Losing games due to disconnecting, without even playing a snap

Sorry for the delay in my response. I haven't been able to play much lately and have been pretty busy. In general, Superstar KO is playable again... until I get to the 4th game. If I make it that far, there's always some sort of issue that results in disconnection. Here is what I have seen so far this week since the last update for Superstar KO:

1. Win 3 games, you're done  and cannot proceed becuase the game kicks you back to the main Madden menu (not the Superstar KO menu)
2. If an opponent disconnects, you're done, and the game kicks you back to the main Madden menu (not the Superstar KO menu)
3. In between matches, on the "Match Found" screen, it hangs for a long time sometimes with nothing else on the screen - no images - just the words "Match Found" and a football icon at the bottom that does not move. Eventually, the game might start, but if the opponent leaves, then my progress ends, and I get kicked back to the main Madden menu (not the Superstar KO menu)
4. In above scenarios 2 and 3, I often find myself in a situation where the game says, "Your oppenent left the match" (or whatever it says like that), then it processes to see what happen, and even if I was winning 6-0, it says my game is over and I lost, then it kicks me to the main Madden menu (not the Superstar KO menu)

At this point, Superstar KO is only useful for practice at this point since it's more fun than actual practice mode. Please let me know when this network glitchiness gets fixed and I'll try again.

This morning I tried playing Superstart KO. I won my first game, got to the "MATCH FOUND" screen with a beige background. There was nothing else on the screen - no player images, no spinning football... then I got kicked back to the main Madden menu and have to re-enter Superstar KO again. 

I have to say it... I work in IT for a living... I do DevOps... I cannot believe you folks would let this product out the door in such an unstable state, and actually make us pay for it! Never in my life have I run into a buggy video game before Madden... 

I bought Madden 20 as well, and by the time 21 was out, 20 was barely playable. I think in the future, I will wait to purchase Madden until the community reports STABILITY so the game is actually playable.

If I was the product manager for EA, I would...

1. Halt all prodution on new features
2. Set up a test team to do nothing but play the game (from remote locations, over typical Internet connections) and TRY to break the game.
3. Have adequate logging set up to capture errors
4. Have Developers fix the errors.

I can't imagine how sophisticated the game is, but if it's bigger than developers can handle, then simplify it so the rest of us can be happy with WHAT WE PAYED FOR!

Regards,

On my next match (after I got back into Superstar KO again after being kicked out), I won my first game, then got to the blank MATCH FOUND screen which only lasted 2 seconds this time. Then I got to the next page that shows the player group images of me and my oponent. Then there was a very quick button popup that said something, but it was too fast - it said something about disconnected.

Now I'm back at the Madden 21 main menu again after KO kicked me there. 

On a side note, my online h2h record is now 63-31... I have recorded each game loss result to determine if it was a loss, or a diconnection. 18 OF MY LOSSES ARE FROM DISCONNECTS. That really irks me since ACCURATE stats are a BIG DEAL in football.

I should be 63-19 if the disconnects didn't count. In the end, users are NOT getting their money's worth.

@kasl33 

The issue looks like it's out of our control as your test has been showing your connection dropping before it hits our servers. Can you check your router to see if UPnP is enabled? Also, is QoS (Quality of Service) an option on your router? If so, make sure it's enabled.

I'm not sure what UPnP would have to do with it... I'm not plugging in anything other than the PS4 via HDMI / Cat6 Ethernet. 

My PS4 is in the DMZ, and Xfinity XFi offers no QoS option on their routers. Everything has worked perfect with this XFI Gateway until the Madden 21 update where Superstar KO games were ongoing until you lose. I was able to win 7 games in a row, had a disconnect, and now I can't even play past game 3 anymore.

If I play online h2h, it works perfectly every time through the entire game -- EXCEPT when a disconnect happens pre-game (which I think is people using a glitch to get more wins on their record which is stupid).

Do you know of any way to test the path to easo.ea.com directly from PS4? Since it's in DMZ, it's going to have different results than running traceroute on my Mac which is not in the DMZ.

@kasl33 

Are you also not connecting any wireless devices to that router? If the only device connected to it is your console, UPnP shouldn't be as important, but I'd still try enabling it to see if that makes a difference.

There is no way to run that test from your PS4. Do you happen to have a PC? We find they generate the most accurate results for the UO Trace.

UPnP was already enabled, although still not relevant in my opinion.

I don't use a PC - I use Linux & Mac (as a DevOps / Network Engineer, I find them to be better for the job).

The problem is not my network. The problem is the game - and it started 3 updates ago. Before then, I never had network issues with the game. I have had the game since about a week after it was released. 

80% of my games work perfectly whether they are Superstar KO or Online h2h. KO has a bug that causes disconnects / kicks, and h2h has a bug that causes other users to win if they disconnect pre-game. I'm almost sure of it. Google around and you will find a lot of people have these same issues.

Thanks

@kasl33 

I'm not aware of any known issues with bugs causing disconnects. If you want to continue troubleshooting your connection, let me know.

I'm willing to continue troubleshooting.

Today I played Superstar KO, went on a 10 game winning streak. After that game, I got to the "MATCH FOUND" screen which is a blank tan colored page with nothing else but a spinning football on it. Usually, that page only lasts a second or two, then changes to the page with the pictures of the superstars on my team and my opponent's team. However, it hung at the MATCH FOUND page this time.

After about 2 or 3 minutes, I saw a very quick pop-up that said, "your peer has disconnected" (something like that) - it was a flicker, then I got kiced back to the main menu of the game. 

