Packet Drop / Loss of Connection
 

I've been troubleshooting my Everquest Connection issues for weeks now, I am using my laptop in the Southern US, and use my phone's hotspot functionality with ATT for internet. I'm able to stay connected to various other games and programs, Discord runs smoothly, I speedtest around 50+ down and 8 up, I can play League of Legends with only minor issues every other game, I can play PokeMMO with no lag or instability for 12 hours at a time. But when I enter Everquest, which is a smooth process, I can stay connected for about an hour at a time if I'm alone in a zone like Kurn's. I instantly disconnect if I'm in a populated area. My packet readout will start at 100% with around a 120 ping. After a minute in the EC tunnel, everyone disappears instantly, and my packet readout smoothly drops from 100 to 99, 98, 97, 96, until I finally decide to close the client or it times out to black screen. Meanwhile my other programs show no sign of issues, like discord. I've changed windows firewall settings in and out, to allow the .exe through, the ports are open, I've attempted to use a VPN with no success, I'm running in admin with compatibility, the laptop has no issues with connectivity on my home internet. Any ideas on how to resolve this?

EQ is UDP rather than TCP based, if I understand this correctly:

https://www.pcgamer.com/breaking-the...ed-everything/

This means it is a lot more sensitive to packets being out of order. In your case, the first thing I'd suggest is to try from another location. You have a hotspot already, so just go somewhere a couple miles away or ask someone using a different ISP if you can try from their place.

Alternatively, it could be a routing issue with your ISP, or between them and the NE US. Those usually take a couple days to weeks for them to notice and resolve, but when that's happening you'll see a lot more people complaining on the forums and discord.

Tried taking the battery out of the hotspot for 30 seconds?

-Mcoy

I'm using the hotspot function from my Samsung S21 Ultra, but it's been power cycled many times over the weeks. I'm stuck using this laptop in this specific area as I'm staying in a rural location next to my workplace, there isn't an area I could set up a laptop for 12 miles. There's no internet provider to the house near the site. The ports I opened were UDP, following another forum troubleshooting post. Also it's worth noting that after many hours more of testing, I seem to disconnect within moments of standing near anyone else in a zone. While in Kurns with no population I was able to solo for an hour or more with no issue, but I logged into a druid to trio the Hole entrance and can't stay connected long enough to even cast a spell. Went back to Kurns, went fine until I ran into someone else, and disconnected shortly afterwards. Also I have no issues connecting in the first place, just strangely disconnect in the same exact manner every time as described above, if anyone is around me, within a minute of connection.

Is your specific area's coverage provided by AT&T equipment installed at your employer, or is your employer using other means to relay cell coverage? The article I linked explains how different things in the game are sent via different protocols which are affected differently by packets being out of order and retransmitted.

Opening ports etc isn't necessary - if the traffic wasn't allowed it wouldn't work at all, not intermittently. If something in the game (like another person's hit text, or auction chat, etc) was causing an issue it would crash the client, not cause a disconnect.

-Mcoy

Well it's falling under ATT's 5G coverage map, quite completely at that, and speed tests are showing that I'm using "ATT Internet". My nearest towers are probably around 10 miles out, I have my doubts that the employer is using any kind of signal booster, considering that I get around 3 bars, and in low lying areas I get almost no signal.

"Oh by the way, I also generally have poor signal". EQ (and in particular p99) are very sensitive to that. I understand that you have no easy way to test it - but I highly recommend saving yourself the trouble of further troubleshooting until you rule it out.

-Mcoy

Even the facilities tech support doesn't believe that we have any sort of signal booster, or relay. I should be using an ATT 5G tower.

To clarify, I'm not suggesting it's a local relay or anything - that was a clarifying question because you stated earlier that you were in the middle of nowhere at an employer site. I assumed oilfield or something so was checking to make sure you weren't using something your employer may have access to. Cell towers in the middle of nowhere generally have a ~12 mile radius so it's entirely likely that you're serviced by a single tower and you have no other options. In this case, the best I can recommend is finding an area where you do have good service and seeing if that makes any difference (also try a vpn again from that location if you still have issues). Beyond that, I'm afraid you just may be in an area that's not amenable to p99.

-Mcoy

Tried two VPN options to no avail.