Helping to debug in game VOIP

Hey all -

We're working on making the in-game VOIP more consistent and reliable. We know that there are currently many issues with VOIP breaking periodically, or not transferring players into the right channels. In order to help us debug, we are looking for specific information about when and how your VOIP breaks. If you've had the in-game VOIP break for you recently, and you can provide the following information, we really want to hear from you in this thread.

Please post along with:

• Player Name
• Server
• What type of issue you experienced
• Time the issue occurred (As close as possible to exact time it breaks helps us find the right logs)

If you have more info than that, such as steps you can take to cause the VOIP to break consistently we would of course appreciate hearing that too, but please do try to at least include the above 4 data points with your report.
Thanks all!
-
mh

Name - Alanim
Server - Connery
Time - 1:00AM-3:00AM

Got a sudden burst of "lag" out of the blue, even though my internet was fine, the game then proceeded to have "lag spike" like gameplay every 10-15 seconds, it also made my squad mates cut in and out. Restarting the client resolved the game being "laggy", but then I could not hear my teammates, and their names did not appear in the squad channel, nor could they hear me. I tried everything to resolve that, reforming the squad, restarting planetside 2, joining a separate squad then reforming, restarting my computer. As it turned out, my squad members had to restart their clients to resolve the issue(they could hear each other), although the VOIP broke again a hour later.

1. ZkillerZ20000
2. Mattherson
3. All chat channels down (Can not hear anything or talk, no one shows up under the voice and chat tab)
4. Happens all the time for me periodically most resent that I know the exact time for was March 7th at around 8:00pm EST to about 9:30pm EST.

Seems to break when getting platoon lead and happens much more often the more channels I am in like leader, outfit, platoon, etc...

Name - Zruss
Server - Waterson

Issue 1 - All voice channels down (Cannot speak nor hear anyone, no voice popups appear indicating someone is speaking appear, and the channel member list in the menu is empty) for anywhere from 1-30 seconds, before coming back for 5-10 seconds, and then going down again. This usually repeats for several minutes and usually goes away by itself, but occasionally requires a relog. Occurs either immediately after logging in, or after tabbing out with the windows key. Using the windows key almost always causes the issue, while it is only occasionally present upon login.

Issue 2: All voice channels except proximity will go down and require a relog to restore functionality. This is far less common than issue 1 above, but occurs under the same circumstances.

Time - Happens too often for me to be able to give you a exact time it occurred.

I filed support ticket 131230-000872 on the issue, if the dxdiag and other files I provided with that ticket will help with these issues.

Octiceps

Connery

I don't know if this is related, but whenever I get into heavy fighting, automatic and manual voice callouts get muted but text for the manual ones still show up in General chat. Callouts get unmuted once the heavy fighting tones down. Voice callouts have been broken since the patch that added Voice Packs and automatic callouts.

Happens whenever I'm in the middle of a heated battle.

I knew it had problems with it but not this badly. I mostly just turn it off and use either teamspeak or mumble to communicate with my teams.

• Tommyp2006
• Waterson
• All voice callouts become inaudable. Can still see the voice callouts, squad chat works. Sometimes proxy does not as well. Typically happens in VERY large fights. Happens almost every time at Subterranian Nanite Analysis, I think caused by large numbers of mana turrets firing at once.
• Happened to me last night around Midnight Eastern in an Amp Station fight.

FJH

Connery

Occasionally, when switching platoons or squads, all of my communications go dead and hitting the normal squad or platoon bind causes me to speak in proximity chat instead. I can't hear anyone or talk to anyone in the aforementioned groups, though I do know that the Outfit channel still works for some reason. The easiest way to resolve this problem is to turn off Voice Chat and then turn it back on, but I imagine that works for a whole slew of problems of this nature. Maybe half a year ago, the problem was even worse - I had to always toggle Voice Chat upon logging in to the server just to use proximity, let alone hear anyone else, ever.

Sunday, around midnight EST, is the last time I recall having to reset Voice Chat so I could talk in and hear my platoon. We were defending an Indar BioLab and, when I went to deploy, I was being directed to the Amerish Warp Gate where the rest of the platoon had gone. I realized I was not hearing orders at that point and performed the reset upon arriving on Amerish.

