iPhone version frequently loses network connection for no apparent reason

[Illusionator]

Description: iPhone version frequently loses network connection for no apparent reason. In the middle of a match, even 20 feet from the WiFi hotspot with full WiFi connectivity, SE will display the dreaded "Quit 30...29...28" message. Waiting to see if the problem clears itself up within the 30 seconds always fails. Attempts to change network connectivity (turn off WiFi to use 3G/LTE, connect to a different nearby WiFi nearby access point) during the countdown almost never work at this point. You simply lose the match.

Platform: iPhone 5

Version: 2.000

Steps to reproduce: I haven't found a way to reliably reproduce this. But it happens about 1 in 10 games for me. I always play SE on my iPhone 5 (not other devices). I am usually using WiFi, but about 20% of the time I'm using the iPhone's 3G or LTE data connection. This problem of losing the network connection occurs a lot on WiFi, but also occasionally on 3G/LTE. It happens to me at least once or twice per day, every day. It happens at home (where we have wonderful, strong, reliable WiFi coverage), it happens when I'm using WiFi out in the world (Starbucks, friend's house, hotel). I'm quite tech-savvy (I've been a software engineer for 35 years), and despite all my attempts to work around this problem with different iOS network settings (try waiting out the countdown timer to see if the problem clears up on its own, try turning off WiFi and switch back to Shadow Era, try quickly reconnecting to a different WiFi access point before the "Quit" timer ends, try reconnecting to the same WiFi hotspot before the timer ends, etc.), this problem persists.

NOTE: Once the Shadow Era game ends, I can simply start up a new SE game right away and everything is fine. It's almost as if a tiny network glitch in SE causes SE to somehow give up completely rather than re-trying the network connection.

I am wondering if perhaps this problem is specific to iOS, where (I think) Shadow Era is using the Apple Game Center for network communications.

Suggestions: I have two suggestions for the SE dev team, pertaining to this problem -

1. Is there some way for the SE server to somehow track which games are lost due to losing network connectivity? Looking at this data might yield interesting information. For example, when this occurs, is it usually on iOS? Does it occur disproportionately when using WiFi rather than when using the iPhone's 3G/LTE data connection?

2. THE BIG SUGGESTION: Rather than simply noticing the loss of network connectivity and waiting for connectivity to re-establish itself, I wonder if SE (in the case of iOS) could work harder to try and re-establish the network connection before simply giving up on the game. I don't know the Apple Game Center APIs, but for example, maybe when SE notices a network interruption, SE could try closing the Game Center network connection and then re-open the network connection, before giving up and causing the player to lose the game. Just to reiterate: After SE times out on a network connection problem on the iPhone, I can simply start a new SE game immediately, and the network connection is fine. This would suggest that if SE would, internally, try closing and re-opening the network connection before giving up on the game, that this problem could be self-correcting within SE.

Anyway, this problem has been going on for 9 months or more, through earlier versions of SE and on both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5. It's so discouraging. I would be deeply grateful if the SE dev team would be willing to look into this.

Thanks for listening!

[Illusionator]

FYI: This problem still occurs with the new v2.010 release of SE on the iPhone 5. Today I was playing SE on my iPhone in my family room, with a very strong WiFi signal (full strength). In mid-game, SE displayed the dreaded "Wait 45...44...43..." message. That is cool that the countdown now goes for 45 seconds rather than 30 seconds, but it doesn't fix the problem. Even though I had a very strong WiFi connection, SE did not re-connect to the server. After about 20 seconds of waiting for SE to recover the network connection, I kept SE running and connected my iPhone to a different WiFi hotspot (also very strong), but when I went back to SE, SE gave up. It simply displayed the opening screen of Jericho, then quit itself (or crashed). In any case, I lost that game, because (once again) I lost the network connection, even though I had a strong WiFi connection. This happens to me over and over again, at least one game every day.

SUGGESTION: Rather than simply noticing the loss of network connectivity and waiting for connectivity to re-establish itself, I wonder if SE (in the case of iOS) could work harder to try and re-establish the network connection before simply giving up on the game. I have noticed that after SE times out on a network connection problem on the iPhone, I can simply start a new SE game immediately, and the network connection is fine. This would suggest that if SE would, internally, try closing and re-opening the network connection before giving up on the game, that this problem could be self-correcting within SE. Because SE doesn't do this close/reopen network connection on its own, there is nothing I can do, and I simply lose the game even though I have a strong WiFi connection.

