PC There is some serious issue with Internet in Pakistan from past 2+ months data stops causing issue with discord and p2p games

Simonsayz

Active member
Feb 17, 2014
294
88
33
Islamabad
lthe issue is UDP packets are getting interrupted
in VOIP and Online Games
Talking about VOIP & VPN specifically, there is a lot more info to this than this article says, can't discuss here but VOIP and VPN are heavily monitored.




To monitor and curbing “grey traffic” — which includes Voice over Internet Protocol and Virtual Private Networks — the PTA has deployed a sophisticated web monitoring system.

The equipment, which is worth $18.5m, is provided by Canada-based company Sandvine. The web monitoring system will use Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to monitor communications, measure and record traffic on behalf of the PTA.

“This system will facilitate in the identification and eradication of grey traffic causing huge loss to the national exchequer, and internet content management as mandated under Clause 37 of Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016,” the authority said in a press release in October last year.
 

StrikerX

Moderator
Moderator
Apr 6, 2009
6,636
52
54
Islamabad
interesting....I wonder if its somehow Pakistani govt trying to monitor internet usage
It is related to that yes, legitimate traffic is getting flagged and tagged and its causing these 'random' issues.

p.s Same thing, same cause, just done a little more discreetly now and a little more optimized hence you won't see everyone complaining about it and most putting it down to their own ISP's issues.

https://www.pakgamers.com/index.php?threads/pta-rant-thread.189871/post-3006361

From what little testing that I did on PTCL and transworld. You'll see a pattern that traceroutes are fine and ping to the server IP is fine but few seconds into the game, you'll start dropping packets in-game (ping/traceroutes still normal).

My first assumption was there might be some issue with the common upstream of transworld or PTCL but that is not the case. Then I moved onto the possibility of MITM happening within PK since this has happened before, I mean just go through this old thread.

For whatever reason, our game specific traffic is getting tagged and dropped causing the packet loss. Likewise, do an international skype or whatsapp call, it'll be pretty poor with the recipient getting very poor audio from our end, this too starts happening few seconds into the call. The odd thing here is that the occurrence of this happening increases a lot during the usual peak times of ~8pm-12am and is only sporadic on some games but is happening overall with everyone.
I don't think they're doing it on purpose, we're just collateral for now till they figure out their new toy lol
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: murtaza12

Rko4AGE

Newbie
May 21, 2017
16
0
1
Islamabad
let's not take the argument into wrong direction , i have tested these things in past months for every possible angle

and every time the results were that there is no issue with speed , the issue is UDP packets are getting interrupted


if you connect a vpn even vpn packets are getting interrupted now started in past month , i have tested it with my own private vpn servers on google cloud and servers hosted in germany as well as many privet vpn providers as well as Cloudflare Warp and i am not that guy who fixes his internet by turning it on and off i kinda know what i am talking about here and it has nothing to do with more users it's was working perfectly fine before ramdan 2021

for anyone who does not know what UDP it's protocol used in VOIP and Online Games

Discord is very unusable right now, robotic voice, ping spikes etc. Did you find any solution to this problem? I was planning to get ExpressVPN to check if it makes it better or not. I live in Islamabad and my isp is Nayatel, my friends on PTCL and Nayatel are all facing this issue.
 

Redemption

Intermediate
Apr 21, 2015
140
8
13
Lahore
Anyone find a solution to fixing Discord voice calls?

The one short-fix I found was manually switching voice channel region (for DMs, you can set this on the computer or in desktop mode from your phone via a browser by going to the discord chat link to the DM with your Discord friend. For servers, you can edit voice channel server location if you have the right perms). This seems to fix the problem elaborated in the following paragraph temporarily by setting a preferred server on Discord, thereby negating our internet's constant re-routing attempts (ending/leaving the call will make you set the preferred server again). I understand VOIP is being monitored but I believe the drop in packets / connection quality is mainly because of the constant rerouting at the ISPs' end, perhaps as advised by PTA.

This argument is maybe further supported by the fact that each time you start a voice call on Discord, your voice channel will be a different region every few minutes (or seconds, depending). You can check this on desktop mode for DMs, like I said earlier. What's causing the robotic audio in Discord calls is that every few minutes, for some reason, our internet re-attempts to find the lowest ping voice server on Discord against Discord's own preset/default server. During this re-attempt, some packets sent are lost (lasts about 2-5 seconds, sometimes longer). The long term solution is most likely to contact the ISP and identify how and why rerouting is working for VOIP (PTCL calls it Fast Fath for example) and "disable" it.

