Author Topic: Losing Connection to Server  (Read 2696 times)

McNastea

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Losing Connection to Server
« on: January 27, 2016, 03:09:49 PM »
Okay, so I got a new computer and since then I've periodically lost connection to the server while my internet connection is still up. When I try to go log back in, the server appears as offline. I can't log in using direct connect or using my shortcut direct connect. Restarting my computer and/or router seems to work about as often as not. In many cases, I have to sit around and wait a good long while before it appears as online again.

I know from speaking to other people via skype that the server is in fact online when this happens. Additionally, during these times I'm also unable to connect to the forums. I'm having similar issues with other games as well, but without the long periods between being disconnected and being able to reconnect.

Anyway, if anyone out there could help me out it would be very much appreciated. I have given all these games full permission with my firewall so that shouldn't be the issue, but I'm curious if the problem might be with the host IP addresses being blocked for some reason at times? I seem to recall having a similar issue a long time ago with my old computer and finally found a fix that worked, but I can't remember what I did. Played with some settings I didn't really understand <_<'
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McNastea

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2016, 08:13:34 PM »
Really though, if anyone's got any ideas I'd love to hear them. I think it might be a problem with my IP settings, if that's even, ya know, a thing..  :lol:
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Arawn

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2016, 08:38:55 PM »
This happens to me too. It seems almost certain to be an issue with the router; I am on a wireless university network with a cycle, and if I do not regularly keep the player client communicating with the server (it can be something as dumb as toggling Detect Mode on and off a million times), something strange happens and the connection times out. This does not happen on my home network. It also, strangely, does not happen on DM client, nor does it happen when I put an ethernet cable in the jack. It is only on a laptop on this specific university wifi network. Not sure if it's a signal strength problem, a problematic security system, or what, but just know that I know about this problem and used to have it (for years).
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Jeebs

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2016, 09:26:58 PM »
That's what I was going to ask: are you using Wi-Fi or are you plugged into the router?  Wi-Fi is notoriously bad for video games, though I find it bizarre that you wouldn't be able to connect to the forums but still have access to other sites. If you are indeed using Wi-Fi, my suggestion would be try plugging directly into the router and see if the problem persists then. I'm not sure what's causing your issues, mind you, but the latter might be helpful for diagnostic purposes.

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2016, 09:31:18 PM »
That's what I was going to ask: are you using Wi-Fi or are you plugged into the router?  Wi-Fi is notoriously bad for video games, though I find it bizarre that you wouldn't be able to connect to the forums but still have access to other sites. If you are indeed using Wi-Fi, my suggestion would be try plugging directly into the router and see if the problem persists then. I'm not sure what's causing your issues, mind you, but the latter might be helpful for diagnostic purposes.

Or you could come to my life, and get a new state of the art laptop and discover that Dell doesn't feel ethernet ports are necessary anymore.
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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #5 on: February 01, 2016, 09:38:27 PM »
That's what I was going to ask: are you using Wi-Fi or are you plugged into the router?  Wi-Fi is notoriously bad for video games, though I find it bizarre that you wouldn't be able to connect to the forums but still have access to other sites. If you are indeed using Wi-Fi, my suggestion would be try plugging directly into the router and see if the problem persists then. I'm not sure what's causing your issues, mind you, but the latter might be helpful for diagnostic purposes.

Or you could come to my life, and get a new state of the art laptop and discover that Dell doesn't feel ethernet ports are necessary anymore.

Dude, you're getting a Dell. They ain't what they used to be anymore.
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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #6 on: February 01, 2016, 09:56:48 PM »
I used to have a similar problem when I started playing nwn, I had to completely reset my router each time the issue came back to solve it. There probably is a better solution then that thought.
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Dusk

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #7 on: February 02, 2016, 06:51:05 AM »
That's what I was going to ask: are you using Wi-Fi or are you plugged into the router?  Wi-Fi is notoriously bad for video games, though I find it bizarre that you wouldn't be able to connect to the forums but still have access to other sites. If you are indeed using Wi-Fi, my suggestion would be try plugging directly into the router and see if the problem persists then. I'm not sure what's causing your issues, mind you, but the latter might be helpful for diagnostic purposes.

