pantheon is fine, custom games broken

Your having the opposite problem of most people

I should note than when the game was first released I had no ping problems, just the general take a while to find a match problem. One of the patches broke customs for me.

That is because in pantheon games you're matched first with people who are geographically close to you. In custom games, it's random.

Same problem here. Pantheon is basically all I can play. Custom games just do not work for me (high spikes). Thats why I'm advocating for less than 3 days downtime b/w pantheon tournaments.

I think there's more to it in custom games than just geography. I join games that are titled as being geographically close to me, and in the lobby my pings to other users are quite low, often <100.  Once it starts my ping goes immediately to 3000+ and never comes down. 

Somehow the custom games also manage to totally trash my internet connection. When I alt-tab out during a custom game I find that I cannot browse to any web pages, my msn has disconnected.. Basically nothing internet works. All of this is smooth as silk when in pantheon games. I even have streaming music playing, maybe some torrents or whatever, and it stays super smooth in pantheon. The difference is beyond night and day.

This sounds very similar to an issue where your modem/connection can't handle the sheer volume of return packets - your internet connection is flooded with information and needs to be reset in order to dump them all out. When you play Pantheon, what is average number of users in your games? When you play Custom Games, what is the average number of users in those games?

Head over here. Your issue probably isn't linked to what mine was - I had a crap modem - however the steps for identifying will provide more information for us to go off to help you correct this issue. Also, keep in mind that there is no real difference between Pantheon and Custom Games in terms of connections and I experience no connection stability issues regardless of which I play. The issue has to be something with your unique setup - do you experience any kind of issues with other internet-based applications? Slow Bit Torrent speeds? Random ping spikes on other games? Programs randomly disconnecting for no reason? Also, please provide the make and model of your network equipment.

I've played 3v3 pantheon games without issues, occassionally 4v4. Same thing in custom. I posted details of my router and crash logs in the 'We are here to help!' thread.

I did notice the following in the log each time the custom game starts:

[07-17-2009 11:46:04 646] Ready to try and connect.
[07-17-2009 11:46:04 646] CVPOnPlayerDataUpdatedCallback
You are not authorized to make this request

Not sure if that's significant or not.

I ran the tests on that site too. Things look OK:

http://loki09.mpi-sws.mpg.de//bb/bittorrent-blocking.php?id=1248444920&done=yes&server=74.63.50.30&btport=6882&port2=10010&down=true&up=true&tcp=true&repeat=2&duration=20&peer=174.114.35.56&btup0=104857&btupstate0=6&btupl0=20000&tcpup0=104857&tcpupstate0=6&tcpupl0=20000&btup1=104857&btupstate1=6&btupl1=20000&tcpup1=104857&tcpupstate1=6&tcpupl1=20000&btup2=104857&btupstate2=6&btupl2=20000&tcpup2=209715&tcpupstate2=6&tcpupl2=20000&btup3=104857&btupstate3=6&btupl3=20000&tcpup3=209715&tcpupstate3=6&tcpupl3=20000&btdown0=6606356&btdownstate0=24&btdownl0=20000&tcpdown0=6501493&tcpdownstate0=24&tcpdownl0=20000&btdown1=6544546&btdownstate1=24&btdownl1=20000&tcpdown1=4826466&tcpdownstate1=24&tcpdownl1=20000&btdown2=4887359&btdownstate2=24&btdownl2=20000&tcpdown2=6501493&tcpdownstate2=24&tcpdownl2=20000&btdown3=6501493&btdownstate3=24&btdownl3=20000&tcpdown3=6606356&tcpdownstate3=24&tcpdownl3=20000&&sbtdownl0=21.000&sbtdown0=64913&sbtdownstate0=24&sbtdownr0=0&sbtdownrs0=0&sbtdownp0=6882&stcpdownl0=21.001&stcpdown0=82511&stcpdownstate0=24&stcpdownr0=0&stcpdownrs0=0&stcpdownp0=6882&sbtdownl1=21.000&sbtdown1=73371&sbtdownstate1=24&sbtdownr1=0&sbtdownrs1=0&sbtdownp1=6882&stcpdownl1=21.001&stcpdown1=77484&stcpdownstate1=24&stcpdownr1=0&stcpdownrs1=0&stcpdownp1=6882&sbtdownl2=21.001&sbtdown2=71997&sbtdownstate2=24&sbtdownr2=0&sbtdownrs2=0&sbtdownp2=10010&stcpdownl2=20.024&stcpdown2=209473&stcpdownp2=10010&sbtdownl3=21.001&sbtdown3=77939&sbtdownstate3=24&sbtdownr3=0&sbtdownrs3=0&sbtdownp3=10010&stcpdownl3=21.000&stcpdown3=197934&stcpdownp3=10010&sbtupl0=20.022&sbtup0=6693862&sbtupp0=6882&stcpupl0=20.001&stcpup0=6500989&stcpupp0=6882&sbtupl1=20.001&sbtup1=6605595&sbtupp1=6882&stcpupl1=20.001&stcpup1=4928071&stcpupp1=6882&sbtupl2=20.005&sbtup2=4927038&sbtupp2=10010&stcpupl2=20.016&stcpup2=6591618&stcpupp2=10010&sbtupl3=20.000&sbtup3=6501110&sbtupp3=10010&stcpupl3=20.012&stcpup3=6703614&stcpupp3=10010&

That seconds test doesn't work, it always gives the message:

We are sorry, our tool failed to measure your link (CPE001a92830df6-CM0011e6c43b83.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com - 174.114.35.56): ERROR: No data for upstream

I'm very sorry, the only thing I can suggest is getting in touch with the support guys via their email address; [email protected]. Your situation, while obviously not entirely unqiue, appears to be experienced by a very small number of people. As such, it may not be addressed in a patch - assuming there is something that needs patching - unless you work with the support team to discover the cause of your issue.

Best of luck.