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EA_Leeuw's avatar
EA_Leeuw
Icon for Community Manager rankCommunity Manager
2 years ago
Solved

AT&T network - "Unable to load persistence data" - Season 5

Hi all,  Please only post in this thread if you're experiencing the "Unable to load persistence data" error while trying to connect to the Battlefield 2042 servers if you have AT&T as your network...
technical issues
  • EA_Leeuw's avatar
    EA_Leeuw
    2 years ago

    Hi everyone, 

    Since Season 5 is coming to a close, I'll be locking this thread.

    If you continue to experience the AT&T network - "Unable to load persistence data" issue during Season 6 as well, please create a new thread.


    Thank you.

    *Previous accepted solution.

5ubj3ctz3r0's avatar
5ubj3ctz3r0
Not applicable
2 years ago

@EA_Leeuw 

It might be worth looking into the following server on your end: pub-bf-prod-grpc.ops.dice.se

I did a packet capture with, and without VPN. I noticed that without VPN (routing through AT&T directly) there was a ton of TCP retransmissions/TLS errors towards this IP 52.208.207.227. This was not seen when connected to VPN. Could be a red herring, but one of the only things that easily stood out when comparing captures.

Also, a trace route showed no common hops.

Coming from 68.248.0.0/13 when it doesn't work (AT&T)

Coming from 154.47.25.0/24 when it does work (VPN)

  • 5ubj3ctz3r0's avatar
    5ubj3ctz3r0
    Not applicable
    2 years ago
    @5ubj3ctz3r0 wrote:

    @EA_Leeuw 

    It might be worth looking into the following server on your end: pub-bf-prod-grpc.ops.dice.se

    I did a packet capture with, and without VPN. I noticed that without VPN (routing through AT&T directly) there was a ton of TCP retransmissions/TLS errors towards this IP 52.208.207.227. This was not seen when connected to VPN. Could be a red herring, but one of the only things that easily stood out when comparing captures.

    Also, a trace route showed no common hops.

    Coming from 68.248.0.0/13 when it doesn't work (AT&T)

    Coming from 154.47.25.0/24 when it does work (VPN)

    @EA_Leeuw 

    This has to be the issue.

    pub-bf-prod-grpc.ops.dice.se resolves to:

    108.128.42.217

    34.248.44.177
    52.208.207.227

    When it starts "suddenly working" at night (for me around 10PM-12AM CT) there is no more attempts to connect to 52.208.207.227, it now connects to 108.128.42.217 or 34.248.44.177 (and the game connects successfully). Assuming each of these IPs are a load balancer there is clearly an issue with AT&T sourced IPs connecting to 52.208.207.227.

    Looks like you're using Akamai for your DNS so I assume there is some GTM load balancing policies here - something marks 108.128.42.217 as the IP to serve instead of 52.208.207.227. I don't know if all of these are "live" at all times but if this is still going on tomorrow I will try to add a static hosts file entry to mapping pub-bf-prod-grpc.ops.dice.se to 108.128.42.217 and see if it works during the day without use of a VPN. This is assuming that tomorrow it will be serving 52.208.207.227, and that these are active/active setups.

    Or this might not be DNS related at all and it's more about how the cloud instances are load balanced, not sure if the application targets one of those IPs based off DNS resolution alone.

    • EA_Leeuw's avatar
      EA_Leeuw
      Icon for Community Manager rankCommunity Manager
      2 years ago

      @5ubj3ctz3r0, yeah it's weird. Looks like a sudden AT&T routing issue alright.

      Unfortunately, from our side, we have no updates to share at the moment.

      • 5ubj3ctz3r0's avatar
        5ubj3ctz3r0
        Not applicable
        2 years ago
        @EA_Leeuw wrote:

        @5ubj3ctz3r0, yeah it's weird. Looks like a sudden AT&T routing issue alright.

        Unfortunately, from our side, we have no updates to share at the moment.

        AT&T wouldn’t be at play with the scenario I described. The application is deciding which of those IPs to connect to. Whether that’s based on “simple” DNS resolution or otherwise. Why it doesn’t try to connect to 52.208.207.227 at night? Only EA could say. It’s not related to the ISP.

        I’m just trying to narrow down the scope of the problem based on what I can check/see as an affected client. So far what I can tell it’s an issue between AT&T sourced IPs (does not mean AT&T issue)<>52.208.207.227.


        It could be an AT&T issue by not having a proper route for 52.208.207.227. Or our source prefixes are not properly known by AWS. (Which could be an issue on either side AT&T or AWS’s side or a BGP neighbor in between). It could also be an EA issue with an AWS or network appliance configuration problem related to what setup sits behind 52.208.207.227. 

    • 559Falcon's avatar
      559Falcon
      Not applicable
      2 years ago
      @5ubj3ctz3r0 THANK YOU FOR DOING THIS! putting 108.128.42.217 pub-bf-prod-grpc.ops.dice.se in my hosts file works.
    • Hunterkiller515's avatar
      Hunterkiller515
      Not applicable
      2 years ago

      @5ubj3ctz3r0 I can confirm this worked for me. (AT&T Fiber, obviously). I am supprised they didn't just drop that IP from the DNS as a quick fix.

      If anyone reading this wants a quick fix, copy this into command prompt and you should be able to connect. 

      echo 108.128.42.217 pub-bf-prod-grpc.ops.dice.se >> %WINDIR%\System32\Drivers\Etc\Hosts

      You will need to remove it after Dice has fixed the underlying issue. You can use the following to remove it, but make sure to run command prompt as an administrator. 

      findstr /V “108.128.42.217 pub-bf-prod-grpc.ops.dice.se” %WINDIR%\System32\Drivers\Etc\Hosts > %temp%\hosts copy /Y %temp%\hosts %WINDIR%\System32\Drivers\Etc\Hosts

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