Also, I was Googling around a little, and noticed that when I search for easo.ea.com and level3 together, I run into other people with the same issue. I'm an Xfinity customer, but level3 seems like they might have some routing problems. I'm going to report it to them and see if we can find out what they're doing. This appears to affect people all over the US west coast in possibly different scenarios since about June, 2020.

@kasl33 

Sounds good. Let me know what happens. Something else to try would be opening the ports for Madden. They are listed here. 

I haven't come up with anything about level3. However, today I removed my PS4 from the DMZ, and instead configured port forwarding as you recommended. I won 13 games in a row, got stuck at the "MATCH FOUND" screen, and the game kicked me bad to the main menu.

It sure feels like an issue that has something to do with the opponent disconnecting. It didn't say the oppenent disconnected this time, but it sure "felt' like it. 

Check this out: https://youtu.be/08x6MBRiZws - go to 4:30 in the video.

It shows what happens. I made it to 13 games last night, still had a disconnect bug. That should prove it's not my Internet connection.

@kasl33 

Can you run the UO Trace again to see if you're still getting the same results?

I do still see the routing failure at level3.net. I can't figure out how to contact them, but am waiting for Xfinity to respond to my question. Hopefully somebody knows who to contact about the bad route.

@kasl33 

I'm not sure you'll be able to contact Level3. This is something your ISP would need to handle most likely.

I received a response from a Comcast expert in the Xfinity forums. The expert reports the following:

"Actually, it is not a routing failure. That last IP address (hop #8 in the first trace output) belongs to the gaming host *Electronic Arts* so your packets are reaching them but your IP address is being blocked internally by them for some reason. You need to contact the host about this."

@EA_Aljo do you know whom to contact for this one? 

@kasl33 

We're not blocking your IP address. You're also dropping before you reach our servers. That was happening in hop 6 of your test.

I guess that makes sense when I go back and look at the traceroute. It's a Portland area Level3 router. 

I'm also discussing this at for my own reference or anybody else who ends up troubleshooting this: https://forums.xfinity.com/t5/Your-Home-Network/Gaming-network-problems/m-p/3395343/highlight/false#M339705

Feel free to edit out the link if needed.

Right now I'm home with a power outage, and am using my hot spot on my iPhone. Thought I'd run a few more tests to see how it works out. I'm on Xfinity Mobile which uses Verizon's network:

$ sudo tcptraceroute easo.ea.com 443
Selected device en0, address 172.20.10.3, port 63468 for outgoing packets
Tracing the path to easo.ea.com (159.153.64.173) on TCP port 443 (https), 30 hops max
1 172.20.10.1 3.205 ms 1.700 ms 2.549 ms
2 162.sub-69-83-242.myvzw.com (69.83.242.162) 57.459 ms 39.128 ms 31.262 ms
3 * * *
4 70.sub-69-83-158.myvzw.com (69.83.158.70) 53.518 ms 19.354 ms 37.066 ms
5 * * *
6 * * *
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 * * *

$ traceroute easo.ea.com
traceroute to easo.ea.com (159.153.64.173), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 172.20.10.1 (172.20.10.1) 2.011 ms 1.772 ms 1.785 ms
2 162.sub-69-83-242.myvzw.com (69.83.242.162) 29.902 ms 43.357 ms 34.291 ms
3 * * *
4 70.sub-69-83-158.myvzw.com (69.83.158.70) 55.489 ms 31.221 ms 30.372 ms
5 * * *
6 88.sub-69-83-158.myvzw.com (69.83.158.88) 59.982 ms 29.624 ms 48.226 ms
7 102.sub-69-83-144.myvzw.com (69.83.144.102) 51.929 ms 28.734 ms 41.011 ms
8 103.sub-69-83-144.myvzw.com (69.83.144.103) 30.867 ms 49.720 ms 60.813 ms
9 0.ae1.br3.sea1.alter.net (140.222.0.239) 39.563 ms 49.923 ms
0.ae2.br3.sea1.alter.net (140.222.0.241) 53.172 ms
10 xe-2-2-0.mpr2.sea1.us.zip.zayo.com (64.125.12.17) 62.334 ms 44.232 ms 80.773 ms
11 ae27.cs2.sea1.us.eth.zayo.com (64.125.29.2) 116.754 ms 118.000 ms 108.737 ms
12 * * *
13 ae3.cs2.lga5.us.eth.zayo.com (64.125.29.212) 118.236 ms 108.625 ms 113.665 ms
14 * * *
15 ae1.er2.iad10.us.zip.zayo.com (64.125.25.165) 98.869 ms 130.334 ms 115.351 ms
16 64.125.199.190.t00673-02.above.net (64.125.199.190) 107.348 ms 107.161 ms 126.077 ms
17 159.153.92.98 (159.153.92.98) 116.294 ms 129.023 ms 102.235 ms
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *

Any ideas why I would have the same issue from my Xfinity network and also my iPhone network with tethered? 

Level3 is the Internet backbone... it routes traffic and move data for the entire internet. I don't think it would block connectivity to EA servers.

@EA_Aljo how to we engage EA network engineers to look into this? It really is important they check on this as it could be a key to this troubleshooting effort.

Thanks

@kasl33 

This isn't an issue on our end as the problems are happening before you reach our servers. You're on a different network when your phone is used as a hot spot. You'll be routed through different servers then. The test on a Mac isn't as thorough as on a PC. If you had a PC, that would greatly help.

I don't have a PC. Do you happen to know where I can get support from EA for this issue?

Thanks

@kasl33 

According to your tests, the problem is occurring before you reach our servers. It's not something we can help with since it's not happening on our servers.