Not as far as I can tell. What I mean is that I never experience problems with my browser/skype, even while stars simultaneously lags/disconnects.
Furthermore, I have sent stars network reports from 3 different ISPs, and in every case, stars says that the problem remains, though it is "beyond their control."

I will admit, however, that I played yesterday (9-3pm belgian time) and I did NOT experience any lag or disconnections. The problem is the worst on weekends, especially sundays, shortly after the warm up begins.

I will be including all this when I respond to Bryans email that he sent to me this morning, but in short:

1. It took far too long for Stars to acknowledge and admit this issue. When we first started reporting it, they spent far too long insisting the issue is more likely to be on our end caused by our hardware / ISP / third party software. The whole time, we suffer a permanent drop in our EV on Pokerstars.

2. When this problem was discovered, all Stars staff should be made aware of it immediately, and support staff should act accordingly. I have spoken to many, many grinders about this issue, and the single most tilting thing was support telling them it's their fault repeatedly, when they (support) know (or rather, should know) that it's not true. Refer to the email I posted on page 1 for an example. Support staff are STILL denying that this is a Pokerstars issue, even as recently as yesterday. It is absolutely disgusting customer service, and by far the most tilting aspect about this whole situation. So yes, Stars have been lying. If you have a massive issue with your software, used by millions of people, the prudent thing to do is make it totally transparent, and not deceive your customers.

3. I don't know what sort of programmers Stars are employing, but I have MSc CompSci, and I know that when software works properly, then you make some changes, then it stops working properly... chances are the changes you just made screwed something up. You roll it back, it takes a matter of hours to hotfix something like this... it has been weeks.

Explain to me how stars are losing money? We are the ones losing money... how do you not understand that?

I take on board your opinion that you think I'm making too big a deal of this, and I respectfully disagree. Regarding your comment about myself, I think most people will see how dumb that is, so I'll just overlook it.

Oh and it's 16:15 and I just suffered a 10 second lag spike. I see that good progress has been made.

what's it to you if c-unit is upset? should be grateful someone's at least speaking up about this issue. there's no reason to be "nice" to stars about this.

Definitely not a problem on your end, then. I'd write back to Andre with a link to this thread. Not rudely, but with an overall air of STFU NOOB.

BakinC00kies,

It is clear that C-Unit does not think there is a magic button which Bryan can press to make this problem go away. He is justifiably angry that

1) it took so long for stars to acknowledge that there is a problem on their end. it is very frustrating to be repeatedly told to contact your ISP blah blah. the time it takes to deal with ISP on the phone is both tilting and -EV (after all, we could be using the time away from the tables to study this game instead of talking with boneheads on the phone)

2) they tried to belittle the problem insofar as they claimed that the problem was experienced by a mere "handful of players."

3) they are not refunding us adequately for the EV which this technical problem has cost us.

This has nothing to do with inflated egos. I am grateful to C-Unit for sacrificing his time to make stars more responsive to our needs. And there is nothing unreasonable in requesting for 3 weeks rake. We pay rake because stars provides a service (hosting tournaments on a reliable server). Stars should not be paid for failing to provide adequate service.

C-Unit is my housemate and feels way to flattered about all the support in here, but I have to agree gtfo backingcookies, not a single thing in your post makes sense and it is even tilting to me to read.

so the new serverupdate didnt fix the lag? can someone playing plz comment on this?

ive had no problems today so far, but ive only been playin between 5-8 tables

next couple of hours are usually main ones for lag spikes

Have been 12-16 tabling for 3-4 hours and im getting worse lag than i did before the restart

^ thin

worse for me too, took 20 mins to log in and a bit of lag every couple of mins

I just want to admit that I'm glad that C-Unit is doing all the reporting so that I don't feel compelled to report it myself. Mainly because I got a full time job now and travel fly between my city and Munich every week and can't put up more than 300-500 mtts a month, GF takes up most of the time too... not that I can complain. So yeah, big support for him and keep it up.

Stars, I've noticed notifiable drop in quality of your (e-mail) support as well, not only about this issue, so it's clear that things suddenly gone weird direction and strangely that seems to be related to your biggest competitor being out of the market.

Team Bakingcookies! This thread could use a batch of business writing. If this is your business and your losing money because of a problem you should probably communicate in a professional and constructive way (negativity is not the answer). I feel like im back in high school.

Used to be able to play double the tables I'm playing now with this lag, stars please fix this. I know it's been acknowledged, but this isn't an isolated incident, or a problem on my side. I've been around and seen other grinders have the same lags, it is affecting EVERYONE, not just a handful of people. I can't even put in real sessions because I feel like it's a waste of time, I'm unsure I can even put in enough volume to maintain supernova this month because of this ridiculousness.

Thank you for your email and for allowing us to assist you with your technical question.

Before we can continue with the review of your case, we need to verify any technical problems on your side.

If PokerStars appears to be lagging while you are playing, it is possible it is revealing a connection stability issue that will not manifest itself on most other Internet sites and applications. We are willing to assist you in trying to isolate and resolve this issue and will require some information about your system and connection. First you may wish to learn more about connection issues and the common causes found on our Frequently Asked Questions web page.

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/download/faq/#a15

If the information here fails to assist you in isolating the cause of your lagging, please provide us with the following information so we may help.

Among the things we will need to know are:

Computer Processor (i.e. Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz, etc…)
System RAM (i.e. 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, etc…)
Connection Type (i.e. Dial-Up, Cable, DSL, Satellite, etc…)
ISP (Internet Service Provider, company name that provides your Internet service)
Router/Modem (i.e Dlink DI-624, Linksys WRTG54GS, etc…)

We will also require the Network Status Report from our software. Please elevate the PokerStars program to Administrator to allow the software to save the Network Status Report. To accomplish this you will need to right click the PokerStars shortcut and select "Run as Administrator". If you do not see this option it means that your Windows Account is not an Administrator, in this case you will need to get the Administrator to log into the computer for you.