Or you could come to my life, and get a new state of the art laptop and discover that Dell doesn't feel ethernet ports are necessary anymore.

Dude, you're getting a Dell. They ain't what they used to be anymore.

That's true. To my knowledge, Dell systems are no longer a fire hazard.

They've come far.

Dusk

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #8 on: February 02, 2016, 07:27:41 AM »
Anyway, if anyone out there could help me out it would be very much appreciated. I have given all these games full permission with my firewall so that shouldn't be the issue, but I'm curious if the problem might be with the host IP addresses being blocked for some reason at times? I seem to recall having a similar issue a long time ago with my old computer and finally found a fix that worked, but I can't remember what I did. Played with some settings I didn't really understand <_<'

Next time you lose connection, immediately open up Windows Command Prompt and type the following:

tracert 104.155.20.124

Copy the results here, or post a screenshot of it.

This happens to me too. It seems almost certain to be an issue with the router; I am on a wireless university network with a cycle, and if I do not regularly keep the player client communicating with the server (it can be something as dumb as toggling Detect Mode on and off a million times), something strange happens and the connection times out. This does not happen on my home network. It also, strangely, does not happen on DM client, nor does it happen when I put an ethernet cable in the jack. It is only on a laptop on this specific university wifi network. Not sure if it's a signal strength problem, a problematic security system, or what, but just know that I know about this problem and used to have it (for years).

Maybe your uni's network is taking measures to keep people from torrenting on their network. Both torrents and NWN use UDP port connections.

Does your uni have any antivirus/security software they require you to have before you can connect to the internet?

McNastea

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #9 on: February 04, 2016, 03:41:13 PM »
Quote
Tracing route to 124.20.155.104.bc.googleusercontent.com [104.155.20.124]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     2 ms     6 ms     1 ms  router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
  2     7 ms     7 ms    12 ms  10.2.208.1
  3     8 ms    10 ms    11 ms  COX-68-12-10-26-static.coxinet.net [68.12.10.26]
  4    13 ms     9 ms     8 ms  COX-68-12-10-92-static.coxinet.net [68.12.10.92]
  5    14 ms    13 ms    12 ms  dalsbprj02-ae2.0.rd.dl.cox.net [68.1.2.121]
  6    29 ms    13 ms    13 ms  72.14.212.237
  7    13 ms    13 ms    13 ms  209.85.142.212
  8    14 ms    15 ms    15 ms  66.249.95.198
  9    51 ms    36 ms    33 ms  72.14.233.118
 10    41 ms    41 ms    60 ms  209.85.249.72
 11    61 ms    55 ms    61 ms  209.85.250.71
 12   127 ms   127 ms   128 ms  216.239.42.222
 13   132 ms   129 ms   128 ms  216.239.41.236
 14   127 ms   134 ms   128 ms  72.14.239.96
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 16   130 ms   129 ms   129 ms  124.20.155.104.bc.googleusercontent.com [104.155.20.124]

Trace complete.

No idea what any of that means  :lol:
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McNastea

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #10 on: February 04, 2016, 03:58:11 PM »
Quote
Tracing route to 124.20.155.104.bc.googleusercontent.com [104.155.20.124]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms    <1 ms  router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
  2    10 ms    10 ms     6 ms  10.2.208.1
  3     9 ms    10 ms     9 ms  COX-68-12-10-26-static.coxinet.net [68.12.10.26]
  4     9 ms     8 ms     9 ms  COX-68-12-10-92-static.coxinet.net [68.12.10.92]
  5    34 ms    19 ms    15 ms  dalsbprj02-ae2.0.rd.dl.cox.net [68.1.2.121]
  6    14 ms    12 ms    13 ms  72.14.212.237
  7    13 ms    14 ms    16 ms  209.85.142.212
  8    15 ms    19 ms    13 ms  66.249.95.198
  9    39 ms    34 ms    39 ms  72.14.233.118
 10    40 ms    50 ms    41 ms  209.85.249.72
 11    55 ms    54 ms    66 ms  209.85.250.71
 12   127 ms   129 ms   127 ms  216.239.42.222
 13   130 ms   129 ms   127 ms  216.239.41.236
 14   131 ms   128 ms   127 ms  72.14.239.96
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 16   129 ms   127 ms   127 ms  124.20.155.104.bc.googleusercontent.com [104.155.20.124]