This problem has been going on ever since I started using SE on the iPhone 9 months ago. It happens very frequently, once or sometimes multiple times per day. It's so discouraging. It would be awesome if the SE dev team could look into this.

Thanks so much!

[Padawan Pete]

Strange my iPhone 5 seems ok?

[Illusionator]

Strange my iPhone 5 seems ok?

Hello, Padawan Pete. That is interesting that you have had good luck with Shadow Era on your iPhone 5, without getting the "Wait 45...444...43..." network error. Can I collect a little more data from you?

1. Do you normally use Shadow Era on WiFi on your iPhone, or using the iPhone 3G/LTE network? (I have only noticed this "Wait 45...44...43..." problem when using WiFi, not when using the cell phone network.)

2. Do you play Shadow Era pretty heavily on the iPhone 5, over the course of several months? Or do you normally play SE on a different platform, and only use the iPhone 5 sometimes?

I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks so much for helping me characterize this problem better. Much appreciated!

[Padawan Pete]

I use it on my ipad4 also. Normally only on wifi. On my iPad I have had it happen before, what I do to fix it is turn off wifi so it's on 3G and then it reconnects and the match carries on.

[Padawan Pete]

Maybe you need to drop the mtu on your router or something, SE doesn't retransmit so could be its set too high. Dunno if you ever fiddled with that, maybe you could check what's its on.

[Illusionator]

On my iPad I have had it happen before, what I do to fix it is turn off wifi so it's on 3G and then it reconnects and the match carries on.

Hi, Pete. I have successfully tried that trick (above) on v2.00 of SE, but this trick no longer works for me on v2.01. Once the dreaded "Wait 45...44...43..." message starts in SE on my iPhone 5, even though I have strong WiFi signal (I'm only 20 feet from the wireless router), nothing I do will restore the network connection, and I get a "Defeat." I've tried quickly switching out of SE to turn off WiFi and then back to SE again, and I have a good 3G/LTE cell connection, but it doesn't stop the countdown. I've also tried many times to connect to a different (strong) WiFi hotspot during the countdown, but SE simply displays the "Jericho" opening screen and then automatically quits (or crashes).

Maybe you need to drop the mtu on your router or something, SE doesn't retransmit so could be its set too high. Dunno if you ever fiddled with that, maybe you could check what's its on.

Hi again, Pete. I just checked the MTU setting on my router. It is set to 1500, which is the default value the router came with. I've done some research on the Internet, and the normal range for MTU is 1460 to 1500, so my router is in the normal range for MTU.

It would be really weird if SE required a particular MTU value in the router, anyway. When you are playing SE using the WiFi at Starbucks, you can't reconfigure the Starbucks router to use a different MTU setting.

It really seems to me that SE should be more robust in its network connection. If SE gets a transient network error, reset the connection and try again, or re-send the packet. I can't tell you how many hundreds (literally) of games that I have played of SE v1.70 through v2.01 that ended in the dreaded "Wait...45...44..." message followed by "Defeat!", or ended in a "Draw" with a network sync error. It's really demoralizing. Wireless networks are inherently slightly unreliable. It seems like SE could try harder to re-establish the network connection.

NOTE: This problem seems to be particularly prevalent on iOS, so maybe SE needs to use a different network API call in the iOS Game Center, or set a flag on network messages so that the message will be automatically retransmitted if the opponent's SE client doesn't receive the network message. Or something. I don't know the iOS Game Center network message APIs, just kicking out ideas.

I'm a heavy SE player, and if there's one thing I would fix in SE, it would be this problem of having SE be better at recovering from a wireless network hiccup on the iOS platform.

Thanks for your messages, Pete!

[Padawan Pete]

Don't believe what you read on the Internet. If you are on ADSL please set the mtu to 1442 and retest, if some other connection type let me know so I can work it out. You can always alter it back to 1500, but at least test. No 1500 does not make your Internet run faster despite what the unqualified Internet thinks. Theoretical limits don't translate to what is actually true. Especially if your on pppoe or something weird like that.

If you did have an mtu issue you wouldn't notice easily. 1500 is not a default value btw (at least that I know of).

