TimSad's Blaze & Player Dumps thread

[TimSad]

Your events log will explain more about one of the issues you had today.

As mentioned previously you would need to open a request directed at John for him to examine your server specifically to see why they are dropping so frequently.

Oh, is this specific to my servers? I thought when Blaze has a problem with my servers or anyone else's, it also includes a bigger subgroup of other BF3 servers in the general area (LA in the case of my servers).

In most cases, yes but you seem to be one of the ones who is seeing constant problems on a daily basis. If you open a request John can check the server logs and confirm if it was a Blaze issue.

Okay, I'll make sure to do so. Thanks.

[TimSad]

Looks like Blaze is at its usual work again. Had all my servers full this morning then all of a sudden, poof! They drop all the players empty at the exact same time!

[Edge100x]

TimSad, also keep in mind that we do maintenance in the mornings as described on the Events log page. I saw another customer confused when his server crashed this morning, and when I checked on it, it was just due to a maintenance that we list as being performed daily starting at 5:15am PST (but in reality only do once a week, on Tuesdays). BF3 is highly intolerant of files being deleted and IPs removed.

[TimSad]

John, Blaze has dumped all the players among all of our servers twice today! It just happened again after I got them all full from the last Blaze dump earlier this morning. There's really no point in me trying again as my servers will likely not fill due to people getting irritated with them.

What do I have to do to have my servers avoid these crappy Blaze problems? I think I recall someone saying that the West Coast servers have it worse off. Am I gonna end up having to relocate my servers to avoid all of these Blaze player dumps? If so, that's a big load of **** on EA's part...

[Edge100x]

We haven't done unscheduled maintenance. If our support staff already told you that the most recent crash was not due to a (D)DoS and couldn't find evidence of a server crash due to a game bug, then we can conclude that it was a Blaze disconnection that we could not have prevented.

I have not heard more complaints about LA than other locations when it comes to Blaze problems, no. Other RSPs have expressed more concerns that Blaze is having problems recently, though, mirroring your complaints.

[TimSad]

We haven't done unscheduled maintenance. If our support staff already told you that the most recent crash was not due to a (D)DoS and couldn't find evidence of a server crash due to a game bug, then we can conclude that it was a Blaze disconnection that we could not have prevented.

I have not heard more complaints about LA than other locations when it comes to Blaze problems, no. Other RSPs have expressed more concerns that Blaze is having problems recently, though, mirroring your complaints.

Ahhh, no. I didn't contact support this time to find out if it was due to a DDoS. However, the usual case is Blaze. With Blaze, there is no lag that players complain about and I hadn't received any lag complaints before the servers went empty the second time today. I'll check chat logs just to be sure.

I'm aware that you guys can't control Blaze, though. By posting here each time Blaze gives us troubles, I'm just trying to roll around the information of what kind of irritations it has been causing us. And I'm trying to point out how way too frequently it is happening. If EA happens to look here, they might get an idea of what kinda effed up system they've got going on. Hopefully then they'll decide to do something about it.

But I'm curious, who do you think would be responsible for changing the way the server is affected in this aspect - The second Blaze can't communicate with the game server, all the players are dropped. Do you think that's all on the game server side and something DICE can change or do you think it'd only be able to be changed in a DICE/EA joint effort? Because whoever has the ability to change it really needs to give the game server a chance to reestablish communication with Blaze before dumping players. Maybe set a max timeout of a few minutes or so before players are dumped? Right now is not a fair way to server owners or players.

[kraze]

But I'm curious, who do you think would be responsible for changing the way the server is affected in this aspect - The second Blaze can't communicate with the game server, all the players are dropped. Do you think that's all on the game server side and something DICE can change or do you think it'd only be able to be changed in a DICE/EA joint effort? Because whoever has the ability to change it really needs to give the game server a chance to reestablish communication with Blaze before dumping players. Maybe set a max timeout of a few minutes or so before players are dumped? Right now is not a fair way to server owners or players.

A fairly simple fix would be to just not disconnect clients. Re-work the system so it actively tries to re-make a connection to Blaze for five minutes before kicking players.

I imagine EA is more likely to be in charge of Blaze but I can't say for sure. Either way, it would probably be a joint effort between the two.

However, they both need to playing around and fix it, especially with more and more game starting to use it. Crysis 3 uses it and I imagine it wont be the last.

[TimSad]

Happened again! Like I said, you can count on it happening once or twice a day. SOOOOO ANNOYING!!!!!!!! Just take a look at my graphs here at this current time of post @ 3:50pm PST.

[kraze]

I think one of the biggest issues is that it normally isn't a global drop. It's issues that effect each person differently. Some see it worse then others while other don't see it nearly as much.

Not to mention all of the other things that can cause Blaze to drop a server, BF3 is unbelievable picky.

[TimSad]

kraze, I really need to work my way up to contacting the ones that are most in control of this whole Blaze/BF3 Game Server system. I made a thread on Battlelog a while back about Blaze but you know those naturally receive no attention from the appropriate people. Do you guys at NFO have an email of someone at EA or DICE that I can voice my concerns with? Someone that might actually listen to me and take action or maybe refer me to someone else that can? This seriously cannot continue to go unaddressed. It's literally killing my BF3 community that I've got going for me at the moment.

[IcEWoLF]

The whole Blaze system is stupid.

[kraze]

The whole Blaze system is stupid.

Every company has there own Blaze. Blaze is just the master servers for said game(s). Blaze just has problems which haven't been fixed, yet and are unlikely to be fixed :/

Not to mention the numerous problems BF3 has on it's own which cause server/player drops.

[IcEWoLF]

Maybe EA will learn from the Blaze fiasco in BF3 and fix this in BF4.

I still think a web based game server browser is stupid, they should make the game server browsers in game just like Crysis 3...it would save a lot of headache.

[Edge100x]

Blaze is a bit more than just a master server, since it also tracks the stats of every player, including ranks and unlocks, and has to keep that information synced as players leave and join new games so that they don't revert.

[Tag]

I've personally noticed a sharp spike in blaze timeouts since Crysis 3 was released. Before then you could survive without getting a timeout for a day or 2 even. There is at least 1 blaze dump/day for the 3 servers I run. Not as vocal about it as TimSad is, though