How I fixed my freezing/timed-out/room-dropping problem

[handcuff_charlie 801]

Almost all of us not on Swedish ubernet have either experienced, or continue to experience, the myriad of connection problems with this game. I dont know what it is about this game's programming but it seems to have a very low tolerance when it comes to connections

 

I had the full house of issues: console freezing, being in a room in free mode and everyone dumps out, loading into a job and everyone disappears when we load in, hosting a job and losing half the room when we load into the job, timing out and getting booted to single player. It was EXTREMELY frustrating. I would have one or all of the above problems at least once or twice, often multiple times, every single time I logged in to play the game.

 

What made it more frustrating was that I didnt have these problems to anything remotely approaching this level in the other online games I was playing. So I looked into all the possible problem areas and decided to take actual steps to resolve this problem, otherwise I don't know how much longer I would have stuck with the frustration of trying to play GTA online.

 

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Clean your PS3 / Prevent Console Overheating

 

Ok so I bought my PS3 in 2011, and it was in a fairly low-dust home in Germany until last year we came to south Florida which is also a fairly low-dust environment. I figured what the heck, it is possible that the cooling system could be clogged with 3 years of dust, plus I did have it sitting flat on its "belly" in a semi-enclosed area (although it has several inches of space in every direction except for zero space underneath it). My console certainly did get hot to the touch on the back half of the case, so I decided to take it apart and make sure it was clean.

 

I followed the following video instructions and disassembled my PS3 and "cleaned" it. I use quotes because what I found was that it was practically clean to begin with, it just had an extremely thin layer of dust on the fan blades but almost nothing blowing out of the cooling fins/heat sinks. At least I can check this off the list of potential issues as far as the freezing goes.

 

http://youtu.be/dgCI8myCnLI

 

This video is quite accurate. Do NOT listen to these people who think the PS3 has a "self-cleaning mode", this is nonsense. If you want to be sure your console is clean, this is the ONLY way to do so. You must get in there. It is not a difficult process at all. If illiterate chinese slave labor can assemble these things, trust me, semi-literate round-eyes can take it partially-apart safely. Even Canadians can do this.

 

Important note: You need a TORX bit....NOT an allen key (hex bit). The TORX bit is a 6-point star shape just like a hex bit, yes, but more importantly it has a small hole in the center. There are 4 small screws (even though in the video he says there are only 3) in the PS3 that will only accept the TORX bit. If you try to force them off using a hex bit or anything else you risk damaging the head of these really small screws and making them impossible to get off via anything short of drilling them out using a power drill. You do not want to go there. TORX bits are not easy to find anymore unless you have a really good electronics shop near you. Don't even fucking bother with Home Depot. So do some planning in advance and get one, or a set, online. You need a size "8". Pic below....you can see the "dimple in the center of the head of the screw which makes this special bit necessary....fucking Sony

 

 

Ok now that I knew for sure that my freezing was not a result of the console overheating, I moved on to the next area I have control over....my Local Area Network.

 

 

 

 

 

Wireless/Network Troubleshooting

 

There is an EXCELLENT post on GTAF which details how to reduce your connection issues and explains the theory behind it. FOLLOW IT. Take some time to sit down and perform the steps.

http://gtaforums.com/topic/692081-fixing-lag-issuesconnection-timeouts/

 

Now this is stuff that can be a bit over your head if you are not somewhat learned in wireless electronics or electronics to begin with from a techincal standpoint. I have 12 years experience with operating/troubleshooting/hot-fixing $150 million military radar systems, so this wasnt much of a leap for me, but I realize that many, if not most, people are not familiar with this stuff. HOWEVER, it is paramount that you follow the steps in the GTAF thread which are spelled out fairly well for anyone with no computer networking experience to follow. You need to know where the hang up might be or even if you have a hang up to begin with. Don't just throw your hands up and say "I'm not computer smart" and just abandon ship. You can do this. Just follow the steps one by one.

 

If you run the signal/packet trace and find that you do not have a ping issue, that you do not have a packet loss issue, that your results look similar to the "good" results in that thread, then it is clear that you do not have an issue "downstream" from your modem, and the issue can only reside "upstream" from your modem somewhere between it and your PS3....so the next step is getting off of WiFi, and onto a hard-line connection.

 

 

 

I already know what the majority of responses to this suggestion are because it was my response as well......My PS3 is in a totally different room from the network access point, my modem/router, and running 40-50 feet of CAT5 or CAT6 cable from my PS3 to the router/modem is not feasible, and neither is moving the modem/router closer to the PS3 or vice versa.