Trace complete.

and another
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Jeebs

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #11 on: February 04, 2016, 04:05:21 PM »
It's basically showing you all the stops your signal has to make along the way to the server and how long it takes for it to get there and back. From what I can tell, you shouldn't be having too many problems. There is a time out there, but your signal is getting through from what I can tell (otherwise you'd have all time outs). The part that confuses me is that you're saying you can still talk on Skype and stuff when this happens... that to me rules out temporary signal loss from your Wi-Fi, otherwise you'd lose everything for a moment and then it would all come back.

EDIT: Hmm... another time-out at the exact same spot, that's interesting.

McNastea

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #12 on: February 04, 2016, 04:10:38 PM »
Yeah, like I said in the original post, I'm not losing internet at all. I can still go on any website and use skype or spotify or whatever, I just stop being able to connect to nwn, or LoL, and sometimes the forum as well.
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McNastea

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #13 on: February 04, 2016, 04:13:40 PM »
I ran the troubleshooter for incoming connections on nwnmain and got the following result

Quote
One of more network protocols are missing on this computer-Windows Sockets registry entries required for netweork connectivity are missing

Repairing as administrator made it appear like it was all fixed, but then I could go right back to it, run the troubleshooter again to make sure, and the same problem would be there-and "fixing" would do that same thing. I don't actually know if this is relevant or not but I found it curious.
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McNastea

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #14 on: February 04, 2016, 04:41:41 PM »
Another one, I think this is a record in terms of frequency

Quote
Tracing route to 124.20.155.104.bc.googleusercontent.com [104.155.20.124]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms     2 ms  router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
  2     8 ms     8 ms     6 ms  10.2.208.1
  3     9 ms     8 ms     8 ms  COX-68-12-10-26-static.coxinet.net [68.12.10.26]
  4     9 ms     8 ms     8 ms  COX-68-12-10-92-static.coxinet.net [68.12.10.92]
  5    19 ms    14 ms    23 ms  dalsbprj02-ae2.0.rd.dl.cox.net [68.1.2.121]
  6    20 ms    19 ms    14 ms  72.14.212.237
  7    14 ms    13 ms    15 ms  209.85.142.212
  8    16 ms    17 ms    14 ms  66.249.95.198
  9    35 ms    33 ms    34 ms  72.14.233.118
 10    40 ms    41 ms    42 ms  209.85.249.72
 11    56 ms    78 ms    62 ms  209.85.250.71
 12   127 ms   127 ms   127 ms  216.239.42.222
 13   132 ms   130 ms   130 ms  216.239.41.236
 14   142 ms   129 ms   129 ms  72.14.239.96
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 16   128 ms   128 ms   127 ms  124.20.155.104.bc.googleusercontent.com [104.155.20.124]

Trace complete.

Also, I ran network diagnostics when this happened (btw I was still able to surf the web and use skype while all this was occurring) and it said

Quote
Windows could not automatically detect this network's proxy settings

again, I don't know if that is relevant or not. But there it is.
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Dusk

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #15 on: February 05, 2016, 12:02:33 AM »
Looks the same when I run tracert, except: 10.2.208.1

IP addresses that start with 10 are local/private IP addresses. It looks like from your router to your ISP DNS servers, it runs through that private IP.

Have you had this problem only ever since you got a new computer? Or did you get a new modem or router before the problem started?

Before diving into router settings, I have two suggestions:

1) Right-click nwmain.exe and click Properties. Go to the Compatibility tab and make sure "Run this program as Administrator" is checked. Apply. Exit.

2) Go to Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Internet Options. Click on the Connections tab, then click 'LAN Settings' and make sure the only thing that is checked is the first box 'Automatically detect settings'.

Finally, if you're using a VPN, turn it off and see if the connection issue persists.

McNastea

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Re: Losing Connection to Server
« Reply #16 on: February 05, 2016, 06:05:35 PM »
This only started since I got a new comp, I didn't change my modem, router, ISP, settings or anything like that.

nwnmain is already set to run as administrator (double checked) and all LAN settings except the first, Automatically Detect Settings, were unchecked. I'm not using a VPN
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