Preventing getting stuck between zones downloading data

[kittycatrag]

Bug: Character randomly gets stuck while zoning. Relogging doesn't work. Other characters behind the same router are fine. Someone logging on the affected character from another connection works fine.

Bandaid fix: Reboot router or wait a while.

Possible prevention: Add FFXI port forwarding to your router (ports listed here: http://support.na.square-enix.com/fa...&c=5&sc=0&so=0)

Can people who get hit by this bug try applying the port forwarding and report if it goes away after a few weeks (or report if the bug is still hit)? I know FFXI works most of the time without explicit port forwarding, but this bug pops up maybe once a week for some people. I've been clean for a few weeks but want to verify if this is a real fix or just lucky voodoo.

[NynJa]

Have a second pc/laptop/ps2 and log in from there and zone your char around to fix it

Its REALLY annoying

[arus2001]

I've long been of the mind this is SE auto-flagging an IP when something wonky happens with a packet, as the attainment of a new IP address always seemed to make it go away for me while doing nothing has had it last for well over a day. Unfortunately, if you're on Comcast like I am, you can't just press a few buttons and get a new one assigned, you've gotta unplug your modem and wait a few hours hoping it just gets assigned to someone else who comes up on their routine renewal.

[Byrthnoth]

I had this happen to me for a night a few weeks ago, but it simultaneously happened to a bunch of people on Reddit and they made a thread about it.

I'm leaning towards a "...the internet is a series of tubes..." explanation.

[kittycatrag]

arus, have you tried a quick power cycle (instead of 5 min unplug)? I'm looking for data on success/fails on that.

byrth, that makes me think it could be packets dropped during zoning due to poopy internet hops between us and japan... like how pcs/npcs disappeared often a few weeks ago. but i dunno packet stuff. is there a way we can force packet drops during zoning to try and reproduce the bug?

[Byrthnoth]

I had absolutely no luck resetting my router and fixing the problem. I just couldn't log in to my main character at all for 5 hours and then it eventually fixed itself around 1AM.

My theory at the time was that I had dropped while transferring between zone servers, so SE's servers just didn't have a place to connect me to when I logged in.

Here was the reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/commen...ia_north_down/

[Wheeldog]

I had absolutely no luck resetting my router and fixing the problem. I just couldn't log in to my main character at all for 5 hours and then it eventually fixed itself around 1AM.

My theory at the time was that I had dropped while transferring between zone servers, so SE's servers just didn't have a place to connect me to when I logged in.

Here was the reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/commen...ia_north_down/

It was something related to western A and mog garden zones servers. I could log onto any character that night that wasn't in these areas and was fine but when I tried to zone a mule into the garden they got stuck and I could no longer log into that mule. I have a feeling it was that zone server maybe rejecting people from zoning into it or something along those lines so you got stuck in limbo until they fixed it.

[kittycatrag]

I think a character getting stuck in a zone that has crashed is a separate issue.

[arus2001]

arus, have you tried a quick power cycle (instead of 5 min unplug)? I'm looking for data on success/fails on that.

Quickest I'd ever been able to get back in was about 30 minutes after it happened. Average usually lasted 3 hours, but the worst was closest to 36. Either way, whenever I intentionally try to get a new IP, I always have my router page open. Quick cycles or 5m unplugs are rarely enough to get a new assignment.

[Byrthnoth]

It was something related to western A and mog garden zones servers. I could log onto any character that night that wasn't in these areas and was fine but when I tried to zone a mule into the garden they got stuck and I could no longer log into that mule. I have a feeling it was that zone server maybe rejecting people from zoning into it or something along those lines so you got stuck in limbo until they fixed it.

I had my mule on in Port Jeuno (and could log him back on every time I tried with no issues), but couldn't log in to Port Jeuno on my main.

[timboly]

I've been having this issue with my mule on the same PC everyday for the past two or three weeks.
Originally I thought resetting the modem and router was the only thing that worked. Recently I've found that doing an ipconfig /release for 20 seconds and then ipconfig /renew also seems to do the trick without having disrupt everyone else on the same network with a modem/router reset.
I am still getting r0/dc/stuck in downloading daily though, which is getting really annoying. Reinstalling the game didn't help either. I will try the port forwarding and report back.

-EDIT- It's been 11 days and haven't had a crash since using the port forwarding trick. Thanks for posting this!