 

Well I have GREAT news for you. You do NOT have to move anything. Nor do you need to run a long CAT5 or CAT6 cable from your PS3 to your modem/router. You can do what I did and purchase a device that uses the existing electrical wiring in your house as network transmission lines. You read that correctly. You can use the same plugs in your walls that your PS3 is plugged into for electricity to connect to your modem/router.

 

 

 

I bought this device from Netgear. It is available via Amazon and IIRC costs around $60-80. There are several models but this one with the 85Mbps capacity is more than enough for our purposes.

 

 

It really is that simple. You get two adapter devices in this box. Plug one into the electrical outlet closest to your PS3 and then connect the PS3 to the adapter using a short CAT5 or CAT6 cable....then plug the other into the electrical outlet closest to your modem/router and connect the modem/router to it with another short CAT5 or CAT6 cable....and DONE. There is no software to install (I am using a relatively new Motorola modem/router I bought last year..model SGB6580), nothing, just plug and play. Turn on your PS3 and reconfigure the network settings for the "WIRED" connection. You are now no longer subject to the guessing game of whether or not your WiFi network is causing the gremlins with connection stability in GTA online.....one less thing.

 

However...your adapters need to be plugged directly into the wall outlets, NOT into surge protectors / 6-ways / power-strips, whatever you want to call them. Plug them directly into the wall outlet to ensure that there is nothing between them and the electrical circuit. I have a surge protector on my house itself where the power line from the pole/ground enters the home (necessary thing in south Florida). you should not have to worry about a lightning strike frying your PS3 via this adapter, it would bust the breaker in the circuit board first. In order to fry your PS3 lightning would need to hit physically contact your circuit between the board and the wall outlet you are using. if you have a lightning strike with THAT much proximity, your PS3 is the least of your worries....hopefully you get some super-powers out of it. A super-power that regrows all the hair scorched off your body would be a good one.

 

 

You may think that you need CAT5 or CAT6 in order to preserve the integrity and/or speed of the network signal/data, this was my skepticism too. Why all these years have we bothered with special cabling for networks when wiring technology decades old can do the same job? It can't possibly work as well......

Well apparently Netgear knows their stuff, because I re-ran my connection test on my PS3 and didn't lose anything speed wise. Streaming Netflix or Amazon video is just as fast as ever too. 

 

 

 

 

 

Place your PS3 in a network DMZ / outside your network firewall

 

This step is a little more involved and does require some "computer knowledge". It is possible that you have done all the steps leading up to this and still have issues. It could be that your modem/router's firewall is interfering with gameplay....yes, one would think it should interfere with all gameplay and not just GTA, but I'm not wise enough on the nitty gritty of this stuff to know if this is 100% accurate theory or not. Either way, I decided to eliminate this variable. 

 

Now I cannot tell you how to do this on YOUR network because of many reasons, not the least of which are that maybe you are using an ISP-provided modem/router that will not permit it, plus every modem/router is different.....BUT if you know how to access your modem/router settings via your PC/laptop then you should be able to browse through the various menus and settings pages until you find something pertaining to DMZ. On my Motorola unit, under the "ADVANCED" menu, there was a submenu called "DMZ Host". On my unit all it does is ask for the IP address for the device to be connected outside the firewall. Whatever number I enter in this field when a device connects to the modem/router using that IP address, it will be outside the firewall. So it is important that you do not put your laptop/PC's IP address in this field but only your PS3's IP address.

 

Therefore in order to place your PS3 in a DMZ status (outside the firewall) it must have a *STATIC* IP ADDRESS. This assigns the PS3 to use the same IP address every time it connects to the modem/router.

 

This can be set in the "NETWORK SETTINGS" menu, under "INTERNET CONNECTION SETTINGS".

When you reach the "IP ADDRESS SETTING" prompt you **must** select "MANUAL". (pic below)

Then it will ask you to enter the IP address for your PS3, the first 3 sets of numbers should be 192.168.0.....but the 4th number needs to be a unique number (doesnt match any other number already registered on your local network, each device connected to your modem/router will have its own number assigned in this 4th slot). On my modem/router it pretty much assigns numbers below 10 to each device, and we have less than 10 devices connected, so I assigned "52" to my PS3....whichever number you choose here for your PS3, it must match the number you enter in your modem/router's DMZ configuration settings because that is the number your router is expecting to receive from your PS3 in order to place it in the DMZ.

