OGS Connection issues for BT users - and maybe others (update)

Support
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Users on BT broadband have been experiencing “curious connection issues”.

anoek wrote:

Alrighty, I’ve added a settings option to control what network is used for the websocket connection

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Google uses the GCP inter-data center network which in general involves less hops than the public internet and they claim is generally faster, where as the Public Internet option will use non-google non-cloudflare links all the way to the data center. This only applies for the game websockets, not the AI websockets, if the later is a problem after we get a workaround in place for the games, we’ll work on a solution for that as well.

I’d expect both options to produce good results for our BT players, but please let me know how the workaround works in practice.

If you are on BT, or a similar provider, and still having problems, please let us know in this thread, and

make sure to

describe the effect of the switch mentioned above on your situation.

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What is BT?

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It used to stand for British Telecom. A major phone and Internet provider in the UK and the former national monopoly.

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That switch may fix ogs in ANY situation when there are connection problems with Cloudflare. Even if you are not in UK and not using BT.

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I’d expect both options to produce good results for our BT players, but please let me know how the workaround works in practice.

I tried both ‘Public Internet’ and ‘Google’, and both worked fine.

Thanks a lot for your work!

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Since I had been suspicious about the router firmware update that happened around the same time frame, I connected my laptop directly to the pppoe on the openreach modem and can confirm that in that configuration as well the cloudflare websocket goes silent after 20 seconds. So whatever is going on is happening deeper in the network, not a bad router software update.

FWIW, this reproduces the issue without relying on websockets and without referencing anything about online-go.com specifically:

(while :; do
  echo 'HEAD / HTTP/1.1';
  echo 'Host: www.cloudflare.com';
  echo;
  sleep 5;
done) | \
  openssl s_client -tls1_3 \
    -servername www.cloudflare.com \
    -connect '[2606:4700:20::681a:24]:443'

This will see 4 successful responses but then go quiet after that (so, after 20 seconds), from a BT home internet, but keeps on going indefinitely if I connect from an ipv6 capable server I have access to.

I the headers, I noticed CF-RAY: 93d14f85783048cb-LHR on the failing connection (it was a different site ID for the successful one, despite the same IP address). I wonder if it could also be that it’s a cloudflare bug but it’s not rolled out globally?

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Is this a solution for anyone else having the same problem?

If so, I have no idea what any of this means.

If not, please see if there is a solution for anyone having this problem outside Britain.

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I’d say, try changing that setting and see if it helps!

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The option is not specific to Britain. It’s switching between different network paths for the interactive communication between the web browser and OGS servers. So if the problem you see is similar, it’s definitely worth a try.

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That was a much more sensible answer!

But I’m desperate to know if it helped!

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I’m somewhat reluctant to change anything because I have know idea what it is, any chance for an ELI5?

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I’m no expert but my 5yo version is that it’s like when you use Google maps and then select options like “avoid motorways” or “fastest” or “economical” and it will just use different routes to get from A to B.

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I probably don’t understand it much better than you, but what I do understand is that you can switch the setting back any time, so there shouldn’t be a risk in trying.

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I think it kinda worked, I’ll check a couple more days and we’ll see.

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