Curse

-Pluto- · Apr 13, 2011, 02:50 AM // 02:50

So I've gotten thousands of hours on this game on this computer and am pretty sure i haven't changed my setup any, so whatever changed is something I don't remember or something whose significance I didn't understand. The problem is when I select a character, the game goes to the load screen and says connecting, with a progress bar of 0%. The bar never moves. I've left it on for close to half and hour, and no progress, other than coming back to an 007 error message and being at character select again.

I ruled out router, because my laptop connects and plays just fine (except slower, on a smaller screen, etc. I much prefer to play on my desktop). I've ruled out antivirus and firewall by disabling windows firewall and completely removing the antivirus software (its since been put back since that wasn't the problem). So I am pretty much at a complete loss as to approach this problem next.

Divine Ashes · Apr 13, 2011, 04:18 AM // 04:18

If nothing else works, you can always try to reinstall. Seems to me like a routing issue, but you've already ruled that out so....

I'd say reinstall.

Khardlif · Apr 13, 2011, 04:45 AM // 04:45

I have the same problem , reinstall doesn't works for me

ACWhammy · Apr 13, 2011, 05:11 AM // 05:11

I've been having similar problems and so have other users. There has been other threads regarding this issue. It must be a gw server problem. Hopefully they will notice this and fix it.

AC

MrKGado · Apr 13, 2011, 05:14 AM // 05:14

This has been an issue for some people the last 3 or 4 weeks now. It appears to be an issue on ANet's side and everyone experiencing problems should open a ticket with support. I had the same issue one night and the next day it was working fine again.

As you can see in this post (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/k...t10475079.html) this is issue is on going and is being worked on.

My suggestion: submit a ticket, provide as much info as possible and try again tomorrow.

Kojima · Apr 13, 2011, 02:29 PM // 14:29

I have had the same problem as well. But I play on a different time zone from most people. Mine would be that I run an area and would be stuck in a mission.

FoxBat · Apr 13, 2011, 03:17 PM // 15:17

I don't know if it will help everyone, but I had someone with these exact same symptoms for the past month, and uninstalling this program fixed it. For anyone that has installed Dungeons & Dragons Online before, you will have PMB on your computer. French and German versions of DDO clients were released around this time (beta clients early march, full client early april), which is consuming many user's bandwith, and resulting in too many fragmented packets to play GW. Please check that this crap isn't on your system.

-Pluto- · Apr 13, 2011, 05:02 PM // 17:02

well, I removed pando media booster, but that didn't work. I also reinstalled guild wars and imaged it all over again last night, but still didn't work. It did fully download though. That is somewhat reassuring that other people are having the same issue though, in that it might hopefully get fixed.

On the other hand, it means there's probably nothing I an do really to fix it. Guess all I can really do is suck it up and just play guild wars on my laptop.

neu-ikc · Apr 13, 2011, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Did some testing since I've started to experience the same issue. Connecting from both workstations at home (on Comcast), allow me to log into the accounts, but after selecting a character, stuck at loading. As described above.

Connected to a VPN I have access to, and GW connected (albeit a little slow because of the VPN) through it, without issue. Noticed my characters were set for International Disctrict, switched to American, turned VPN off. Back to same situation as before.

Re-enabled the VPN, logged into GW, switched my char to Europe district (read in passing people having luck with with the EU servers), logged out of VPN. Connected to GW and I'm back up and playing WITHOUT the VPN currently.

Odd.

MrKGado · Apr 13, 2011, 09:30 PM // 21:30

So it looks like it is an issue with the GW servers, but that is odd because I experienced the problem in the International District only. I was finally able to log onto a character and I switched back to the American districts and haven't had an issue since. I have not tried the European districts because I don't want to chance messing with it while it is working.

Hopefully ANet is getting useful info from everyone affected and will be able to fix the problem soon.

neu-ikc · Apr 13, 2011, 09:40 PM // 21:40

Couldn't connect to the Guild Hall though, connected to the VPN and got to it once again. Everything points to a routing issue, but if thats GW or Comcast, I dont know.

mrivera · Apr 14, 2011, 06:06 PM // 18:06

I found and uninstalled the Pando Media Booster then rebooted and I was able to get in Guild Wars. I thought aha! problem solved. Today I can't get in again

Khardlif · Apr 15, 2011, 02:39 PM // 14:39

Well , I can't load any map on other districts than europe . It's so anoying , i tried to do all but nothing helps

.

majoho · Apr 15, 2011, 02:57 PM // 14:57

Funny thing I get this on one of my accounts, the other two work!

