Re: Community Server Under Attack by DDOS from China

Players active on the server when this sudden DDOS Attack/Crash happens will typically experience that all gameplay on the screen gets into a frozen state and nothing moves.  If they go to the Options screen to check for the performance metrics, then this is what they typically see:

So the network connection is perfectly fine for them and working as supposed to locally and to their internet ISP.   But the BF4 server itself has stopped responding to any of the connected BF4 players/the connected clients.   As illustarted by the screenshot here above.    Suddenly showing a latency to the server of 50+ seconds!   And this is the case for ALL the connected players.

Typically the server then ends up fully crashing and everybody are kicked off the server and server is empty and all can join a few seconds later again.   Or near all players are dumped by the server, but maybe 4-7 players are left still on it, and they then can suddenly start moving again and all a-pear back to ‘normal’.

And this then goes fine until again next DDOS attack is being placed onto the server hosting party here for EA/DICE.

And the BF4 game servers on that IP segment is then again all coming crashing down or going into the permanent frozen state.

EA really needs to step up and do something seriously about this!

Its not something new.   And most of us renting servers have all experienced this from time to time.

But it has become more and more frequent and to the state now absolutely not acceptable anymore in any way or form.

Are Electronic Arts serious about rectifying servers being attacked by hackers, and pursuing them to the extend of what the law permits?

So far, it appears as nothing is being done from EA's side.

Servers still being DDOS attacked 24/7.

Crashes confirmed so far:

Server Crashes Confirmed on Friday 10 February 2023:

Crash 20:28 CET

Crash 20:50 CET

Crash 21:10 CET

Crash 21:33 CET

Crash 21:57 CET 

Crash 22:32 CET

Crash 22:57 CET 

Server Crashes Confirmed on Saturday 11 February 2023:

Crash 02:07 CET

Crash 10:33 CET

Crash 13:30 CET

Server Crashes Confirmed on Sunday 12 February 2023:

Crash 22:12 CET

Crash 22:55 CET

And yes, these are confirmed to be crashes caused by deliberate DDOS attacks onto the server.

Physical and factual threats have been forwarded to the server admin team.

Even with an empty server, the server performance tacos are permanent showing in red, top right.

Waiting for EA to respond and take action please...!

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@YUMSKIS_27 wrote:
@CyberDymethis thing just happen to me on a infantry server. Everyone on the server left, almost nobody was spawning. Then suddenly my own internet went down. Had to even reset my router. When i checked, the server was empty. I dont even care to play anymore if my whole internet crashes from this bs.

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Indeed @YUMSKIS_27 ,

It is very disturbing and very frequent for the time being!

Though I can tell you that it does not take down your own local internet.  It doesnt.

Though the message that we get from the EA game itself appear to maybe hint at that, it is matter of fact not correct! 

It is all happening on the EA BF game server itself.  (confirmed by EA's partner in Europe, who hosts their BF4 servers).  It is getting overwhelmed by the DDOS attack load and then at a certain point breaks down in the sense it suddenly starts to drop the connection to all connected players, as it cannot keep up with maintaining the synch required within given time limits on the network.

Unfortunately the now old BF4 client application does not know well how to handle that error situation, so typically it will also leave your own client software in an error state, for which there is no 'run time error handling exit controls'. 

So while you may actually get back to the main menu in the game application, if you ask it to join the server again, then it will simply state "Joining server...".  But it will matter of fact never do so, as its still stuck in your old error state in your network to the server end.

Only way out of that for all the affected players is for them all to close down the app and restart the BF4 app again.

The real root cause and where this has to be fixed is of course on EA's side!

And then work together with their BF4 server hosting partners.

EA should get serious about chasing down these DDOS attackers and then also perma-ban the EA player accounts associated with that activity!

Very intriguing @GODSGRAV3 ,

As we are then having the same bad state across our servers!

Because here some of the insights I also have digged out, after great and keen help also from the server hosting partner that EA uses for the PlayStation environment here in Europe.  We have sat up 'live' direct measure and tracking 24/7 of my own local Playstation4 and its direct internet line linkage to the physical server box at the BF4 server hosting company (i3D.net here in Europe) and they had similar trackers sat up on their BF4 server box. 

So here we have hard evidence and proof that at absolutely no time ever, did we have even one single package lost between the two entities in their communication with each other.  Not one single line fault or disconnect.  And this setup we ran for 3+ days.  All perfect, clean and complete.  Not one single bleep on the line or on the server or on my PS4 ever! 

And still.  The BF4 game server provided the message back to me, that the user had lost the connection to the EA Game Server.   All despite this was physically and technically not correct, as I had still direct line connection with the test application and so did the test application on the server hosting side.  The server hosting company/tech team could confirm the same thing from their end.  And their server was still fully visible and connectable from my end also!  And we never had any lost line or data package the entire time.  Consistent latency from me to server in around 18-22ms throughout the entire period.

i3D.net could therefore conclude that all from my end and to them was in absolute mint condition and never a single fault observed.  Similar on their end, the server setup and its connection to us via the internet was absolutely working as intended and thereby fully fulfilling what they are asked by EA to provide of BF4 server hosting service to the internet.  But that their BF4 server instance on their box was indeed at times getting a signal from the EA's own backend system to drop the attached players.  So they hinted towards it was on EA's side and something entirely going bad in the interactions between the hosted servers in the server park and the control/interfaces they have with EA's backend (aka managing the user directories, granting access or not, etc).  (I guess this is what you refer to as BLAZE?).

