t'internet

[Longines]

Thx Alex.

[jizzemm]

Snoopy, using the white BT Home Hub? IME, they're pretty poor.

Best day of my life when that crappy little white home hub blew up..

[kinboshi]

I don't fully understand it, but some people have had problems with iPoker due to 'packet sizes' and MTU settings.  Apparently it's something to do with the ISP sending packets of data that are a different size to what the router is expecting (or the other way round).  With this problem other poker rooms will be fine, it might just be one room that there's an issue with.

Shogun advised some people about this and it sorted their problem.  Again, this was with iPoker and it might be completely irrelevant. 

Maybe someone with more knowledge on the subject might be able to turn my gobbledegook into something that makes sense.

[Longines]

Probably end up just being more gobbledegook, but here goes:

Maximum Transfer Unit (MTU) iis a measure of how much data a device can send or accept in one go. If every hop between my PC and iPoker has the same MTU, everything's hunkydory.

But what happens if iPoker's router has an MTU of 1500 and mine is 1400? Obviously, I can send data to them no problem. But coming the other way, they're trying to fit something that's 1500 big through a 1400 sized hole.

Luckily, the boffins came up with a solution. The routers recognise that this isn't going to fit and so break the packet up into fragments and send them one at a time. The router at the other end hangs on to the fragments until they've all arrived then passes them on.

Here's where the first "However..." comes in.

This puts extra load on the routers - they need to have memory to hold these fragments, they need CPU power to process them and it's going to slow down the flow of data i.e. increase latency i.e. if it gets bad enough, "Longines has timed out".

So the boffins had another go.

Inside that 1500 packet of data, a router can put a flag that means "don't fragment me please" - probably in one of the first packets when you first login to iPoker. Now if that packet reaches a device that can't handle 1500 in one go, it sends back a small message to iPoker that says "would love to really, but my hole just isn't big enough...". iPoker now knows something between it and you can't handle 1500 at a time so it can step down to a lower figure and try again.

Here's the biggie "However....".

This small "would love to" message is sent using ICMP, which has loads of other uses like "are you there?" messages and "what route are my packets using to get from me to you?". Certain clueless network adminstrators think blocking all ICMP is a good idea. Earlier in the thread, I showed that somehwere between Pacific/888 and Gibraltar Telecom, at least some types of ICMP is getting blocked. The chances that they are only blokcing some types of ICMP are fairly slim.

If the poker server doesn't know that somewhere between it and you there is a device that can't handle the packet size and would like to fragment, there is going to be tears....




I've always thought this smilie was an anorak.....

[boldie]

Probably end up just being more gobbledegook, but here goes:

Maximum Transfer Unit (MTU) iis a measure of how much data a device can send or accept in one go. If every hop between my PC and iPoker has the same MTU, everything's hunkydory.

But what happens if iPoker's router has an MTU of 1500 and mine is 1400? Obviously, I can send data to them no problem. But coming the other way, they're trying to fit something that's 1500 big through a 1400 sized hole.

Luckily, the boffins came up with a solution. The routers recognise that this isn't going to fit and so break the packet up into fragments and send them one at a time. The router at the other end hangs on to the fragments until they've all arrived then passes them on.

Here's where the first "However..." comes in.

This puts extra load on the routers - they need to have memory to hold these fragments, they need CPU power to process them and it's going to slow down the flow of data i.e. increase latency i.e. if it gets bad enough, "Longines has timed out".

So the boffins had another go.

Inside that 1500 packet of data, a router can put a flag that means "don't fragment me please" - probably in one of the first packets when you first login to iPoker. Now if that packet reaches a device that can't handle 1500 in one go, it sends back a small message to iPoker that says "would love to really, but my hole just isn't big enough...". iPoker now knows something between it and you can't handle 1500 at a time so it can step down to a lower figure and try again.

Here's the biggie "However....".

This small "would love to" message is sent using ICMP, which has loads of other uses like "are you there?" messages and "what route are my packets using to get from me to you?". Certain clueless network adminstrators think blocking all ICMP is a good idea. Earlier in the thread, I showed that somehwere between Pacific/888 and Gibraltar Telecom, at least some types of ICMP is getting blocked. The chances that they are only blokcing some types of ICMP are fairly slim.

If the poker server doesn't know that somewhere between it and you there is a device that can't handle the packet size and would like to fragment, there is going to be tears....




I've always thought this smilie was an anorak.....

Wow, even I understand that.


and the thing telling iPoker "I would love to but my hole isn't big enough" part just cracked me up.

[kinboshi]

Probably end up just being more gobbledegook, but here goes...

Brilliant post.  Thanks for that. 

Is there a way round the problem then, such as manually setting the packet sizes for your hole (so to speak)?  Maybe on a trial and error basis.

[Dino]

Is there a way round the problem then, such as manually setting the packet sizes for your hole (so to speak)?  Maybe on a trial and error basis.

Start at this page and follow on to the "how to tweak"page.
I have only used drtcp with xp so I have no idea if it works with vista.

[kinboshi]

Is there a way round the problem then, such as manually setting the packet sizes for your hole (so to speak)?  Maybe on a trial and error basis.

Start at this page and follow on to the "how to tweak"page.
I have only used drtcp with xp so I have no idea if it works with vista.

Oh, it's not for me - I was thinking if anyone else was having the problem if there's anything they can do.  Thanks for the link, hopefully it'll help someone.

I'm on Virgin, and despite their crap accounts department, the actual broadband connection I get is brilliant.

[Longines]

As Dino says, you can change the MTU on your PC - not the easiest thing to do though.

However, changing it without also changing the MTU on the next hop on the network - your ADSL or cable modem - may not deliver any benefits at all.

[Dino]

  I'm terrible for that,it's something I would do automatically so forget to mention it,yes if the router mtu is smaller than the PC's then the packets are fragmented right from the start.

[snoopy1239]

Snoopy, using the white BT Home Hub? IME, they're pretty poor.

No mate, no hub. Actually, my parents use that, and these is fine.

My problem isn't ipoker related, the net disconnects whether I'm playing poker or not. Sporadic, unpredictable and highly frustrating, but I just don't know where to start. The call centre is useless, and I can barely understand what they are saying.

[relaedgc]

I found BT Broadband to be very unstable and unreliable, always disconnecting and the call center never knew what was wrong and couldn't help.

I switched to Sky Broadband which is cheaper, faster and 100x more reliable.

[snoopy1239]

I found BT Broadband to be very unstable and unreliable, always disconnecting and the call center never knew what was wrong and couldn't help.

I switched to Sky Broadband which is cheaper, faster and 100x more reliable.

Sounds like we share the same problem. Did you find any solution before you switched?

[Longines]

Snoopy, router or modem? Wired or wireless? Could be your kit, could be the condition of the line. Can you get any stats (Attenuation, Noise Margin) from your router/modem?

[barhell]

I found BT Broadband to be very unstable and unreliable, always disconnecting and the call center never knew what was wrong and couldn't help.

I switched to Sky Broadband which is cheaper, faster and 100x more reliable.

Isn't it strange i swapped to SKY and have had so many more problems although there £13 pounds a month cheaper and 4 times faster, that being said though the guy who helped me in their techy dept (after about 5 alls to the people reading of the have you tried list, yes yes yes yes yes) the other day actually explained something to me which sounded very similar to Longines post and he said he would monitor the connection and make changes.
I then had a phone call telling me they had reconfigured my broadband settings and alot of the disruption has stopped.
Still occasional drop outs but nothing like before.
Whilst posting this i