Run an MTR report for lag

When players rubber-band or ping jumps while the server's own graphs look healthy, the problem is often somewhere on the route between the player and the server. MTR shows that route. It combines traceroute and ping in one tool: it lists every router between you and a destination, with the packet loss and response time at each one. An MTR report from the affected player is also the most useful thing to attach to a support ticket about lag.

Get the address to test

1. Open your server in the dashboard.
2. Find Server address in the side rail and select the copy icon beside it, labelled Copy server address. On a Valheim server with crossplay on, the rail shows a Join code there instead, so take the address from Settings under Network ports.
3. Remove the port. The rail shows an address such as 203.0.113.10:25565, but MTR wants only the part before the colon, here 203.0.113.10. A Minecraft server that uses a free server address shows the name alone, with no port to remove.

Run the test from the computer that has the problem, since the route depends on where the player is. Every Play Your Way server runs in Sydney, so a player in Perth or overseas crosses more networks than one in Sydney. Australian game server latency shows what ping is normal from each city.

Run WinMTR on Windows

WinMTR is a free Windows version of MTR that needs no installer. Download it from the WinMTR (Redux) project on GitHub. Its README lists Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributables as a requirement, or you can use its static build.

1. Start WinMTR.
2. Type the address into the Host box.
3. Select Start. The button changes to Stop while the test runs.
4. Reproduce the problem or wait until the lag happens. Let it run for several minutes: the longer it runs, the more samples each line has.
5. Select Stop, then Export TEXT or Copy Text to clipboard.

The Options button sets Interval (sec), Ping size (bytes) and Resolve names. WinMTR's own README says the defaults are fine.

Run mtr on Linux

On a computer with mtr installed, run it in report mode:

mtr -r -c 100 203.0.113.10

-r makes it run for the number of cycles you give with -c, print the results and exit, which leaves a report you can paste. At the default interval each cycle lasts one second, so 100 cycles takes about a minute and 40 seconds.

Read the report

Each line is one router, in order from your PC to the server. WinMTR's columns are the host, the loss percentage, Sent, Recv, Best, Avrg, Wrst and Last. On Linux, mtr prints Loss%, Snt, Last, Avg, Best, Wrst and StDev. The times are round trips in milliseconds.

• A real problem carries through. The mtr manual says a sudden rise in packet loss or response time is often a sign of a bad or overloaded link. If the rise starts at one hop and stays for every hop after it, including the last one, that link is the likely cause.
• Loss on one middle hop only is usually harmless. The manual notes that some routers give ICMP echo packets a lower priority than other traffic, so they look less reliable than they are. If the later hops and the last line are clean, ignore it.
• Look at the last line first. It is the server's address. Loss or high Wrst times there matter most.
• Note where a problem starts. The first line is the closest router to you and the last is the server, so a rise that begins in the first few lines is near the player's own connection, and one that begins further along is somewhere between their provider and us.

Send the report with a ticket

If the trouble starts inside your provider's network, your provider is the one who can fix it, and the report gives them something concrete. If it reaches our side, open a ticket and paste the report along with the time of the lag and the server's name. Contact support and open a ticket shows how. For lag that hits every player at once, the cause is more likely on the server, so also read why your server might be lagging.