Path of Exile Latency and Disconnects

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Path of Exile Latency and Disconnects - VPN solves issue

BraveDave

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#320283 26-Jul-2025 10:46

Hi Geekzone (and hopefully someone at 2degrees),

Over the past month or so i've been experiencing unstable latency and disconnects when connecting to the Auckland and Australia Path of Exile servers. Australia is particularly unusual with a minimum ping of 170ms, well above an expected ~30ms.

This is over an ethernet connection and is worse during evenings and nights. I will post a WINMTR trace next time I experience the issues.

Last night I connected using a Auckland VPN and the problems were resolved which has made me think it could be routing related.

Quite some time ago there were similar issues which were solved by a very helpful 2degrees Geekzone member so I'm hoping that we can get something similar going again.

What information do I need to provide to start to diagnose the issues?

Linux

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#3397275 26-Jul-2025 11:55

Provide the IP addresses to the gaming servers

Jase2985

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#3397276 26-Jul-2025 11:56

Server IP address would be good. as would a trace route

BraveDave

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3397625 28-Jul-2025 11:50

Hi team,

Appreciate the replies.

Trace below:

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
|                                      WinMTR statistics                                   | 
|                       Host              -   %  | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last | 
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------| 
|                               fritz.box -    0 |  101 |  101 |    0 |    0 |    5 |    0 | 
|            v4.cpcak4-bng1.tranzpeer.net -   35 |   44 |   29 |    1 |    1 |    6 |    1 | 
|                   No response from host -  100 |   20 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 |    0 | 
|                           116.90.75.253 -    0 |  101 |  101 |    1 |    2 |    7 |    1 | 
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______| 
   WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider

Pastebin for formatting:

https://pastebin.com/kbcezVUu

michaelmurfy

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#3397626 28-Jul-2025 12:04

It's frustrating that traceroutes on 2degrees don't work due to them hiding their MPLS routes. It doesn't help diagnose these issues at all.

Can we please have somebody from 2degrees fix this? It's been like this since late last year.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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yitz

2081 posts

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#3397788 28-Jul-2025 18:49

My understanding is they have something of a big norton antivirus around their network to inspect subscriber traffic for DoS attacks etc. Any traffic exiting as "default route" via their core is filtered and TTLs re-written breaking traceroute hiding hops but traffic to peering exchanges and partners which have direct routes/prefixes into their core aren't "scrubbed".

For what it's worth here's a traceroute from Christchurch, it's handing over in Wellington so I don't expect the OP being from Auckland takes the same path:

traceroute to 116.90.75.253 (116.90.75.253), 30 hops max, 56 byte packets
1 192.168.1.250 (192.168.1.250) 1.176 ms 0.914 ms 0.795 ms
2 * * *
3 default-rdns.vocus.co.nz (101.98.5.138) 26.455 ms 13.588 ms 31.028 ms
4 as137409.wlg.ix.nz (103.94.95.25) 27.404 ms 8.707 ms 36.702 ms
5 e15.akl-spkmdr-cr2.globalsecurelayer.com (206.148.24.248) 20.595 ms 46.256 ms 73.374 ms
6 goliath-volumetric-in.globalsecurelayer.com (206.148.27.228) 29.758 ms 57.039 ms 84.588 ms
7 goliath-volumetric-out.globalsecurelayer.com (206.148.27.229) 30.304 ms 34.669 ms 84.514 ms
8 unknown.globalsecurelayer.com (223.165.7.196) 36.144 ms 70.210 ms 40.151 ms
9 vl3.akl-dc220-dist1.globalsecurelayer.com (206.148.24.109) 44.394 ms 21.488 ms 24.335 ms
10 * * *
11 * * *

So looks like traffic is being scrubbed twice once at 2degrees' gateway once again by Global Secure Layer on behalf of the game developer/host.

I don't play this game myself but from the other thread it was concluded there was possible congestion at peak hour in some 2degrees Auckland PoPs/locations.

michaelmurfy

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#3397808 28-Jul-2025 20:38

@yitz I understand where you're coming from but that is not right.

