Proxy transfer rate (whatever that is)

[paco5005]

So, many many times when I'm hosting a room and someone enters to either spec or a seat, I've been automatically kicked from my seat. This message appears: "You've exceeded your proxy transfer rate. Host /join a non-proxy game to not be limited". After this, I cannot sit down again unless I re-host. I haven't tried this when joining a server. I'm using the latest Lackey on Mac OS X 10.6.8

Anyone know what's up with this and how it can be fixed? I appreciate every bit of help 

[Trevor]

Sorry I never got a chance to explain this change.
This is one of the new things that prevent too much data being transmitted in proxy games. Since there's only one proxy server, and all proxy games use it, I need to limit how much data each person sends. I don't mind people using a lot of data if they are playing a long time. What is a problem is people using an excessively high rate of data transfer. If a few people were using prolonged and excessive amount of network bandwidth, it could adversely affect the performance of all proxy games.

If you're in a proxy game, you should see a horizontal bar at the bottom of the game tab. This fills up over time and as it fills up it goes from green to red, and if you fill it up completely, you exceed your proxy bandwidth and you are temporarily booted from your seat.

This only applies to proxy games, so if you join a normal game, your game will be unaffected. (Yet another reason to try to use normal non-proxy games.)

As you see the bandwidth indicator increase as you send data through the proxy server, you can also see it decrease after time goes by. I wanted to allow people periods of high bandwidth when needed, but not prolonged high bandwidth. I just picked some numbers that I thought seemed reasonable. That's one of the things I wanted to get feedback on so I can tweak the numbers.

If you are doing "normal" activity, my intent is that you never reach your cap. If you feel you are not doing anything excessive, I'd love the opportunity to investigate exactly what you were doing before you exceeded your cap. Perhaps the circumstance you are in causes an unnecessarily large amount of bandwidth. This could be do to you doing something excessive, or it could be due to an inefficiency in lackey, or it could be due to something else.
So please IM me whenever you can so I can troubleshoot this issue with you.

Do you recall exactly what was going on shortly before you got kicked? How many players were there? Were you the game host? Was there an unusually large amount of cards on the table or some other unusual situation?

[paco5005]

It always happened when someone joined the server (either as spec or as player). Sometimes  it happened after I'd been playing for a while, sometimes when the first person entered. Sometimes the board had cards, sometimes not.

If it happens again, I'll take screenshots and IM you.

[Trevor]

It always happened when someone joined the server (either as spec or as player). Sometimes  it happened after I'd been playing for a while, sometimes when the first person entered. Sometimes the board had cards, sometimes not.

If it happens again, I'll take screenshots and IM you.

Ya, a screenshot should tell me a lot. Thanks

[Burst]

Since normal is preferred...

How about defaulting connections to normal and if it fails then roll over to proxy rather forcing manual intervention to get normal.
It only takes a few seconds to do the test for normal, so any connection lag on trying normal first is minimal.

Also the result could be saved and rechecked once per day/week/month so once you know you can't do normal you'll go back to current functionality of defaulting to proxy until next automatic check cycle.

[Trevor]

Since normal is preferred...

How about defaulting connections to normal and if it fails then roll over to proxy rather forcing manual intervention to get normal.
It only takes a few seconds to do the test for normal, so any connection lag on trying normal first is minimal.

Also the result could be saved and rechecked once per day/week/month so once you know you can't do normal you'll go back to current functionality of defaulting to proxy until next automatic check cycle.

ive done exactly that in the past but, at the time, almost everyone was behind a firewall and it would fail. i have some code to do nat punch through and it works well to allow most people to host normal. There's just a few things I need to figure out. Ultimately, that should be the best solution as soon as I get around to making it work. Right now, I'm just focused on getting lackey in the App Store for iPad. It's taken me a long time for a bunch of different reasons (technical and business) but I'm finally about to submit it.

[paco5005]

Sorry bout the delay. I am adding 2 screenshots of this issue happening when a player enters spec, even if there's barely anything on the board. I've started to notice as well that bar turns from barely green to full red most of the times.

[Trevor]

I see the cause. You're sending a large avatar image. The suggested dimensions of your avatar image is 100x100, which should end up making your image file size around 20KB. Yours is a lot bigger.

But this brings up another issue because it's not something you send voluntarily. I think I will either not have involuntary data count towards your cap, or not send the file if it would put you near the cap.
I'll give it some thought.

In the interim, convert your avatar image to a smaller size or use a smaller image. Or, ideally, configure your network to allow you to host a normal game.

I hope to get the nat punchthrough code working and that should enable most people to host without proxy server, so hopefully this will soon be a moot point.

[paco5005]

Neat. Thanks Trev!