 

Again, in a nutshell what I have done here is tell my PS3 "always connect to the internet using this same (static) IP address, 192.168.0.52" .....and then tell my modem/router "always connect the device with the IP address 192.168.0.52 to the internet outside of the firewall"....so you must make sure the IP address matches in the two places, and that your PS3 is set to a static IP address by choosing the "MANUAL" option to enter it in manually.

 

 

Now you may notice my DNS addresses are different than yours.

This is another variable you can eliminate. The DNS addresses I am using here are Google DNS servers. Click here for more info.

You won't have a problem using these DNS servers. Use them, there is no reason not to. I have heard of people resolving online gameplay connection issues by simply switching DNS addresses, I don't know what was wrong with the DNS addresses they were using before or any other specifics, but you can take that possibility out of your formula by switching to these.

 

 

 

 

Concerns

 

Placing anything outside the modem/router firewall completely exposes it to the public internet. This is NEVER a good idea for your computer or any other device. However despite days of searching I have yet to find any accounts of someone's PS3 being taken over by Syrian or Romanian hackers and disaster ensuing. All I have found is accounts of people who have done this for years with no issues to report. I have read that it is because the PS3 does not run .exe files so it cannot be taken over, nor set a worm loose to eat all the data and firmware, unlike your PC or mobile device which certainly does run those types of files and can be taken over or wiped. HOWEVER....I would not place your PS3 in a DMZ if you have it connected to your homegroup. Some people do this so that they can stream music, photos, videos that are stored on their PC through their PS3 and onto their TV or home audio system. I used to do this myself. If you know how to set this up, then you know how to kick your PS3 out of that homegroup. As long as your PS3 is outside the firewall, do not connect any other device to it that you do not want exposed to those damn Syrians and Romanians...ever.

 

When connecting the home electrical line adapters to your PS3 & modem/router, they must be on the same circuit board. For relatively small homes, usually the entire house is on one circuit board. But if you live in a larger home or your home was wired for special electrical considerations, then it is possible that your PS3 might be in a room that is on one circuit board, and your modem is on a circuit from another. They will not be able to connect. In this case you must move one or the other to a room or outlet that puts them on the same circuit. This may be an exercise in trial and error unless you have electrical schematics for your house or well-labelled circuit boards. I suspect this will apply to very few people these days.

 

 

 

I hope this post helps. If you follow the same steps I did, i think you stand a very real chance to eliminate or at least greatly reduce the myriad of connection problems with GTA online.

Since I took all these actions a few weeks ago, I have not had a single room dump. Not in free mode, not loading into a job as host or otherwise. Now that doesnt mean I never lose anyone else when I host, because there are still plenty of other people out there who still have problematic connections on their end....but I was having plenty of instances of rooms of 16 dumping 8 or 9 people, that is over. I also have greatly reduced the amount of hard console freezing (where I have to turn off the console and turn it back on) it still happens now and again, but maybe only 5% as much as it used to, it is really rare now. This is a puzzling thing because no one truly understands why or how the game can cause the console to lock up entirely, and there are all kinds of theories, but in the end it doesnt matter. It has been greatly reduced either by my actions or by coincidence with my actions.....which raises another point. Maybe I did all this and it was a patch that fixed everything? Who knows? There really is no way to know, but at least now I know for sure that in the future everything on MY end is 100% good to go.....and not just for this game but any other online game I get into.

Edited August 7, 2014 by handcuff_charlie

[G37 3,445]

Very informative and very well put together post. This will surely help a lot of people.

 

This won't 100% solve any issues, especially when a lot of them are still on their end, but if you are having constant problems this should greatly reduce them if it's something you haven't tried already, as you mentioned.

[handcuff_charlie 801]

Very informative and very well put together post. This will surely help a lot of people.

 

This won't 100% solve any issues, especially when a lot of them are still on their end, but if you are having constant problems this should greatly reduce them if it's something you haven't tried already, as you mentioned.

 

Agreed, this won't resolve 100% of the issues as we know there is SOME degree of the issues on Rockstar's end as far as their network programming. 

 

BUT those issues on their end should have a relatively low impact, unlike the issues I was experiencing which was enough to make the game not worth the hassle.

 

In my amateur opinion, the biggie is to get off WiFi and get the PS3 in the DMZ....this may not be possible with ISP-provided modems like most people use here in the USA. So folks need to decide if they want to purchase their own modem or not, and not cheap out on it, especially if they live in a home which connects lots of devices all online. It only makes sense to get a quality product to handle the home network. I have my doubts concerning the quality of products that American ISP's hand out "for free" like candy to people to use to manage this critical part of the home network.