2degrees are not running a huge anti-virus box that breaks traceroutes. The reality is they have TTL propagation disabled on their MPLS core, so traceroute will just not show the hops through their internal network. It is not filtering, it is not TTL rewriting, it is just the way MPLS behaves when configured as such.

The reason you see greater numbers of hops on mobile or certain peerings is because those routes quite often miss parts of the MPLS core, or exit earlier.

This configuration is not unique to 2degrees, but it does make debugging painful when things break or routes go weird. This has been the case since late last year, and yes - 2degrees really should be looking into that configuration. It is a support nightmare and not helpful to customers or peering partners who are trying to pinpoint what is going awry.

So yeah, nothing to do with traffic being "scrubbed" or "inspected". Just an exceedingly boring configuration choice around MPLS that probably needs some reconsideration.

BraveDave

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3397810 28-Jul-2025 21:22

There are significant issues again this evening.

Hopefully there is a curious 2degrees network engineer on the forum that notices the post and picks it up.

Quic Broadband

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Linux

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#3397812 28-Jul-2025 21:44

@Cxf Can you add any value here?

BraveDave

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3398164 30-Jul-2025 09:02

Issues again this morning. Connecting via an Auckland VPN resolves the issue.

Cxf

58 posts

Master Geek

2degrees

#3398636 31-Jul-2025 09:31

Morning! Sorry, I've been meaning to help out sooner, just one of those weeks.

Had a look over the last few days and nothing really stands out to me that would cause the issue seen. We're seeing increased latency to 116.90.75.253 during peak hours or peak and off-peak hours?

I route via wlg.ix so I might not see the same path as you guys, but I'll try replicate the issue.

Looks like GSL have a feature-rich looking glass that can show you the return route/trace/bgp path. They currently return via our Spark domestic transit to 2degrees.

We can use this to try capture some additional information during a period of increased latency.
https://lg.gsl.tools/

Cxf

58 posts

Master Geek

2degrees

#3398644 31-Jul-2025 09:54

Looks like the localpref of the BGP route via Spark is slightly higher than the IX learned routed in their LG.
Next steps are to verify the return trace route latency in that tool during a period of time when it's higher then expected.

openmedia

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#3398715 31-Jul-2025 14:08

I'm On Orcon and I'm not seeing issues here via mtr

Host Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. _gateway 0.0% 75 0.5 0.5 0.4 1.0 0.1
2. default-rdns.vocus.co.nz 0.0% 75 1.0 1.6 1.0 7.3 0.7
3. default-rdns.vocus.co.nz 0.0% 75 1.5 1.9 1.4 2.4 0.3
4. as137409.akl.ix.nz 0.0% 75 2.2 2.6 2.1 3.8 0.3
5. po1.akl-dc220-cr3.globalsecurelayer.com 0.0% 75 1.7 2.2 1.6 3.6 0.4
6. goliath-volumetric-in.globalsecurelayer.com 0.0% 74 2.0 1.8 1.4 2.5 0.3
7. goliath-volumetric-out.globalsecurelayer.com 0.0% 74 2.1 1.8 1.4 2.5 0.3
8. unknown.globalsecurelayer.com 0.0% 74 2.2 1.8 1.4 2.6 0.3
9. vl3.akl-dc220-dist1.globalsecurelayer.com 0.0% 74 2.3 1.9 1.4 2.4 0.3
10. 116.90.75.253 0.0% 74 2.1 1.8 1.3 2.8 0.3

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

BraveDave

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3398918 31-Jul-2025 21:30

Thanks Cxf, we all have those weeks at times. Appreciate you taking the time.

I'll run the tool you provided when I next experience issues and post the results here.

BraveDave

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3399117 1-Aug-2025 20:36

yitz

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#3399133 1-Aug-2025 20:53

You enter your 2degrees broadband connection public IP address. The point of the looking glass tool in this instance is to provide visibility into the return path (starting from the game server hosting provider back to your 2degrees broadband connection).