MS Server Problems and VPNs: IMPORTANT

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I want to briefly share my experiences recently with server-related streaming problems for MSFS, along with the solution I found thanks to others’ expertise. I think many of you will relate to this topic.

Until about two months ago, I suffered no problem at all streaming all the Bing data and photogrammetry I wanted for MSFS. Everything worked great. No problems at all with my internet connection. Then, for no apparent reason, I started getting warning messages within the sim that my bandwidth was too low to support online data. I was sometimes given a choice whether I wanted to ignore this warning. But many times I was involuntarily taken offline altogether. No Bing data. No photogrammetry. And even when I didn’t receive these warnings, the quality of the ground textures and scenery was becoming increasingly poor – blurry and randomly popping. I was constantly testing and re-testing my internet speed and invariably coming up with a very solid 130Mb down and 23Mb up. While this internet speed is less than many of you get, it’s more than enough to successfully stream Bing and photogrammetry data for MSFS. So what, then, was my problem?

At first, my theory was that MS servers must be overloaded with new users, due to the popularity of the sim. While there is no doubt some truth in this theory, I discovered that the actual root of the data-streaming problem was, not my computer or settings, not my ISP’s overall connection speed, and probably not MS servers – at least not to the extent I had previously ascribed to server overload. The problem, for me at least, was that my ISP (Comcast) had been throttling data-transfer speeds on specific programs that use a lot of bandwidth, MSFS apparently among them. This explained why my frequent ISP speed testing always returned good numbers (because the testing software wasn’t throttled) but I never got the same good results when streaming to MSFS over the same network. This also explained why many MSFS users suffer no bandwidth problems at all with streaming data, while others, with equal or higher bandwidth, are now finding the sim almost unflyable. Different ISPs have different policies on bandwidth for specific programs.

Several days ago, this forum contained a few posts from some very smart guys about using a VPN to improve data-streaming speeds. I didn’t understand how using a VPN could possibly help me since, as I said, all my speed tests of my internet connection always returned excellent results. It was through Google searches that I discovered that my ISP selectively throttles data-transmission speeds to programs that use a lot of bandwidth. Was MSFS one of those throttled programs?

After downloading and subscribing to a VPN, I found the answer is yes: Comcast has started throttling connection speeds to MSFS (at least where I live, in Huntington, WV, in the Eastern United States). How do I know this?

Because the moment that I switched on the VPN, every single issue I suffered with streaming data instantly disappeared completely. I don’t mean there was a significant improvement. I mean the disconnect and streaming problems were eliminated instantly and totally. I had never before seen such gorgeous scenery and such smooth operation in MSFS. I was thrilled. But I wanted to do a little more testing: I have five different flights that I routinely fly in MSFS. So my plan was to first fly each of these without the VPN and then to enable the VPN and fly the identical flight – same aircraft, same settings, same everything. To summarize, each of my five flights without the VPN repeatedly flashed warning messages and either disconnected me completely or disabled photogrammetry. However, when using the VPN for these same flights, everything was perfect. No warning messages, and the streaming scenery looked better than I’d ever seen.

So the point here is that, if you’re experiencing disconnect or streaming issues with MSFS – and you know your internet speed is good and reliable – you might give serious consideration to trying a VPN. I used Nord VPN, but I’m sure other VPNs would work in a similar way. I chose the cheapest month-to-month plan for about $14. You can cancel the month-to-month plans at will. I had always looked askance at VPNs, believing that anyone who used one must be engaged in some kind of nefarious activity that he wanted to conceal. But I’m now a firm believer in them. The only “nefarious” activity I’m wanting to conceal from my ISP is that I’m using MSFS and deserve the bandwidth that I’m already overpaying for. It would be great if MSFS itself could somehow be its own VPN to avoid this localized throttling.

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Glad you got it sorted.

If you do a search on “VPN” you will find allot of threads related to what you have experienced.

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How did you find out about this? Did your ISP tell you?

Interestingly I’m on SKY fibre and have not had any issues. SKY says they do not throttle anything.

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Thank you for the detailed account of your own experiences here. It is definitely something that I will bear in mind especially since I will be changing internet providers in the next week :slightly_smiling_face:

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This was something I discovered about 2 years assisting others on the forum. That indeed some ISPs throttle.

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Why should we pay an extra monthly fee for an additional service to fix a native game service we already paid for when we purchased the game license? The servers problems are directly linked to the game updates. There are releases like SU12 that include a plage of server disconnection issues (several per day and even several in a row). This needs to be fixed by Asobo/Microsoft.

The product reliability is terrible. Full stop. If a 1ms disconnection leads to a full disabling of online world graphics or other online services the error in not in the user network nor in the global network but in the design concept. No other games disconnect you when you have a microcut or some packets lost.

Cheers

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Not disagreeing with you regarding the problems we frequently face with overloaded MS servers but I think the point being made here by the OP is that there could occasionally be a throttling issue by one’s own ISP on certain occasions also causing a performance issue.

Clearly there are frequently (very frustrating!) issues with server load especially at peak times (or just after an update) and these happen far too frequently imo. However, as evidenced by the OP other factors can come into play too. The point being made about the sub. to a vpn was, I think, a helpful way of avoiding ISP throttling issues and not a way to avoid issues with the sim itself or server problems.