Once PokerStars has loaded please click on Help -> Network Status. When this dialog opens click on the Report button. This report is saved to your PokerStars settings folder which you will need to locate and send to us for review. To send this to us please do the following:

1. Open the Main Lobby
2. Go to Help
3. Go to Log Files
4. Select "Save Log Files as ZIP..."
5. Save the file to your Desktop, you may have to navigate to the Desktop as the default location is the PokerStars Settings Folder
6. Reply to this email
7. Click on Attach File (or similar option)
8. Select the ZIP file located in your Desktop or wherever you chose to save the file
9. Click OK and send the email

Once we have received the above information we will take a more in-depth review and provide a response.

Our goal at PokerStars is your satisfaction. We aim to provide the best entertainment and support in the business.

If you have any other questions please let us know.

Thank you for your email and for choosing PokerStars. Have a great day!

Regards,

Carlos S.
PokerStars Support Team
---
We are poker!

I too have received this giant jumble of techno blabble

Felt like a valued customer

WE ARE POKER!

I received that email. I sent the files. I then got another email saying thanks and asking for the same files again, so I gave up.

lol, wp

Bryan asked to see the email exchange. So I thought id just post it instead. It appears it may have been a different report they were after second time in which case my bad.

TBF I only scanned the first few lines, which I knew wasnt the cause, and saw a copy of the same log files instructions so just binned it. I have had several IT support jobs and I know whichever keyboard monkey is answering the inbox is not going to be able to do anything as it was clearly a problem with the whole stars network/client due to the amount of other people that were complaining. I was also still mid-way through a session, which also probably contributed to me just giving up.

Sorry stars <3

Starts at the bottom obv, and the third email is after I sent the first log files.

***************


On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 10:45 PM, PokerStars Support <support@pokerstars.com> wrote:
Hello,

Thank you for contacting PokerStars.

Please note that it is perfectly possible for one application to experience disconnections while other programs appear to show good connection, this is because each program works differently, for example, internet radio will buffer in your RAM memory, which means that small disconnections will not affect it, email clients are only refreshed for set periods of time, but online gaming such as our client are constantly sending and receiving information and this is why they can show to be most affected.

We have reviewed the files you provided and we can confirm that there are several disconnections present, in order for us to help you prevent this in the future it would be helpful if you can provide us with your Network Status Report.

In order to send it to us, please elevate the PokerStars program to Administrator to allow the software to save the Network Status Report. To accomplish this you will need to right click the PokerStars shortcut and select "Run as Administrator". If you do not see this option it means that your Windows Account is not an Administrator, in this case you will need to get the Administrator to log into the computer for you.

Once PokerStars has loaded please click on Help -> Network Status. When this dialog opens click on the Report button. This report is saved to your PokerStars settings folder which you will need to locate and send to us for review. To send this to us please do the following:

1. Open the Main Lobby
2. Go to Help
3. Go to Log Files
4. Select "Save Log Files as ZIP..."
5. Save the file to your Desktop, you may have to navigate to the Desktop as the default location is the PokerStars Settings Folder
6. Reply to this email
7. Click on Attach File (or similar option)
8. Select the ZIP file located in your Desktop or wherever you chose to save the file
9. Click OK and send the email

Once we have received the above information we will take a more in-depth review and provide a response.

Regards,

Ricardo A.
PokerStars Technical Specialist
---
We are poker!


----- Original Message -----
From:
Sent: 2012/02/19 15:57:57
To: support@pokerstars.com
Subject: Re: PokerStars Support - Log Files Request

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 8:52 PM, PokerStars Support
<support@pokerstars.com>wrote:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us.

We are sorry for the problem you are experiencing. It would be helpful if
you could send us your program log files for your PokerStars program. To do
this, please load the PokerStars program and click on "Help" -> "Log Files"
-> "Send log files to support". This will automatically send the files to
us for you. Please be sure to include your User ID and any details related
to the reason you are sending log files.

Alternatively, you can select 'Save log files as ZIP...' and your log
files will then automatically be saved as a .zip file on your hard drive.
To do this, simply follow these instructions:

1. Open the Main Lobby
2. Go to Help
3. Go to Log Files
4. Select "Save Log Files as ZIP..."
5. Save the file to your Desktop, you may have to navigate to the Desktop
as the default location is the PokerStars Settings Folder
6. Reply to this email
7. Click on Attach File (or similar option)
8. Select the ZIP file located in your Desktop or wherever you chose to
save the file
9. Click OK and send the email

Please note it is important that you send us these files as soon as you
can as they are only kept on your hard drive for a period of one day.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Regards,

Cyril
PokerStars Support


----- Original Message -----
From:
Sent: 2012/02/19 15:46:08
To: support@pokerstars.com
Subject: Random Freezing



Category: Software/Technical Sub-Category: Disconnections
Client Version: '5.447' System (OS) Info: 'Windows7[6.1]'

Message:

Hi,

The software is randomly freezing while my Internet remains stable.
During this time I am losing my timebanks.

Can you explain this please?

Regards

27$ ko from 12:15pm ET took 5 minutes to even start, I'm scared.

Lag so bad today I could barely 9 table hyper sngs, haven't rlly had any extended lag problems at all yet, this is just absurd

what Jdawg said...first time for me that it's been COMPLETELY unplayable...unreg unreg unreg...swell

yeah today is a lot worse than how it has been the rest of the week. hard to play at all

thats really odd, because before the update i was having huge problems but ive barely had any issues the last couple days #theplotthickens