I’ve recently picked up my flying after begin away for a while. I’ve had zero issues with my Internet connection up until now when the entire network goes down as soon as I start flying in MSFS!
I have a 250/250Mbit fiber with a TP-Link Deco X60 mesh system, my sim computer is connected with cable to my main router. I have no issue what so ever with anything related to bandwidth except for MSFS that just kills the connection for every device on the network (or at least it gets super spotty with a lot of “connection lost” messages in MSFS).
If I connect directly to my fiber converter I have no issues however, so the problem obviously lies in the router but what can it be? I know this isn’t a TP-link or general network forum, but since it’s only MSFS that causes this issue I thought I’d ask here to see if anyone else have had the same problem and perhaps a solution as well?
I’ve turned of all “network protection features” in the router. I have my computer set to DHCP but with IP address reservation so it gets the same every time.
This is partly true. A simple (i.e. cheap) UPS will switch to battery power in case of an AC power loss.
You want to look for a UPS that also provides AC sine wave regulation - sometimes called AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulation.) Not all have that feature, and is generally only found in more expensive units.
It’s true that the computer power supply regulates voltage to the motherboard and other components, and the motherboard itself has a voltage VRM (Voltage Regulator Module) but if you feed it quality sine wave AC power with a good UPS it certainly it reduces jitter and other power supply anomalies that can affect system stability.
I suspect many CTD’s are caused by house wiring voltage fluctuations (without an AVR UPS to smooth them out.) But also having a cheap power supply, and motherboard without a quality VRM is a recipe for instability.
I don’t have a really expensive motherboard (MSI B550-A Pro) but I chose it because it has a beefy VRM. I spent some extra money on a good 850W power supply. And I have a 1200W UPS with sine wave AVR.
No issues when connected to the fiber converter. Issues when connected via cable. I would suspect the cable, the cable connectors, or the hardware ports the cable connects to. It is hard to tell without additional information or a network trace. Check your router for any error logs or diagnostics. Check the Windows error log as well. Make sure the latest driver and firmware are current. It sounds like something flakey in your network is causing and overwhelming number of retransmits that results in timeouts and connections lost errors. Also it could be some sort of configuration issue in the router or maybe a defective router. Check with the router manufacturer to see if they have any diagnostic tools available.
Thank you for replying but I don’t think that an UPS will help my situation. It would if it was only my computer that lost connection but in my case the entire network in my house goes down. It’s clearly an issue with the router but I don’t know what it can be. The Deco app I have doesn’t really allow me to do any advanced configuration.
I was having exactly same issues, router disconnecting after several few minutes of 30 ~ 50% Packet loss, I guess when the internet service providere detect an unstable connection they disconnect you
I have been looking around for weeks, investing in external LAN port, trying another PSU … before I decided to give a try to an UPS …
try running a ping -t 8.8.8.8 command when launching your game to see if you get some pack loss and unusual ping (ctrl + c , to turn it off)
note : Google domain name system has two primary IP addresses: 8.8. 8.8 and 8.8. 4.4 )
I’m not gonna call it a day just yet but I did a reset on my main router and started MSFS at a busy airport. I’m not seeing any issues so far so fingers crossed it solved the problem!
Might be worth looking at your NIC also.
Remove & reseat it, if it’s not built into the mobo.
Remove it from Device Manager and restart pc.
Check for new drivers and install.
Other things to run are the Windows trouble shooter for network, not the best, but does find & fix some common misconfiguration errors/issues.
Well, the router reset seemed to work but after about 15 minutes the issue returned
I’m gonna check the router log to see if I can sport something sketchy at the time I noticed that I’ve lost my connection. Pinging DNS did however work while everything else seemed to be down.
As @PacificSet90456 mentioned I’d also recommend to check on the routers firmware to see if it is up to date. Perhaps the issue has already been resolved - worth a look in the router firmware release notes at least.
I’m afraid there haven’t been an update for quite some time. I’ve been checking the TP-Link forums and customers are growing quite impatient about it. I have reached out to them for support but if they can’t help fix this I will have to return the router and switch to another mesh system.
I thought I’d give you an update on my issue. After spending quite some time testing different things I’ve concluded that the issue has nothing to do with my router. I wrote in my original post that I had no issue when I connected the computer directly to my fiber converter, but after playing for longer times the issue with lost connection returned even then.
I’ve been searching for information about other users with similar issues and read that some solved it by using a VPN service, so I tested that and I could play for hours without any issues other than low bandwidth from time to time.
I’ve reached out to both MSFS support and the ISP support and Microsoft referred me to my ISP and my ISP referred me to Microsoft so not much help there.
My ISP says they don’t throttle any kind of traffic and hence the issue must be with MSFS. The backed that up by referring to similar issues being reported by Diablo IV players and that the issue there was with the Blizzard software. I haven’t been able to find any proof of that.
MS on the other hand says it must be something at the ISP and I’m inclined to agree. It the issue was in MSFS or my network equipment I don’t se how it could work using a VPN and the only logical conclusion I can come up with is that my ISP is throttling the traffic, even though they firmly claim they aren’t doing any throttling.
Fortunately I’m no longer bound to my current ISP and will therefore switch to another one so hopefully in about a month I will be able to play without using a VPN again. And if I still have the same issue then I at least narrowed it down to being something with my equipment after all, even though I can’t see how it possibly could.
I have now switched ISP and after having made several successful flights without using any VPN service I can’t come to any other conclusion than it was my former ISP that was causing the issue.