ISP: Optix
Location: Lahore
Problem happening since: June 2021
 
Last edited:

EternalBlizzard

Lazy guy :s
Moderator
Oct 29, 2011
2,733
1,192
129
Attractor Field Beta
Discord voice calls work when you change the region for a little while but you get problems again. We are using steam chat for voice calls now. Works perfectly.

Btw, im a total noob in this area.When you say they are monitoring the communications, you mean they are literally recording these voice calls perhaps based on certain keywords or they are just checking where the packets are going?
 

Numanjvd

New member
Sep 1, 2021
2
0
1
Discord is very unusable right now, robotic voice, ping spikes etc. Did you find any solution to this problem? I was planning to get ExpressVPN to check if it makes it better or not. I live in Islamabad and my isp is Nayatel, my friends on PTCL and Nayatel are all facing this issue.
I also face a similar problem and I bought nord, express and surfshark vpn every three of them didn't work. My ISP is nayatel and I live in Islamabad. I can't play apex without a vpn though and it is frustrating
 

Captain Danger

Mod-uh-rey-ter on XPC
Jul 8, 2012
559
3
23
What I have noticed is that even with ExitLag connected the outbound packet loss (ping spiking to 5000) is STILL there on discord but your voice doesn't sound robotic/is interrupted.
 

DarkRaiden112

Beginner
Feb 27, 2017
42
0
1
im on optix and also facing the same issues. i play on a US east based minecraft server and from around 9pm-12am it is literally unplayable. discord also does not work properly. exitlag has fixed discord but the server is still unplayable even with exitlag during the time frame. also facing packet loss and ping fluctuationon other eu,SEA and ME servers during this time
 

NaNoW

Administrator
ADMIN
Feb 5, 2008
11,350
433
89
Karachi, Pakistan
Discord with Pakistani friends works horribly - to an extent that need to switch to zoom or something for semi okay call quality
 

Hamza Waqar

New member
Oct 17, 2021
6
0
1
Any fix for destiny 2 that doesnt involve me paying for anything?. and is there any word from PTA on when this shit is gonna end
 

Hamza Waqar

New member
Oct 17, 2021
6
0
1
Try 1.1.1.1 vpn fro cloudflare its free , it does disconnect randomly but as long as its conectef you won't face issue in destiny 2 or discord
So I tried cloudfares vpn and it doesnt even connect for me. just using the dns works but has no effect and the vpn doesnt even connect so i cant even see if it fixes the destiny 2 problem. do you happen to know why?
 

maazsk97

Active member
Jun 23, 2017
382
18
13
Pakistan, Lahore
Even Rainbow 6 Siege is unplayable, I get stable 35-40ms ping with zero packet loss to Dubai server but the consistent rubber banding makes it unplayable, there is a 50% chance of rubber banding issue in certain matches and it happens every time in ranked which has costed me some games. The voice chat is also blocked and unless I use ExitLag its absolutely unplayable. This is just messed up. Now I understand why my friend from KSA was complaining that he was unable to clearly hear me on discord. This country is literally hell for gamers.
 

Hamza Waqar

New member
Oct 17, 2021
6
0
1
Even Rainbow 6 Siege is unplayable, I get stable 35-40ms ping with zero packet loss to Dubai server but the consistent rubber banding makes it unplayable, there is a 50% chance of rubber banding issue in certain matches and it happens every time in ranked which has costed me some games. The voice chat is also blocked and unless I use ExitLag its absolutely unplayable. This is just messed up. Now I understand why my friend from KSA was complaining that he was unable to clearly hear me on discord. This country is literally hell for gamers.
yea this siege voice chat problem is also one of the things that is affected. tbh ive noticed that every game that uses AWS servers have problems in pakistan. for example siege, destiny 2 , apex legends
 