Thank you OP for your helpful post :slightly_smiling_face:

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This topic is about ISP’s throttling. And the only way to bypass that is to contact the ISP and/or use a VPN to bypass the ISP.

Not about MSFS gaming services nor about a current issue. Let’s stay on-topic. :+1:t3:

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Do you guys mind if I insert a link to a list of VPN’s? The Best VPN Services of 2023

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Personal Comments and Observations

As anyone can check my posts, I have stated before that the ugly truth is some ISPs will throttle specific Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) including those specific to MSFS. It’s a battle between the application owners and the ISPs. The ISPs don’t want to carry bandwidth hungry requests for applications at the expense of the remainder of their customer base. We’ve seen this before in the likes of Netflix etc al.

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If the ISP does this I’d say ditch them and switch to a better provider. A VPN is useful for testing but it adds it’s own latency and bandwidth choke points, it’ll never be as good as a true direct connection.

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Adding VPN will add a few milliseconds to your response time because it takes time to encrypt and decrypt the IP packets on your end and the server end. The VPN Tunnel still has to go through your ISP but may take a different path to get to the Tunnel end-point, and from there, to the many connections to FS. Did you try running a tracert from your PC to the FS servers? You can use an App “TCPView64” to view your connections, as of now, I have 22 open connections to 13 FS servers, they go everywhere. There may be a hop in the internet that is having high latency to one of these servers when your not using VPN, and bypasses is when on VPN. Providing that information to your ISP, they can report it to that backbone provider.

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I have been trying to tell people from the very beginning or whenever someone has connectivity issues that it’s most likely an ISP issue. MSFS is one of the very few programs that pretty much maxes out your internet connection when it’s used. ISP’s are pretty smart in how they control and regulate the amount of traffic and try to spread it around to everyone. No doubt they probably have algorithms that track and record data usage for geographical areas and have built in algorithms that detect what they consider unusually high usage and so to safeguard themselves and others within the area they’ll reduce the flow to that one specific source. Now, they won’t just kill your connection, but they’ll definitely reduce it. American ISP’s, where I am located, are probably some of the most free and open ISP’s on the globe. It’s not surprising that the majority of people experiencing these issues are from other countries. I think within the few months that this issue has really started I maybe have had 2-3 totally dropped connections where I needed to reactivate my data settings in MSFS, and no I never got one CTD from those either. Outside of an actual server outage connectivity has never been an issue and if it was it was probably because of using a Wifi extender which sometimes drops anyways or has poor connectivity but eventually gets over itself.

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MS are using servers in many countries to stream our data. When I recently explored this, I came to the conclusion that it was not my ISP throttling, rather the VPN connecting me to an MS server which was less busy in another part of the world. That is not to say that ISP throttling may not be an issue though nor that the MS servers are not too overloaded at times to do the job, just my thoughts on the issue.

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Question, if your ISP wasn’t throttling, why did you need to go to a VPN in the first place? VPN’s are primarily used to bypass ISP restrictions like being able to access certain sites that provide streaming services for example like Netflix, YouTube, or Google etc. Google has servers all over the world but it’s up to the ISP’s to determine what they allow access to. Which is why in places like China you can’t get access without a VPN bypassing the ISP restriction. You’re basically ‘bypassing’ the ISP while at the same time still using it’s data, just not it’s local direct server and controlling where that data is funneled to and from. The worst thing you would have to do and also the best thing you could do is to just call up your ISP and tell them you’re trying to run MSFS and you’re having data connection issues and then perhaps they’ll add it to a master list or look into it. Sounds silly to think that a game such as MSFS would get blocked or even MS servers would be throttled but unless they are aware of it they would think nothing is wrong.

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Very interesting. It makes me wonder whether this is a contributing factor to some users who experience stuttering on an otherwise powerful system, while another user with the same or similar system is as smooth as silk.

In the UK, most ISPs use the OpenReach network which is owned by BT or British Telecom, (I think Sky has it’s own equipment or did they ditch it?). BT is a private company operating it’s own (arguably more expensive) services and products. Therefore, is an ISP that says, “We don’t throttle!” truly in control of that?

On another note, check out some Tech YouTuber channels as they often offer discount codes for VPNs.

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Content delivery network - Wikipedia

CDN’s are basically network subcontractors that can have issues just like anyone else, they will also try to save bandwidth wherever they can. MSFS will only run as good as your local CDN’s service provides.

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@davidamills - Thank you for posting this, after searching online I found that my ISP here in the UK (TalkTalk) also throttles bandwidth. I had noticed when downloading MSFS updates that my Xbox was downloading 10-15mbps faster than my PC, on the SAME connection! After a lot of searching I finally found Proton VPN which has a genuinely free version with no limitations. It may just be beginners luck but everything you said about the performance improvements is true - I couldn’t believe it until I tried it myself so thank you again.

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All:
Several posts removed.

As a pointed out above, stay on topic. This topic is about ISP throttling data. It is not about anything related to MSFS severs. There are other topics about this.

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Thank you for your very kind words @GBTAW . If I have actually helped someone, this is truly unprecedented. :slight_smile:

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