Deggy
Mattherson VS
Several of my outfitmates report not being able to hear me in Squad chat, but Outfit Chat still works. Changing continents fixes this.

nice to see you finally on the issue, Higby! for reference, see http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1v911p/voipvivox_fixes_and_improvements_are_being_worked/ , http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1ujmqu/collecting_voip_feedback_issues_bugs_and_so_on/ , and the reddit copy of this thread, http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/20796j/higby_helping_to_debug_in_game_voip/

Also sometimes I leave a platoon but I still hear the platoon chat over coms, it just shows up as prox chat on my screen. Happens randomly, no pattern that I've noticed.

• ChickenCurrys
• Woodman
• List of the people currently in your voice chat(for exmple platoon) disappear, and can't hear them anymore and when pressing the voice chat button nothing happens. This has been the problem existing for about a year already and seems to be mostly for people activly speaking in the voice chat.
• I wasn't playing much lately, but from my experience the voice chat seems to break up morewhen used more, had to restart sometimes up to 4 times during 1 alert to make it working again. Can't give you exact times sadly, not playing much because of too many bugs ingame bothering me.

• Player Name : Ketadine
• Server: Woodman
• What type of issue you experienced: VOIP breaking, usually the squad or the proxy. Platoon VOIP works fine as well as outfit and leader.
• Time the issue occurred (As close as possible to exact time it breaks helps us find the right logs) - I do not have an exact date, but it usually happens in bigger fights or at least in fights where there are a lot of sounds.

My guess of the issue would be that, to not increase the load on the server in these situations, the ingame sounds and VOIP are being limited to "render" range, I don't know how to explain it better.

Ethancol
Miller
Squad/Platoon VOIP Doesn't work, I can transmit across all channels and hear proximity/command however.
The past 3/4 months.

I've had quite a bit of problems with the PS2 voip - it has even prompted me to write this guide.

In regards to the issue at hand - yesterday I logged on and created a squad. The voip worked but there was no indication which player was talking. Also, that same day but earlier, I was in a platoon where platoon chat appeared as proximity chat.

During 2014/03/11 my character logged on two times. I am uncertain of specifics but you will likely be able to pull them.

During the first session in the early afternoon, the last 20 minutes of being logged in, the voip was showing proximity when people spoke in platoon. During the second session, almost immediately after logon all the way to logoff crash to desktop, the voip refused to identify who was speaking (on the bottom left).

• Hej
• Connery
• Since 2012 beta

ShakenU
Connery
Every now and then
What happens is I believe that, since voice is dynamic, it goes through an unknown port. I have had my father (25+ years of IT experience) open all ports listed, along with *.vivox.com, and I still have occasional problems, either no voice at all, or the problems with it not updating who's talking. I assume this is since the Fortinet firewall will not abort an active connection.
Other things
AMD based processor, win 7 pro 64 bit. Nvidia GeForce 620, ASUS EAH5450 silent (dual monitors, 620 on larger)
1 TB hybrid Seagate HD
Occurs with both non stram game shortcut and standalone launcher. ISP: Charter, business account.

Posted from my galaxy s3

Yamiks
Woodman
Random times (no matter how many are online)
*All or some channels are not transmitting
*Some are transmitting but later breaks just like the rest

that is about it, cant rly give any info cuz there is none

MiSo1289
Ceres
All the time. It works for like 10 seconds then stops working for 2 minutes. This only happens with the squad & platoon chat, outfit chat is always fine (not sure about the proximity one).

Name - opdelta
Server - Waterson
Time - Occurs randomly.

Leaving/kicking a squad/platoon will make me still hear the last platoon/squad I was in and using squad chat in the new platoon will make the old one still hear me. Generally it's fixed by restating VOIP, but sometimes, it doesn't.

Name - Trudeus
Server - Connery
Time - randomly throughout the day; when my squad turns into a platoon

Main issues: name will not appear when a person speaks; voice chat will completely shut down, so no one can hear any chat. Outfit seems to be fine, Command has issues with the names appearing (never had it totally crash) but that can be worked with due to outfit name callouts: the biggest issue is platoon chat being unreliable.