General chit-chat
Help Users
We have disabled traderscore and are working on a fix. There was a bug with the plugin | Click for Discord
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • faraany3k faraany3k:
    I dont think games have looked any better since 2019 onwards and they are performing worse and worse. Game developers have really dropped the ball.
    Link
  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    Consoles can't even catch a break in titles developed exclusively for them 😢
    Link
  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    "All of this lends the game distinctly last-gen look at times, which is compounded by image quality and frame-rate issues."
    Link
  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    Link
  • Chandoo Chandoo:
    no jokes.
    Link
  • Chandoo Chandoo:
    faraany3k said:
    So while Playing Control, I found a journal which said that a bathroom is missing in Islamabad Beurue of Control. With Alan Wake and Control seems to be connected worlds. Even our city is in the universe as well. No wonder those Trail 5 and Trail 6 are haunted.
    did you know you can see @NaNoW credited in the game too ? :p
    Link
  • faraany3k faraany3k:
    So while Playing Control, I found a journal which said that a bathroom is missing in Islamabad Beurue of Control. With Alan Wake and Control seems to be connected worlds. Even our city is in the universe as well. No wonder those Trail 5 and Trail 6 are haunted.
    Link
  • EternalBlizzard EternalBlizzard:
    faraany3k said:
    What is peoples obsession with Battle Royale genre. 6 minutes to find a match, 3 minutes to setup a match, 2 minutes to land, 10 minutes for scavanging maybe 2 3 gunfigts and its over. Multiplayer landscape is looking absolute dogshit.
    I tried playing Apex Legends once. Couldn't find a gun for 5 minutes straight. If I found a gun, I couldn't find the right ammo for it. Got killed fighting with my fists. Uninstalled it the next day.
    Link
  • faraany3k faraany3k:
    What is peoples obsession with Battle Royale genre. 6 minutes to find a match, 3 minutes to setup a match, 2 minutes to land, 10 minutes for scavanging maybe 2 3 gunfigts and its over. Multiplayer landscape is looking absolute dogshit.
    • Like
    • Haha
    Reactions: iampasha and EternalBlizzard
    Link
  • M muneebjahangir:
    skip the villain arc
    Link
  • EternalBlizzard EternalBlizzard:
    iampasha said:
    I usually stay away from animes. Vinland saga changed the way i look at my life, and my experiences within. I recommend every breathing human being to watch this animated masterpiece at least once fromstart to finish.
    After I watched it, I never felt like i watched a show. It was a friggin journey. I got way too attached to Thorfinn and seeing him grow up and find himself and get rid of all the negativity inside of him was just pure bliss.
    Link
  • iampasha iampasha:
    EternalBlizzard said:
    Vinland Saga > Berserk
    I usually stay away from animes. Vinland saga changed the way i look at my life, and my experiences within. I recommend every breathing human being to watch this animated masterpiece at least once fromstart to finish.
    • Like
    Reactions: EternalBlizzard
    Link
  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    Crapcom's RE Engine expose hogaya saaeen. This shit ain't worth experiencing on any platform. 🤷‍♂️
    Link
  • Chandoo Chandoo:
    When a $399 console provides the same experience as a 4090. Yikes indeed saeen :sneaky:
    Link
  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    that's a yikes saaaen
    Link
  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    " Both PS5 and Series X have an unlocked frame-rate here, with performance that generally lies between 30fps and 45fps. That makes for a stuttering and inconsistent output in general play, no matter what you are doing at any given time."
    • Haha
    Reactions: EternalBlizzard
    Link
  • Link
  • EternalBlizzard EternalBlizzard:
    Vinland Saga > Berserk
    • Like
    Reactions: iampasha
    Link
  • faraany3k faraany3k:
    I absolutely hate parry and Sekiro made me love it, i hate sci fi and Mass Effect made me love it. This is the definition of genre defining experiences.
    Link
  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    Forbidden West Complete Edition now available on your fav websites. And Nixxes showed Crapcom how it's done 👍
    Link
  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    RE Engine is just utter shit for anything other than corridor design remakes
    Link
  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    This is a console first developer. LMAO
    Link
  • Link
  • faraany3k faraany3k:
    With how great cod warzone has translated onto mobile. Mainstream Consoles have lost its value even further. Maybe console gaming was associated with TVs and how TV is not the primary source of media consumption anymore, consoles will lose its 200 million core audiences even further.
    Link
  • Necrokiller Necrokiller:
    Even VRR can't rescue it 🥲
    Link
    faraany3k faraany3k: I dont think games have looked any better since 2019 onwards and they are performing worse and...