
ENABLE: [checked]

Refer to the image and find something like this on your router and set it appropriately. Special thanks to Oro-dono for the image.
http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/att...f?d=1072689140

[Talisien]

I'll try that, thank you!

[Furtwangler]

who's tech support told you different zones use different ports???

any ways you can try ethereal or netstat (though netstat only produces results at the time you do the command... though i think theres an arguement to keep it running and updating (dont ask me what though))

but in reality port blocking wouldnt cause it, and different zones wouldnt use different ports....

you can use netstat 1 (or any number) to make it refresh at w/e second intreval, that's all that I know of, I remember doing something to make it go constantly but I can't remember nor find what that was :/

[Talisien]

Update to this issue I had it occur again without trying. I was running with Ventrilo, Teamspeak and an Internet webpage opened and had a single R0 (1-3 second) thing occur while in Whitegate. It was an isolated incident however, unlike Mis Coast when it was happening a dozen or more times a minute. However also unlike Mis I was in 2 empty channels on Vent and TS, whereas during the CoP run I was actively engaged in conversation.

I'm assuming it's a network issue with programs conflicting and FFXI's crappy code at fault =| I tried rebooting, not loading up any of the programs at all (only FFXI running) and went into Mis Coast solo and fought a battle with no R0. However the R0 occurred more frequently when more information was being sent (aka the whole party was fighting/casting spells etc) so I didn't get a chance to test that yet.