[Buddyboy1]

I play on my Android tablet no problems. I play on my PC and get frequently dropped out of games causing me to log in again. I have an excellent ISP WITH 200 Mbs connection. I use Windows 10 on a powerful PC with masses of memory. All other functions work flawlessly. This happens in the middle of hands while I am playing, not related to inactivity. I see many others with the same problem, all being told it is their ISP. Is there a solution? I use Firefox on both devices.

[pescetom]

Is your PC wired to the router? If not, try that if possible.

[Buddyboy1]

My PC is hard wired to the router. This is clearly a BBO problem, not a user problem. There are far too many people with the same issue all being asked circular questions. I appreciate your thought, though.

[pescetom]

Buddyboy1, on 2025-March-03, 11:14, said:

My PC is hard wired to the router. This is clearly a BBO problem, not a user problem. There are far too many people with the same issue all being asked circular questions. I appreciate your thought, though.

I fully agree it is a BBO problem and that it can happen even when hard wired with a fast connection.
I just mentioned wire because wifi is even more prone to this problem and moving to wired does often eliminate it, in the experience of my club.

[smerriman]

Buddyboy1, on 2025-March-03, 11:14, said:

My PC is hard wired to the router. This is clearly a BBO problem, not a user problem. There are far too many people with the same issue all being asked circular questions. I appreciate your thought, though.

BBO's approach to how they handle connections definitely isn't great; barmar has even stated this himself. But do note that the vast majority of BBO users never get disconnected; the reason it appears to you that everyone has the same issue is because the ones who don't get disconnected don't post in the support forums.

(When I ran a poll once, 81% said they never / rarely got disconnected, 10% occasionally, and only 8% regularly. So while there are definitely known aspects BBO need to improve, it suggests that there's likely something improvable on your end, otherwise it would affect everyone).

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2025-March-03, 15:32, said:

(When I ran a poll once, 81% said they never / rarely got disconnected, 10% occasionally, and only 8% regularly. So while there are definitely known aspects BBO need to improve, it suggests that there's likely something improvable on your end, otherwise it would affect everyone).

Just step back a bit and imagine what the response to a similar poll about a well known competitor might be: I would expect maybe 2-3% occasionally, 0% regularly. Or about almost any other internet service, come to that.

I think this is a huge quality of service / Customer satisfaction problem.

[smerriman]

Which is exactly why I said the way BBO is works is poor, their developer has even acknowledged it, and BBO need to improve it.

But none of that helps the OP in the short term, especially when this has been the case for many, many years and hasn't been improved yet. On the other hand, changing the OP's mindset from "this is what every BBO user experiences, so nothing I could do could possibly help" to "actually, it works for almost everyone else, so perhaps there is hope" is very important knowledge.

The fact it works fine on their Android and not on PC does add to the suggestion that in this case it's not connection related at all, but might be something unique to the PC; it's easy to conflate unrelated issues and think they're the same thing.

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2025-March-03, 15:54, said:

Which is exactly why I said the way BBO is works is poor, their developer has even acknowledged it, and BBO need to improve it.

But none of that helps the OP in the short term, especially when this has been the case for many, many years and hasn't been improved yet. On the other hand, changing the OP's mindset from "this is what every BBO user experiences, so nothing I could do could possibly help" to "actually, it works for almost everyone else, so perhaps there is hope" is very important knowledge.

The fact it works fine on their Android and not on PC does add to the suggestion that in this case it's not connection related at all, but might be something unique to the PC; it's easy to conflate unrelated issues and think they're the same thing.

The bizzare (almost tragic) aspect of all this is that maintaining the connection was a historical strong point of BBO, it was remarkably tenacious over an erratic and slow dialup connection. Admittedly it was the simplest of all possible network problems (convince each other within a few seconds that the connection is still alive, send a bid/call and ask for the next one) but still it was a minor feat. Somehow things actually went downhill as the networks got better, presumably by retaining the legacy proprietary keep-alive/retry protocol without really understanding it or how it might (mis)function in a world thousands of times faster.

My only direct experience in recent years is from our club when we were playing BBO during the lockdown, plus my own household. Still no very high speed FTTH connections around here, not that they seem immune to problems (see OP). Lots of problems related to domestic wifi, usually but not always fixed by installing a repeater (but in the same room one could often play Real Bridge without problems). People on 4G or even 3G did a whole lot better than people on ADSL or even Satellite (it's hilly around here).

[pvdave2017]

Buddyboy1, on 2025-March-02, 14:43, said:

I play on my Android tablet no problems. I play on my PC and get frequently dropped out of games causing me to log in again. I have an excellent ISP WITH 200 Mbs connection. I use Windows 10 on a powerful PC with masses of memory. All other functions work flawlessly. This happens in the middle of hands while I am playing, not related to inactivity. I see many others with the same problem, all being told it is their ISP. Is there a solution? I use Firefox on both devices.

I am streaming BBO and also get dropped several times in one evening.

[pescetom]

pvdave2017, on 2026-March-07, 12:46, said:

I am streaming BBO and also get dropped several times in one evening.

I was intrigued to reread my reply of just one year ago because things finally moved fast and now I would guess about half of our players do have fiber to the home.
But even for them, access to BBO has remained quirky both because of the odd wifi sensitivity and a recent recurring instability of BBO itself around 10pm WET.