Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:44 pm

everytime i go idle for any length of time in excess of maybe 4 or 5 minutes, whenever i come back and hit a command it either disconnects me or there is about a 45-60 second lag before i see any input from the mud, but if it doesnt disconnect me immediatly and i just the lag, i can hit reconnect and reconnect instantly to the mud, but as long as im playing its fine, nobody else on the mud has this problem, and ive had it with both cmud and cmud beta, i was just wondering if anyone else has had this problem, i am on wifi, i figure its some sort of problem with that but i just thought i would check here too

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

You know, I had the exact same thing way back when I was mudding by WiFi. Very likely the two ain't connected though because
my WiFi connection was pretty unstable back then.
But, as many have said, MUD is telnet-based operation and thus a lot more receptive with all the tiny internet connection errors you
might not recognize otherwise (like, surfing online and such). In short, MUD connection is quick to drop if something like this is up.

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:28 pm

I go idle quite often and for lengthy periods of time and I've never experienced that.

But I do send a #sendraw "" every 45 seconds to keep it live.

Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:15 pm

There can be any number of causes for this. But nothing that CMUD has control over. Your network connection between your computer and the MUD server goes through lots of routers and other network devices. A MUD connection, like any Telnet connection, is a persistent socket connection. This is different from browsing web pages where a separate socket connection is made to load each element of a web page. When a persistent socket connection goes idle, some routers can "drop it" to improve their performance. When you start trying to send data through the socket again, a router that has dropped your connection must re-establish it with the next router down the line.

The delay can even come from Windows itself. If Windows tries to send a packet across the idle network connection that has been dropped by a router, there is a timeout period before Windows will try to re-send the packet. Imagine a situation with multiple routers trying to re-establish a socket connection and Windows timing out each time it tries to send data across the connection. Windows will only disconnect a session if it receives a socket disconnect, or if it is unable to resend the packet multiple times.

So it really depends upon the exact hardware configuration of the network routers in your ISP, your Windows network settings, the MUD server network settings, and many other factors. But the basic issue is that many routers don't want to keep around a bunch of in-active connections all the time, so they can drop your connection until you try to send data. And you won't really have control over any of these factors.

As Progonoi mentioned, MUD/telnet connections are just a lot more susceptible to the low-level operation of the Internet. Most of the optimization of the Internet is done for web surfing, email, etc which effects the vast majority of Internet users.

The bottom line is "don't go idle" ;)

Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:16 am

well, i went ahead and purchased cmud even tho i was having this problem, its the best one out there imo and i figured i would find a fix eventually,
but ive been doing some researching trying to solve this problem and nothing ive done with my router or vista etc has seemed to work

so i decided to try plain old telnet, i logged into my mud, went idle and didnt get disconected or anything, so i searched on the site and found this post,
which seems to describe my problem:

http://forums.zuggsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=29688&highlight=

i cant set up a tick to send a command to my mud because its illegal to have scripts or anything send commands, commands are supposed to only be player sent,
so i was wondering, has anything been done about this or has anyone found another workaround that doesnt involve sending triggered commands to the mud?

thanks for the help

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

As was explained earlier, the problem is caused by the actions of the network of machines between you and the mud server. There's really nothing you can do, except keep the connection active by not going idle.

Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 8:39 pm

so how come raw telnet doesnt disconnect me or lag? as was talked about in the link i posted

Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 9:25 pm

ok, apparantly it is happening on raw telnet too, its just taking a little longer for some reason, i think my problem may be in my wireless router somewhere, i will update the firmware this weekend and try with it wired, see if that helps

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

The correct solution for routers dropping the connection is to send a keep alive packet.
#ALARM {*60} {#SENDPROMPT {%char(255)%char(241)}}

Per the Telnet specification http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc854.html that is sending a No Operation command.

Most muds also have an idle disconnect. If the mud implemented it correctly then you should still be disconnected when you don't send any commands for a sufficient period. That disconnect should iinclude a packet that will inform CMud that the connection has been closed.

If you have any concerns about whether this method violates your mud's rules you should talk with them about it.