They acknowledged this was something they had to get fixed in the environment between EA and themselves and nothing we could do anything about on the users side and our connectivity to the game server itself with this hosting partner.

From what you share here @GODSGRAV3 , you then consider that the root cause is due to aka DDOS/script attacks on EA's internal backend (BLAZE?) that controls the user access to the external hosted game servers?

Our servers are brought to their knees and our thousands of regular gamers are getting more and more disappointed by the day this is allowed to carry on by EA.  (aka we have 50,000+ favs on our server and normally its literally running full 24/7 with 64 gamers at all times).

EA BF4 Servers still crashing on hourly basis here in Europe!

And still no response from EA Support and no tangible effort being executed by their tech support team to get it fixed.

So despite having loyally spent 7+ years to pay big money to EA to rent servers from them, nothing is being done so far in past 3 weeks since raising multiple support tickets to get the servers back online and available for actually playing on them.

We have 50,000+ favs on the server so literally thousands of EA customers right now who do not have access to what they paid for.

@GODSGRAV3 @CyberDyme @DavlosREE  

Good morning Gents, 

I am experiencing the same issue except I am able to maintain 42/64 with (4) in the queue. However, I noticed that my primary server screen is stuck which concludes the durango-Monkey.Sparta

The server is not either aware or does not care about the underlying issue. My second server is fine with no problems to be owd if you ask me. I have tried everything I could think of including speaking to EA on the chat but nothing on their part is being done.  I have attached some pictures for you to see. I have had this server for almost 2 years going strong and never had this issue in the past.  My buddies in Germany and Brazil have a high latency that goes beyond triple digits at times. 

Heads up that I've merged some threads about this problem together to compile the reports.

BF4 servers have been nonstop crashing here today Monday, every 20-30 minutes.

We pay for the server rental 24/7.

But no meaningful gaming have been possible.

When will EA do something tangible about this...?

It seems EA doesn't really care anymore they got our money, this discretion been going on for years now, not one year not two years but more then three/four years!

It started with the glitch where, when servers go empty they disappear from everyone's favorites or game menu and Server owners have to take time out of their lives to get the server started, how much of my own personal time have I spent babysitting the server to make sure it stays live, how many hours of my time have I spent doing this for the last three/four years!??

Ea only believes that their time is valuable and no one else's.

We rent our servers from EA!!!

EA charges my credit card for renting their server, when we rent servers, there's no specification on the contract that the servers are outsourced,  as a matter of fact EA claims their the owners of the servers!

The run around EA tech support gave you Cyber about contacting the outside source, same thing been told to me years ago!! I can't believe they're still peddling the same bs for so many years!

All this bs started around the time BFV took a nose dive, that's how long we been putting up with this! Not a year nor months, but YEARS!!

December 2019 was my first initial post about Servers crashing and not letting us in! I have it recorded!

@CyberDymeThese are people who have been identified as racial haters of the Chinese Communist Party, But the problem is they haven't received any punishment from EA until today.

On the contrary, I have been bullied by these people, and the Facebook life circle that harassed me intensively was also intimidated.

My PayPal account that receives server donations also received a malicious donation of $0.1 from these people because he wanted to report me as a fraudster and tried to block my bank account.

Just because I don't accept the political ideas these people are forcing on me, I lost my job and my normal life because of this, just to satisfy these racial haters and get happiness.

You can see the news that China is harassing Japan's phone calls and life threats, This is the way many Chinese people think, No one can change this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEkiCuDB8zE

In the past few days, China DDoS attacks servers in North America and Europe again.

If you are unwilling to punish any Chinese criminal, Please end Battlefield 4 global multiplayer immediately.

This way we can request a refund of server funds, Because we are on a 30-day lease per month, we cannot play the game normally, which is unfair to us.

Chinese people really are something else...because YOU are under attack, the entire game should go down?

I dont give a * about chinese servers, I play NA and EU. These servers are stable and populated.

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@DR_QQ008 wrote:

Chinese people really are something else...because YOU are under attack, the entire game should go down?

I dont give a * about chinese servers, I play NA and EU. These servers are stable and populated.

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I must say you are a stupid idiot, Because you always ignore that damn Chinese criminals are killing servers in EU and NA too.

In fact, these guys also launched intensive DDoS attacks against servers in Russia and the United States, The number of players in both region is being lost every day.

Do you dare to say that it has no impact?

I can confirm that this is a major problem for a lot of BF4 community servers. I am playing BF4 since September again and servers keep crashing, sometimes 3-4 times an hour.

I must say that both DDoS attacks and the Blaze server attack mentioned by TNE are possible reasons.

But the reason in Asia is very simple, Chinese criminals use UDP attack tools to launch attacks, How to launch an attack can also be easily found on Google.

Anyway, Asia has become Pandora's box, Even Asia has become Schrödinger's cat box, You can't confirm whether the DDoS attack is still there, you can't ask about Asia, and you can't open the box. (Because in the 24 hours of "every day", No Asia players are willing to stay.)

Whether you like it or not, Battlefield 4 is a money game, All servers are renewed and maintained using player funds, It’s not like using everyone’s funds and micro-transactions to stay alive like Battlefield 2042.

As a consumer, as a server owner, we need to be treated with reasonable respect, This is what we deserve.

You've been complaining here for YEARS at this point and still haven't unsubscribed? lol