Occurs: On chicos brake boost styball with all 0.2.8.x builds up to 0.2.8.3 20090113 Build (from beta.armagetronad.net) (Windows client, but probably other OSs too, from player's comments). Sty+ct patches + probably custom mods by kyle are run on that server :-|.
Symptoms: This does happens usually if the server is full. After some server hickup/major packetloss, all remote player's lag indicator are huge, even though the pings are small. Not all clients are affected by the problem at the same time as far as I can tell. Some other regular player says "I have huge indicators", but I mine are small without any lag. Also during huge lag-indicator-phase the other player's lag-indicator tip seems to be their correct position. The moving "ball zone" is displayed at the correct position all the time, but it teleports at times (as far as I remember). I have ruled out bandwith or packet delays for my connection.
The problem last till the end of the round and is gone in the next round.
This looks like predicition/client side problem, but might be a server/client side bug or even a hosting problem.
I'll make a recording the next time I play there. Is a server recording required to get any leads on this ?
Server recording should not be required. It's probably this: Some issue causes one huge lag on the server (or the clock jumps), so the server things clients lag. The server tells the clients about it. Now, there's a new mechanism in 0.2.8.3 that's supposed to deal better with with fluctuating pings, namely the client adds a little extra bit of time to its clock so game commands get sent 'earlier'. Now, the bit that goes wrong is that the 'little extra bit' turns into a huge bit. The client needs better sanity checks on the values sent by the server, and a clientside recording to get a signature of those events should be enough. Of course, more server side sanity checks may be good, too.