This post is the closest I've seen to the problem i'm having. Constant hawk/caterpillar errors. Though most the time it just d/cs me from Xbox Live without a Destiny error. I'm convinced this is basically a caterpillar error.
My insights:
- I've tried most of what you have. But I also did a painstaking log of d/cs while playing. The most common causes are incoming public events, loading new parts of the map, loading the tower. The other drops happen more in strikes than in pvp. I Want to say it happens more often during solo strikes than coop, but my data was too shallow to back this up.
My theory is that there's a problem with the modem cache overflowing or a problem with the buffer. I suspect that the TCP connections are heavily used for AI and environment loading given the MMO aspect of the game. Basically, the modem (or one of the routers, possibly in the WAN) tries to reconcile lost/corrupted packets. The frequency of packet loss/corruption overwhelms the buffer, and things back up. Destiny seems to have very low tolerance for delays (I've seen as low as 2-3 sec. vs up to 10 sec for some games). So it doesn't have to spiral that far out of control before it throws an error and d/cs.
Also, I live in an apartment. I'm wondering if the concentration of people on the building/area's switches affect it. It may be the physical modem itself. I'm going to try to run some trace routes to see.
I'm with you on this being kind of a fun challenge. I'll let you know how it pans out. For now, I'm stuck playing only when overall traffic is low. It seems to work better then. another reason I think it's something with the ISP.
[b][u]UPDATE 11/7/14[/u][/b]
Made a couple of changes, but still having the problem. It definitely happens more during peak traffic times.
I added Port Triggering, which I hadn't set up yet. I'm set up with all the Xbox Live port forward/triggering ports. I haven't set up forwarding or triggering for the "Destiny" ports per dubbeledraaideur's photo above. I might have to try that.
My first connection error came a couple minutes after starting a patrol on Earth. The second came 15ish minutes later when it was trying to load part of the map (again, Earth). As soon as it happened I jumped on my laptop and logged into my router. I checked out the firewall logs. Even though I've disabled firewall, it looks like there was an error. Here's a link to tho photo. I've blacked out my public IP address.
[url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/2qawirly37bizu2/Screenshot%202014-11-06%2021.23.35.png?dl=0[/url]
So it looked like something denied the inbound access request from the Destiny/Xbox Live server to my public IP. This is the first time I was able to identify the IP of the Destiny server, so I quickly ran a traceroute from my computer. Here's a link to the traceroute. Again, my public IP is blacked out.
[url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/1l5a1yuf8nxgjaw/Screenshot%202014-11-06%2021.23.43.png?dl=0[/url]
Notice hop #9 stalls for nearly 100 ms, or 1/10 of a second. This is with 52 byte packets, pretty small as far as traffic goes. Looking back at the first photo of the firewall error, the packet count on that was 85,344. That's pretty large as far as traffic goes.
So what's with hop #9? It's going to a server with the DNS cogentco.com. Went to their website and they appear to provide IP Forwarding as a service. The server IP is in Arlington, VA which is close to Washington, DC where I live. A quick google search for "cogentco" and I discovered I'm not the first to have this problem. One forum ([url]http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2244867[/url]) had tons of similar examples throughout the US with different MMORPGs.
What next?
In a forum, a guy suggested "Use a game proxy like ping-zapper or changing ISP's...". I don't want to go through the pain of finding a new ISP, but I'm going to look into using a game proxy. I'll update you guys once I find out.
[u][b]Update - Later Today[/b][/u]
I bit the bullet and called Comcast. I was expecting to be connected to a mindless rep who couldn't offer much more advice than "unplug and re-plup your modem". I more or less was, but as soon as I started explaining the depth of the problem she gave me the number directly for customer hardware support.
The guy I talked to was very helpful. As soon as I said I was playing Destiny he said, "Oh, yeah. I know Destiny. I know some people with other ISPs and systems who've had similar issues. We've only gotten a few calls about it." Sounded like a fellow gamer. [If you're out there, thanks, Dude!]
He had one piece of advice, that I make sure I'm port-forwarding/triggering all the Destiny server ports, not just the Xbox Live ones. I explained the Cogentco thing (which apparently, I was pronouncing wrong--it's a hard G). He says that if that's the problem, they can't do anything about it.
As for the VPN, my particular router has some minor problems with some VPN networks, but they could swap it out for a different modem/router if that was the case.
About to tweak the port forwarding. We'll see how this works...
English
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Update 11/16/14 My problem has ceased. I'm still not exactly sure what fixed it but I'll explain the steps I took before it resolved itself. I had decided that my efforts to diagnose the issue were too scattered and not scientific enough. I put together an excel sheet that I filled out with each DC. It included the date and time, the Destiny error, the firewall error (I would immediately log onto my router and grab its most recent error log). The firewall error stats would pinpoint the inbound and outbound IPs and ports. I logged those as well. I started by resetting all my router and Xbox settings to default. Then I played some Public Events, which tended to cause the errors. They persisted, and I instituted my previous network settings. I also included the destiny-suggested port forward settings. Most of the firewall logs showed the outbound IP as my laptop (even though its WiFi was turned off while I was playing.) I think the error persisted after I logged onto my router and the first laptop to server comm was the one that was logged. Some logs were from an outside server to my public IP. After I instituted the destiny server port forwarding, the problem continued for a couple hours but then ceased. I stopped logging errors thereafter. I've had some sporadic ones but all with different names. I've killed the caterpillar, and some other animals wander by every couple days to screw up my game play. All in all its fixed though. IT WASN'T A PROBLEM WITH MY WAN. Looking at the firewall logs and subsequent pings and tracer outer, I had similar problems with servers that weren't Cogent Co. Ultimately I believe it was poor port forwarding setup. It may also ha email been an update that was instituted around the same time. ADVICE ON FIXING NETWORM ERRORS 1) CONNECT WITH CORD, NOT WIFI. A good WiFi router with limited interference will be as good as an ether net connection. But it's important to connect it directly to rule out your router as a problem. 2) SET UP STATIC IP. Static IP rules out your router's natural tendency to reassign IP addresses sporadically. It does this for security reasons, and that's fine if you're watching Netflix or surfing the Web. For the high back-and-forth traffic of gaming. 3) SET UP PORT FORWARDING. Include both Xbox and Destiny port forwarding. IF THE PROBLEM CONTINUES... 4) DIAGNOSE YOUR ERRORS. Find where your errors are logged on your router. Learn how to tracer outer and ping the relevant IPs. Remember to include proper port routing when you run tracer outer and ping. FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ME IF YOU HAVE FURTHER PROBLEMS. Message MikeyLikesIt505 on xbox.
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Hi mate, congrats on getting a working solution. Can you post a list of the ports you forwarded and triggered?