Disconnecting

Every time I don't type anything for longer than a minute, I get disconnected from whatever MUD I'm playing. This is VERY bad for me because I usually do many things at once that take longer than a minute. Also, I'm often staring at the screen for minutes at a time waiting for someone to say something. Is there a way to fix this problem?

Some MUD's allow you to set how long you may be inactive before you time out. Have you investigated this? If this is not possible there are two main solutions.

If the MUD sends a pre-timeout message, ie. 'You will time out in 30 seconds.', you could create a trigger for this to send some command like LOOK.

If there is no such line, then you may create a timer to send a command like LOOK every minute, which wouldn't be hard.

Hope that helps

WOW! That helps alot! I didn't know what timers were, but now I do!! I set it so that every minute, it sends "look". Thanks!

More likely to be your router. I would be surprised if a MUD disconnected you after a minute, that would be crazy.

And, it's not a MUSHclient bug either. I doubt you would have many enthusiastic MUSHclient users if it forced you to type something every minute.

I recently had a router connected to my home network. I now find that I too have my worlds disconnect if I do not input for more than a minute. Problem being, am still trying to find the solution.

Have you tried the router's internal configuration about idle connection timeout?

The router probably is configured to drop a connection if it does nothing for a minute. This would be OK for downloading a web page, but not for playing a MUD.

Try connecting to the router and looking for some sort of timeout interval. If that fails, you will have to do what the others do and send some harmless command every minute. Even a newline should probably be enough.

Thank you for your suggestions. Will be looking into that.

Well, the problem is... I dont HAVE a router. I'm not using it, anyway. And my friend has MUSHclient, and his also disconnects after a minute if he doesnt put a timer on. So obviously, it's not just me.

Note: Windows also has a setting, if you are on dialup, which defaults to disconnecting if the connecting is idle for some time. I had to turn that off on mine, since Windows seems to think that the only 'valid' non-idle activity is web browsing. Apparently telnet or even downloading (where most data is coming in, not going out), doesn't generate enough outgoing data to keep the connection live. I know the problem exists in 9x systems and I have no idea if it was ever fixed in later ones. It might be what is causing the problem.

I was having this problem (on a large scale network, so there's a router involved), but at the 10/15 minute ish mark.

It was solved by telling the mud to send each player an IAC NOP every minute.

Dunno if this applies to you, or would even help (seeing as it doesn't generate any `up` traffic).

I got a new router (RCA) and now I'm having this issue too. I'm disconnected after 10 minutes of inactivity. Is anyone knows how to fix this on the router, that'd be great.

I'd rather not have to send something to the MUD every once in a while, because that won't work for everything such as my shell (PuTTY).

Can you give the exact name and model number of the router?

RCA DCW725.

http://www.thomson.net/EN/Home/MiniSites/BAP/Cable/ModelDetail.html?category=cab%20modems%20DOCSIS&model=DCW%20725

I've looked through the router config like 20 times and I don't see anything relating to an idle/inactivity setting.

Can't see anything in their manual to help you.

It is obviously a bit of an ongoing problem, and probably routers are configured to drop a connection with no activity after 10 minutes, assuming that the program must have gone away.

All I can suggest is:

• Google for more information - I tried "RCA router timeout" and got quite a few pages
  
• Contact their customer support center, explain the problem and hope they can help you
  
• Maybe a small application that does some sort of heartbeat (eg. refreshes a web page every 5 minutes) would keep the connection alive, however that won't work if it times out on a per-connection basis.
  
• In the case of MUSHclient, have a small plugin that monitors ingoing and outgoing activity, and if nothing is done in 5 minutes, does a "look" or something.

It's a bit odd, but I can't seem to find support. I don't know what site to go to, Thomson, RCA, Gateway, etc. The router config panel has no links to the company site either. I've checked some of those sites, but can't seem to find the right support. (IE thomson refers to another company, but that company has no mention of routers)

Add the Linksys WRT54GS to the list of routers this occurs with. With the Linksys BEFSR41 you used to be able to get around this by setting yourself DMZ host but it doesn't work with the newer routers.

Anyone think this'll fix it?
http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

Generally speaking, time to live (TTL) is the number of hops a packet can make before a router discards it.

It is designed to stop infinite loops if a packet bounces back and forwards in a router loop. Each time a router processes a packet it decrements the TTL field, and discards it when it becomes zero.

For the record, I'm having this issue, myself. My "window of oppurtunity," so to speak, is about 10 minutes and 1 second, roughly.(It might be longer. I've never timed it considering the connection closes but doesn't tell me until AFTER I try and type something.) I'm using a LinkSys BEFW11S4 ver. 3 router, but I think I remember this happening even BEFORE I had this router! I'm using a Motorola SurfBoard cable modem and a Cox Communications connection(and have been for the past few years) if that helps at all.

So anyway... As stated earlier in the topic, turning on "DMZ Host" to the IP I'm using to route with(and keep ports open) did indeed increase this time greatly! From ten minutes to twenty! That solution seems to have worked quite well! Now I'm gonna see just how long before it kicks off... With SimpleMU, it took roughly an hour.(Yes, I tested my MU*s with other clients. I KNEW there was something going on between my connection and MUSHClient, no offense.) See you in fourty minutes or so!

Sorry to bump the topic after so much inactivity, by the way, but I figured I'd give my input on the matter, too! :3

EDIT: The total time of an HOUR has passed for my connection to the MUCK of my choice. I have not yet been logged out. That DMZ Host thing may very well have fixed it! :D Thanks, Osanagokoro!

SECOND EDIT: Idle for three hours PLUS and still not logged off. This issue has been RESOLVED as far as I'm concerned! XD Well...for people with the BEFW11S# series of routers.(Or maybe just BEFW11S4 ver.#. I dunno.)

I am glad it is resolved for you.

The symptom you describe doesn't surprise me. MUSHclient (or any client) only knows the connection is closed if a "connection closed" packet arrives. If the router silently drops the connection, that will not arrive. However when you try to send something then MUSHclient gets a response that indicates that the connection is no longer there.