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Not sure how to interpret tracert

J

jmachin

Member
I'm currently playing a game called bloodline champions and experiencing lag, so I downloaded a program that checks inbound and outbound packets and found the ip of the game server to be 37.18.208.35. I googled a bit and found this "tracert" command that seemingly reports where packets go on the way to the destination server. These are the results:
C:\Users\Jamie>tracert 37.18.208.35

Tracing route to 37.18.208.35 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 84 ms 99 ms 99 ms O2wirelessbox.lan [192.168.1.254]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * 17 ms 24 ms 10.17.8.238
4 18 ms 17 ms 17 ms 10.17.8.237
5 17 ms 16 ms 18 ms XE1-0-3-0-GRTLONTL1.red.telefonica-wholesale.net
[84.16.6.189]
6 19 ms 17 ms 17 ms ldn-b4-link.telia.net [213.248.75.117]
7 18 ms 18 ms 17 ms ldn-bb2-link.telia.net [80.91.249.181]
8 30 ms 33 ms 93 ms hbg-bb2-link.telia.net [213.155.132.252]
9 127 ms 65 ms 43 ms s-bb2-link.telia.net [213.248.64.37]
10 51 ms 51 ms 44 ms s-b3-link.telia.net [213.155.131.125]
11 82 ms 51 ms 53 ms gamehosting-ic-151933-s-b3.c.telia.net [213.155.
129.10]
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.
Trace complete.
Click to expand...

I also downloaded a program called WINMTR that I guess does something similar but also shows packet loss% at each stage. Here are those results:

winmtrresults.jpg


I have close to no idea how to interpret this data but lines 2 and 9 look the most worrying. I don't know what line 2 even means, but I guess there couldn't be 100% packetloss or I'd be getting no information back?

It seems that the telia.net hosts are giving me trouble. I think telia is a Swedish ISP? I'm not sure if there's a way I can make the packets avoid that route or?

I'm guessing for anyone who has any knowledge in this field it's completely obvious that I don't really know what I'm talking about, but it would be great if I could solve this so if anyone could point me in the right direction I'd be really appreciative!
 
You have no control over internet routing. That type of tracert also indicates the last host is dropping ICMP at a firewall of some sort. The 100% is the pings that are lost.
 
imagoon said:
You have no control over internet routing. That type of tracert also indicates the last host is dropping ICMP at a firewall of some sort. The 100% is the pings that are lost.
Click to expand...
I'm not really sure what dropping ICMP means after I wikipedia'd it. Why would the line with 100% loss appear as the first stop after my router rather than as the last host?

Thanks for the fast reply by the way!
 
jmachin said:
I'm not really sure what dropping ICMP means after I wikipedia'd it. Why would the line with 100% loss appear as the first stop after my router rather than as the last host?

Thanks for the fast reply by the way!
Click to expand...

The hop after your house is dropping 100% of ICMP traffic directed at it. Passing ICMP through a router is different than responding to an ICMP targeted at the device.
 
jmachin said:
sorry but what exactly is IMCP traffic? I'm a tad confused
Click to expand...

ICMP is one of many protocols used to send data and information over the internet, ICMP in particular is typically used for diagnostic and administrative things such as tracert's and pings.

What that 100% loss is telling you is that the router the traffic is going through is not directly responding to ICMP traffic. That doesn't mean your connection isn't successfully traveling through that router, just that your computer is asking each hop "hey, did it get there" and that router is refusing to answer at all. This is typically done for security reasons, as it gives the same response as if there was nothing there at all, so someone looking to attack a network would not know that there was actually a router there.

In short, that 100% loss on hop 2 is totally normal and nothing to worry about as long as hop 3 also looks normal. There's nothing that looks particularly wrong or abnormal in that tracert, and as others have said you have absolutely zero (practical) control over how the internet routes traffic.

However, if Telia is a swedish ISP, and its going through all of those swedish routers before it ends up at its final destination of the game server, that means the server itself is in Sweden. If you're somewhere else in the UK as your tracert shows and you have a slow or unstable internet connection, it's pretty much a given that you're going to experience lag connecting to a foreign game server. I'd look to see if the game has any servers hosted closer to where you are geographically.
 
Mushkins said:
ICMP is one of many protocols used to send data and information over the internet, ICMP in particular is typically used for diagnostic and administrative things such as tracert's and pings.

What that 100% loss is telling you is that the router the traffic is going through is not directly responding to ICMP traffic. That doesn't mean your connection isn't successfully traveling through that router, just that your computer is asking each hop "hey, did it get there" and that router is refusing to answer at all. This is typically done for security reasons, as it gives the same response as if there was nothing there at all, so someone looking to attack a network would not know that there was actually a router there.

In short, that 100% loss on hop 2 is totally normal and nothing to worry about as long as hop 3 also looks normal. There's nothing that looks particularly wrong or abnormal in that tracert, and as others have said you have absolutely zero (practical) control over how the internet routes traffic.

However, if Telia is a swedish ISP, and its going through all of those swedish routers before it ends up at its final destination of the game server, that means the server itself is in Sweden. If you're somewhere else in the UK as your tracert shows and you have a slow or unstable internet connection, it's pretty much a given that you're going to experience lag connecting to a foreign game server. I'd look to see if the game has any servers hosted closer to where you are geographically.
Click to expand...
Oh ok I see. Well the game is pretty small and I think that's the only server that's in Europe. Anyway thanks for the informative reply! I think I'm going to start looking into alternate ISPs.
 
Just a small note on security. I'm no expert, but I don't adivise that you publish your IP AND your user name on the internet mate.
 
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