JK PLEASE RESPOND Connectivity / Dropouts / Crashes /No Audio issue rampant lately

[SammerJammer]

The last few weeks have been terrible trying to use JK. People joining can't get in at all or get in and some or all of the other session members can't hear them. Players drop out either completely or audio only during sessions. We waste at least 1/2 hour with people repeatedly trying to rejoin, restarting JK client, rebooting computers, and closing the opening new sessions. If we're lucky we can get in 45 minutes of playing before something goes wrong again.

I play in 3 different regular groups and all 3 are experiencing this.

Please, I'd like to hear from JK itself. I am assuming that the defaults on the client are the settings JK prefers we use. 3 or 4 weeks ago there was a release that had Prefer Lowest Latency as the default. That week was the first where sessions became total disasters and we had to bail. A few days later was another release and a notable change was the default was once again Prefer Peer-to-peer.  So I must assume this was intentional from the developers.

A lot of forum posts are complaining about this exact same issue and every JKer I've spoken with BAR NONE are experiencing these issues.

I suspect part of this issue is something to do with servers/caches. When I am forced out of a session and looking to get back in, I see some of my session members in "other" sessions which is not the case and these other "ghost" sessions in fact don't exist. Rebooting the JK client seems to be the only way to clear this up. And then after that actually getting into my original session is still subject to all the connectivity problems mentioned above.

PLEASE JAMKAZAM - DON"T LEAVE US IN THE LURCH. SAY SOMETHING!

Fellow JK-ers. Everyone means well but please don't reply with second-hand anecdotes like "I heard some people have done this or that and it worked...". If you have first-hand repeated success I'd love to hear about your methods.

Thanks and I hope we can soon put this behind us.

[StuartR]

The last few weeks have been terrible trying to use JK. People joining can't get in at all or get in and some or all of the other session members can't hear them. Players drop out either completely or audio only during sessions. We waste at least 1/2 hour with people repeatedly trying to rejoin, restarting JK client, rebooting computers, and closing the opening new sessions. If we're lucky we can get in 45 minutes of playing before something goes wrong again.

I play in 3 different regular groups and all 3 are experiencing this.

Please, I'd like to hear from JK itself. I am assuming that the defaults on the client are the settings JK prefers we use. 3 or 4 weeks ago there was a release that had Prefer Lowest Latency as the default. That week was the first where sessions became total disasters and we had to bail. A few days later was another release and a notable change was the default was once again Prefer Peer-to-peer.  So I must assume this was intentional from the developers.

A lot of forum posts are complaining about this exact same issue and every JKer I've spoken with BAR NONE are experiencing these issues.

I suspect part of this issue is something to do with servers/caches. When I am forced out of a session and looking to get back in, I see some of my session members in "other" sessions which is not the case and these other "ghost" sessions in fact don't exist. Rebooting the JK client seems to be the only way to clear this up. And then after that actually getting into my original session is still subject to all the connectivity problems mentioned above.

PLEASE JAMKAZAM - DON"T LEAVE US IN THE LURCH. SAY SOMETHING!

Fellow JK-ers. Everyone means well but please don't reply with second-hand anecdotes like "I heard some people have done this or that and it worked...". If you have first-hand repeated success I'd love to hear about your methods.

Thanks and I hope we can soon put this behind us.

The following is an excerpt from the last JK email update on September 30. Perhaps what we're all seeing is a result of this:

Latency Reduction & Connectivity Improvements
In our last email, we shared some data on the latency reduction and connectivity success rates we can see from our new networking technologies. We have been continuing to complete the implementation of this set of technologies. It’s pretty complex stuff, so it’s taking time. There is also a limit to how much we can test it ourselves without pu$ng it out onto the platform, so the transition period as we release and harden this technology is going to be a little bumpy - but worth it!

[SammerJammer]

Dear JK,

You state "There is also a limit to how much we can test it ourselves without pu$ng it out onto the platform, so the transition period as we release and harden this technology is going to be a little bumpy - but worth it!"

You fail to understand that the problems far exceed "a little bumpy". JK is very nearing "unusable". If you had a way to monitor when a user could not enter a session or lost connectivity with others or his/her client hung up, etc. you'd be shocked. A great may are seeking other platforms. Many groups are taking a break until things (hopefully) improve.

I understand you may not be able to fully test JK without deploying it "into the wild" but even then there are mitigating strategies:
- Only deploy to a small subset of users. If corresponding server changes are required then build server-affinity into the clients for that subset.
- ACTIVELY MONITOR HOW THE SYSTEM IS BEHAVING.
- Have a  plan to rollback changes.
- Keep your users informed.
- Improve your ability to emulate your prod environment in testing.
- Improve your ability to load and pressure test before release.

In order to mature your system and "product" you must develop these capabilities just like any user-facing platform. JK, when working, is a well-liked platform and it seems finally poised to break out. Many of us have seen your monetizing plan but it seems that JK still has quite a way to go before implementing that. Stabilizing your platform, controlling your release processes and monitoring, and ACTIVELY supporting your users should be among your short-term objectives.

[StuartR]

Dear JK,

You state "There is also a limit to how much we can test it ourselves without pu$ng it out onto the platform, so the transition period as we release and harden this technology is going to be a little bumpy - but worth it!"

You fail to understand that the problems far exceed "a little bumpy". JK is very nearing "unusable". If you had a way to monitor when a user could not enter a session or lost connectivity with others or his/her client hung up, etc. you'd be shocked. A great may are seeking other platforms. Many groups are taking a break until things (hopefully) improve.

I understand you may not be able to fully test JK without deploying it "into the wild" but even then there are mitigating strategies:
- Only deploy to a small subset of users. If corresponding server changes are required then build server-affinity into the clients for that subset.
- ACTIVELY MONITOR HOW THE SYSTEM IS BEHAVING.
- Have a  plan to rollback changes.
- Keep your users informed.
- Improve your ability to emulate your prod environment in testing.
- Improve your ability to load and pressure test before release.

In order to mature your system and "product" you must develop these capabilities just like any user-facing platform. JK, when working, is a well-liked platform and it seems finally poised to break out. Many of us have seen your monetizing plan but it seems that JK still has quite a way to go before implementing that. Stabilizing your platform, controlling your release processes and monitoring, and ACTIVELY supporting your users should be among your short-term objectives.

Our band had a JK session earlier today with a member of the JK development team who confirmed the packet loss problem that we're all seeing is the same one they've fixed in the next client update rolling out very soon.

[mike.cardinal@gmail.com]

And that update whatever it was has made the system unusable for me....

please fix

[TWDay72]

The problems are , clearly, not universal. I play with three guys from as far away as 1800 miles. We're all on Macs, but on a variety of OS X versions. We generally get through our 3 sessions a week, usuall 1-2 hours without any serious glitches. There have been some bumps, lately, in recording capability, but playing has been pretty much incident-free.