SOLVED Problem When Trying to Join Servers That I Have Over ~100ms of Ping With

Mark Krus

Mark Krus

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As the title describes I'm having an issue where I cannot join servers that are above 100ms of ping. In some situations the server will let me in for no apparent reason but tonight I've tried a great deal of times in the Nords 911 hotlap server and the public Megagne at Mills server and it will not let me in. My ping to the public S397 Mills server right now is 134ms. Neither server will let me in right now no matter what. But I was in the Nords hotlap server just a few hours ago and got in on my first try. Also right now I am able to join all servers with 97ms of ping or less to me with no issues. I've been having this problem for a few weeks and had just been trying over and over again to enter until a server would let me in for no apparent reason. But now I'm sick enough of it and it seems worse tonight.

I restarted my computer, verified integrity of game cache, made sure Windows and my Nvidia drivers are the most recent. I've tried port forwarding for all ports used by rFactor 2 and tried it again in a different menu in my router under 'Open NAT'. None of this fixed the issue. I get to the error screens much more quickly than the 3 minute timeout I read about for the Nords hotlap server.

I'll note that my ISP (Charter Spectrum) is not a very good one and since August I've had on and off problems. But surely my ISP being unreliable sometimes can't explain why it is literally impossible for me to join S397 servers right now. Also my internet has no other problems of note other than the occasional connection loss of a few seconds and getting bogged down at peak hours (as cable internet tends to be, also this problem is not confined to peak hours).

Here are some pictures of what I see when I try to join a >100ms server:

https://imgur.com/QhJ0YT0
https://imgur.com/6kOJQaA
https://imgur.com/NP98qEU

When I join the S397 public server I see these 3 screens in this order and I need to click 'back' on the second to arrive at the third. When I try to join the Nords hotlap competition I see the first, then immidiately the third without clicking, though I suspect the second is being shown and then dismissed in a single frame. Then in either server at the third screen if I click race it will just show me the first, then second and land me on the third again after clicking with no escape from this loop except exiting. When a server does let me in it will only be upon first entering the server by pressing the join server button and never from going back to the first screen by clicking race with no car selected on the third screen. In this instance I see the first screen, then the second screen is shown except now the mouse pointer has the Zzz's by it and I can't click back. Then when rFactor 2 is done doing whatever it does when it gets hung up like that I can select my car and click race and I will make it into the sever and be able to race with no issues.
 
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I think I have solved this one. There were 3 plugin files that were in my plugins folder: KnockoutQualifying.dll, StockCarRules.dll, and TrackIR_rF2_Plugin.dll. Deleting them made the issue go away.
 
@Mark Krus note that those are standard plugins and will presumably reappear at some point (build updates etc).

If you can reliably reproduce this and narrow it down to one of them S397 would probably be interested to investigate. I understand after all this faffing about you probably aren't excited by the prospect of further testing though.
 
I'll check it out. I tried reinstalling the DAMPlugin but it caused the same problem so I uninstalled it again. I'll post here if I find out that it was only one or maybe was all 3.
 
Mark Krus said:
I'll check it out. I tried reinstalling the DAMPlugin but it caused the same problem so I uninstalled it again. I'll post here if I find out that it was only one or maybe was all 3.
Click to expand...

That in itself is informative, though not in the sense of identifying the issue. Sounds like any plugin is causing issues on your end, which could be something very specific to your software setup. I don't know if any of the logging (trace, performance logging) will be of benefit.
 
KnockoutQualifying.dll and TrackIR_rF2_Plugin.dll cause the issue, as well as the DAMPlugin's .dll if any of them are in my Bin64 Plugins folder. However, StockCarRules.dll does not cause the issue.
 
This seemed pretty crystal clear when I made my last posts but now I have no .dll files in either plugin folder, nothing in plugindata folder, tried steambuiltin.exe plugin on/off. I can't get into either S397 server right now no matter what. (because of the same problem)

Also probably disregard my above results because it seems like there is some outside factor that turns on/off my ability to join the servers.

I can delete the .exe (or anything) and validate the files, then delete all plugin .dlls in the Bin64 Plugin folder and it will let me into one of the servers only once and then I will have this problem again.

Something else that I think is worth noting is that another problem popped up at the same time as this one, although I can't pin it down because it doesn't actually happen very often. Sometimes when I join a server it will take a curiously long time to load and then regardless of what car is set up in the mod or what I've driven last I'll be shown the skin of a Radical SR3. But it will drive fine, exactly the same as the non-Radical car would normally drive. It's not really an issue but it is another small annoyance and I thought these two might be related. This has happened to me in the S397 public server with Megagnes at Mills.

Also I saw someone mention in the discord that deleting all files in the Packages folder solved this for them so I thought that is worth including in this thread. I did this and have not had either problem since.

SOLUTION: Delete all files in the Packages and Bin64->Plugins folders. If that doesn't work verify your game files and delete the 3 .dll files that appear in your Bin64->Plugins folder after verification.
 
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