Khardlif · Apr 15, 2011, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Same ^

Someone got any tips what we can do ?

TheGizzy · Apr 15, 2011, 05:48 PM // 17:48

So taking this down to a very basic level, the problem is this: your choo choo can't get to the station because there's a bridge out on the way. As long as your choo choo is leaving from the same place, and heading to the same destination, it's going to follow the same route every time.

There's only two ways around that... change where the train leaves from or change where it's going.

You can change where the train leaves from by changing your IP address. This can be as simple as shutting down your modem & router (and unplugging the cable from the modem) for anywhere from 5 minutes, to 8 hours, to 24 hours. That will work for some people. If you have a cable company like mine, that assigns a damn-near eternal lease between your router or modem or computer and the IP address, it won't work.

In that case, you have to change the MAC address the company is assigning an IP address for. If you use a router, you need to change the MAC address of the router. This is what I had to do to get mine working again. If you don't already know how to change your MAC address, you probably shouldn't be trying this... and since I'm not willing to assume the risk of you screwing up your network by following my instructions, I'll leave further steps to you.

The other thing you can do is change where the train is going. ANet/NCSoft uses different servers for different districts. For me, it was the American districts I couldn't access - because the route from my home to the servers hosting those districts had a proverbial bridge out. For about two weeks, I could only access via the European servers... no following the bad route into Texas, no problem connecting.

In my case, I had the ability to log into my account from a different location altogether, and was able to switch my two accounts and my husband's account to a European district. From then on, I was able to connect (at least until the route to the login servers tanked... that's when I had to change my IP address by changing my MAC address) from my home again.

I'm able to connect to the American districts again now. ANet made a few internal changes that altered how the connection was traveling... unfortunately, in so doing, an entirely new batch of players became affected while many of us who had this problem previously were now connecting without issue.

EVERYONE affected by this needs to submit a support ticket - [email protected] and you need to follow up by sending in the information they're going to ask you for. NCSoft needs this information so that they can take it to the peer that has the bridge out and beat them over the head with it. You can also nag NCSoft a bit on their Twitter page - NCsoft_support

majoho · Apr 15, 2011, 06:03 PM // 18:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGizzy

So taking this down to a very basic level, the problem is this: your choo choo can't get to the station because there's a bridge out on the way. As long as your choo choo is leaving from the same place, and heading to the same destination, it's going to follow the same route every time.

How does that explain that two accounts can connect and one can't?

And I think these days most people have static IP's - at least they do where I live.

TheGizzy · Apr 15, 2011, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by majoho

How does that explain that two accounts can connect and one can't?

And I think these days most people have static IP's - at least they do where I live.

It's still based on how they're being routed and where they're being routed to. Every destination - the update server you connect to when the game first begins loading, the login server you connect to right after you enter your login info, the individual outposts hosted in American or European or International etc. districts... these are all individual destinations and each travels a particular route.

I switched one of my accounts to Euro originally... I still couldn't connect to my other account which was still on American. Then I got them both changed over, but because all of my toons on my other account were in their Guild Hall, which is hosted on the same American server I originally couldn't reach, I couldn't get to them. Then I got most of my toons moved out of the Guild Hall and could connect to them, but two were stuck in the Guild Hall and I was unable to connect to those until just a few days ago.

Most people have static IPs, myself included - but IP addresses are assigned to devices via a MAC address. If you change the MAC address of the device your cable company is "reading," it will assign a new IP address to that device. This is where routers are really handy, even if you only have one computer... you can take the MAC address from any other device (cell phones, digital cameras, servers, etc.) and "force" the router to broadcast that MAC address. I ended up changing my MAC address a total of three times during this mess, each time automatically forcing my ISP to issue a new IP address to go with that MAC address.

TheGizzy · Apr 15, 2011, 06:26 PM // 18:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by majoho

How does that explain that two accounts can connect and one can't?

And I think these days most people have static IP's - at least they do where I live.

Btw... have you submitted a support ticket and sent in the info they're requesting? [email protected]

garpu · Apr 15, 2011, 11:16 PM // 23:16

Yep. Sent in my ticket, gave them the information they needed, and they said they're working on it. Is there a way to specify which district you want when you log in? It's only really the 62.25.39.32 address that's giving me trouble.