[bowserr]

The problem has seems to have gotten worse for me with 2.010. Now it would freeze the application when the countdown appears. In v2 I would just back out from the application and go to setting and turn wifi on ad off an that would usually resume the game again or the application would freeze.

[Illusionator]

Don't believe what you read on the Internet. If you are on ADSL please set the mtu to 1442 and retest, if some other connection type let me know so I can work it out. You can always alter it back to 1500, but at least test. No 1500 does not make your Internet run faster despite what the unqualified Internet thinks. Theoretical limits don't translate to what is actually true. Especially if your on pppoe or something weird like that.

If you did have an mtu issue you wouldn't notice easily. 1500 is not a default value btw (at least that I know of).

Hi, Pete. First of all, I really appreciate you taking this time, much appreciated.

In answer to your question, my Internet connection is cable broadband via Charter cable TV. It's not ADSL per se, because it comes from our cable TV company rather than our phone company. Please let me know if I can provide more info for you to suggest a good MTU size.

As an experiment, I have changed the MTU size on our router from 1500 to the 1442 value you suggested, to see if that helps. I'll watch it over the course of the next few days and let you know if I encounter the dreaded "Wait 45...44...43..." bug in SE again. If you think I should try an MTU size different from 1442, let me know and I'll update it again.

You mentioned that 1500 is not a default MTU size, as far as you know. Our router is a Linksys WRT150N. It's default MTU size is definitely 1500. As shipped, the router has an "Auto" setting for the MTU size, and that value is 1500. To change it, I just now had to choose "Manual" MTU size rather than "Auto", and I hand-typed the 1442 MTU size that you suggested. Also, I am very familiar with the (very current and new) NetGear R6300 router, and I know for a fact that it also has a default MTU size of 1500. These are just two routers, though - other routers might default to other MTU sizes of course.

Yep, I know that a larger MTU size doesn't make the connection faster. After your suggestion about the MTU size, I read some articles on the Internet about MTU size, and they made the same remark you did. However, I was just using my router's default MTU value of 1500 before. Now I've changed it to 1442.

Just to pop up a level, though, it seems odd to me that Shadow Era would require a particular MTU size in the Internet router in order to work reliably. What happens if I'm using SE on the WiFi at Starbucks, or an office building, or at the airport? I can't ask the IT manager to change the MTU size in their Internet router so that I can reliably play SE. It seems like SE needs to be able to handle WiFi connections with routers that have various reasonable MTU sizes, especially an MTU size that is the default value for the router.

The big picture, I think, is that SE needs to be tolerant of small WiFi hiccups. Currently, on the iPhone platform, it appears that if a network packet gets dropped, SE will display the dreaded "Wait 45...44...43..." message even when I have a very strong WiFi signal, and my heroic attempts to get SE to try the network connection again (e.g., turning off WiFi to use 3G/LTE, switching the iPhone to use a different WiFi hotspot), all meet with failure, especially in the new v2.010 and possibly also in v2.000. Previously, with SE v1.7, if I saw the "Wait" message I could quickly turn off WiFi on the iPhone and re-establish the game over 3G/LTE, but that trick no longer seems to work.

Similarly (and this is probably a symptom of the same intolerance for network hiccups), I have a lot of SE v2.010 games on my iPhone 5 that end in a "Draw" because of a network synchronization issue.

This "Defeat" and "Draw" problem due to network hiccups seems to be most prevalent on the iPhone and iPad. I suspect that on iOS, SE is using the Game Center APIs for network communications, and the particular Game Center network functions being used are perhaps just sending raw packets with no mechanism to ask for retransmission if a network packet gets corrupted.

If SE could be changed so that it asks the opponent's SE client to retransmit a network packet if a problem occurs, I am thinking/hoping that it would fix the whole problem with the "Wait 45...44...43..." message and games that end in a draw due to a network sync issue.

I hit this network problem every single day with SE on WiFi with my iPhone 5. Not just in the WiFi in my home, but with WiFi in other locations as well. So I end up losing (and drawing) a lot of games when I don't even get to finish the game. SE is amazing, and I know Kyle has a super full plate. But my life would be qualitatively better if Kyle has a chance to look into this issue with SE on iOS.

Anyway, Pete, thank you again for your comments and for taking this time!