Edited July 5, 2014 by handcuff_charlie

[GeraldPhoenix 134]

I'm not sure where to ask this question. Does anyone use a hotspot/tethering to connect their PS3 to the internet? I had to remove my internet plan with at&t due to budget constraints.

[handcuff_charlie 801]

I don't see why it wouldnt work. Would be a terrible option though last resort.

[GeraldPhoenix 134]

Yeah. Def. last resort. Has been working pretty well actually. When the server issue started today, I thought it was my connection. I'll see how well it does and last.

[handcuff_charlie 801]

UPDATE: 

 

So about 3 weeks ago or so summer finally started kicking in in south Florida, which means daily thunderstorms of relatively short duration right around 3pm. 

During one of these storms my house lost electrical power while I was online in GTA. This resulted in the "file restore" prompt when I turned the PS3 back on.

 

Since then I have noticed a significant increase in freezing and connection issues that I used to have before. Now, just to be clear, I am not seeing these issues anywhere close to the level or frequency that I used to see them before I did all of the above steps and wiped/re-installed game utility & install data, but immediately afterwards I started seeing them again maybe once every 2 or 3 times I logged on to play. Before the "improper shutdown" while playing GTA online, I was having almost zero issues at all.

 

This would indicate that these patches don't like being installed one on top of the other and are very sensitive...sensitive enough that if your gameplay is interrupted by a power loss and they don't get to close out on their own terms then issues arise, and assuming you dont have WiFi issues or firewall issues, then you can resolve the lionshare of your issues by doing a clean wipe and install for each patch. I plan to delete all game install & utility data as soon as the next patch is released and install it fresh. I recommend folks do this for each patch. It is clear R* is in a little bit over their heads with these patches so it only makes sense to NOT have old ones interfering with the latest one.

 

I still see people blaming R* "servers" for the issues. It simply isn't the case and is not based on any understanding of how networking functions. The problem is somebody in your room has issues on their end and they join your room and the game tries to wait and accommodate them, leaving all of us in the lobby talking to each other wondering why we aren't starting a job. If you can hear each other, then everything is fine between all of you. It is the person that you can't hear or who can't hear anyone else, or that you all can hear but no one else can see on the player list or in the live game action, who is holding up the show and who needs to either resolve their local network issues by going to hardline connection and/or placing their PS3 in a DMZ IP address or wipe/re-install their game utility data on a clean slate. The R* server-end issues are very minor. Their issues are programming related (bugs, glitches), not connection/network related.

Edited August 7, 2014 by handcuff_charlie

[G37 3,445]

Funny I had a power loss a few weeks ago and had to go through that same thing, scared the shit out of me. I actually seem to freeze a little less than I did before the restore (not that I did much to begin with, fortunately). I've never actually done that for each patch and it's probably a good idea (for some reason updating causes more issues than just deleting and installing something that's new - I notice this in other games as well).

 

One thing that I can't seem to get around is how difficult it is to join a playlist that's already started, that's my issue. There's a 50% chance it seems that it takes 3 or more tries for it to work after I get the influx of errors.

 

I don't really understand why the game seems to get hung up on one person though whether it's waiting to launch something or whatever. Makes no sense to me. They should just time out or the game should recognize "hey, this person's all fucked up - let's go ahead anyway". But what do I know about that sort of thing

[handcuff_charlie 801]

Yeah who knows, again without being programmers and seeing the programming we might as well be guessing what color the rocks on Saturn are.

Edited August 7, 2014 by handcuff_charlie

[zmurko 7,622]

I tried a quick search (I'll admit I didnt put much effort into ti) for clear and simple instructions for doing a clean re-install of the game and also keeping any story mode progress.

Does something like that exists on this forum already? With several hrad freezes of my console and constant R* patching, I'm sure I would really benefit from a clean install too.

[handcuff_charlie 801]

Next patch release I will wipe and reinstall mine and record it.

[zmurko 7,622]

Is the method described here:

http://gtaforums.com/topic/681848-game-only-recently-started-freezing-ps3/#entry1064861124

 

good enough, or should I pay attention to anything else when doing a clean re-install of GTA and keeping story mode progress (I'm assuming any online progress is kept on RSC anyway).

 

I'm planning on doing this tomorrow and just double checking to make sure I don't screw anything up.