Re-posting this from the front page as the original message was in the forum description field. I can't tell who posted it, but for future reference please create a topic within an existing forum

Quite often I lose connection to the FICS server during a Team League game. Usually, I am still connected to the internet but FICS commands no longer work. This happens when either player is having a long think and there is a period of inactivity. I am using BabasChess 4.0. Does anyone else have this problem ? Is there a timeout in FICS or BabasChess and if so should this be disabled for long play games ? Best wishes

There's a FICS timeout after 60 minutes of inactivity, i.e. if you're logged in, but don't do anything you'll get logged out after one hour. But that can also occur when you simply observe a game. It never happened to me while playing, but I've never thought on a move for an hour.

I started experiencing timeouts when I upgraded my internet connection in October 2020. The thing is that even the slightest oscilation in your network may terminate your connection to FICS. I can give you the same advices I got from mattuc (FICS head admin):

1- You can try using port 23 instead of default port 5000 and see if your connection becomes more stable.
2- You can create a script to send a gibberish command to the server at short intervals (e.g., I've set it to do it every minute).

Although the problem hasn't been fully solved (ironically my now much faster connection is still not as stable on FICS as it was in the past), the second procedure has improved the situation a lot for me.

Especially while you try things out, for standard games I'd suggest that you play only opponents who have noescape off.

Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Roberto (Beto).

I would actually suspect it's a problem with the router of the original poster. Usually when an internet connection drops while still showing up online on your computer it's a router issue (I find problems aren't unusual, especially in older routers i.e. 5 to 10 years old) and replacing it is obvious fix to try. If it's not that then issue lies with your ISP or potentially your computer.

Alas it can be hard to troubleshoot but a good test to use is to try out BabasChess on a completely different setup and gradually swap things in. For example it can be at a neighbour/friend house on their computer, if that's OK and you have a laptop you can bring it over and try to use their wifi etc.

I found out a little more about my disconnections.
I think it may be a router timeout issue.. something like this ..
When playing a long game on FICS I have nothing else running.
So, when either player is having a long think, there is a period of internet inactivity and the router either timesout or hibernates.
Hence FICS cannot communicate with the players internet and disconnects.
Recently I have started having Outlook Mail running in the background. Obviously, I do not read any emails during a game. However, this is regularly checking for new emails and there is always some internet activity. Since doing this, I have never had any FICS disconnections.
If I knew more about routers, I would try to find and change a timeout value.

First of all I'll state that as I don't know your exact tech setup it's all going to be fairly general advice.

However based on the description I think your router is undergoing hardware failure that is causing it to crash and reboot that then causes connection to drop. Generally if you have a router issue then easiest solution is to just change your router that can be done for less than £20 (e.g. Here's one on Amazon) so if you're OK spending that much then it's probably sensible as really expensive ones while good are likely to have limited benefits to casual users. Alternatively you can get one from your ISP if you're not that tech savvy that are usually easier to setup but as I don't know your ISP I can't point you to a specific model but a google search along the lines of "bt router" should get you there by replacing bt with your ISP.

I expect your router will continue to get worse and probably an analogy is that if you have a car with dodgy brakes but it still works when you brake in a certain way then it's definitely a short term measure as brakes are on the verge of total failure.