I can't log on to City of Heroes and I'm at wits end. HELP!!!!!!!!!!

[Logan Darklighter]

Okay. I went to go log in to City of Heroes, downloaded the latest patch and got this after typing in my password and hitting "log in":



(Yes, that is City of Heroes, I just have a customized backdrop to it.)

Ok. I've seen that before, it USUALLY means that it's a problem on City of Heroes end. And I just have to wait. Well I checked the server status page
and it said everything is up and running. I started doing some checks.

I'm running Windows XP SP2

This setup has been running fine up until late last night.

I checked my firewalls, turned them off. Reset my router. Nothing. Same thing.

I want to stress that all this time I am able to get online normally with all my other applications - except World of Warcraft, which is doing something
similar to what City of Heroes is doing, except it gives no explanation. It just hangs at the login.

I did release and renew of IP and DNS Flush from the basic Network Repair in Network Connections. Still no go.

I checked the command line prompt. That's when I ran into something very strange looking.



Now that just does NOT look right AT ALL. Yet somehow I'm able to get on the internet.

I took the router out of the loop entirely and hooked up to the cable modem directly. This is what I got:



Did ipconfig /release



And then a renew:



I also did ipconfig /flushdns and ipconfig /registerdns while I was at it.

Here's something else to ponder:



That all shows as normal even though the command line is funky.

(Oh and here's what it looks like when I have the Router hooked in: )



I have gone as far as uninstalling the network driver and connections and rebooting to get the auto-reinstall of the drivers. Still no luck. I can get online
just fine with e-mail and browser, but City of Heroes and World of Warcraft? Gone. Can't play them. What the hell is going on here?

Help?

[ECSNorway]

The tunnelling thing has something to do with Vista's IPv6 interface, according to google. Dig into your settings and disable anything related to IPv6,
then reboot, and see what you get.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Logan Darklighter]

I'm not using Vista. I'm on XP.

[ECSNorway]

Hrm. That's ... disturbing. Dig for IPv6 stuff anyway....
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Sweno]

hmm, do you have any options on your router to mask the fact that you are doing ipv6?

I have found a few options to uninstall ipv6 from the command line, but I would think that there should be a way to turn it off from the gui.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Logan Darklighter]

Okay. I've run a command line uninstall of IPv6. Rebooted the machine. Uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers again. Able to get online again after that
and the ipconfig looks normal now.



But I STILL can't get online with City of Heroes! Something is still messed up. Going to try bypassing the router again and see what that does.

EDIT:

Okay. Bypassing the router and hooking straight into the modem, this is what I get:



And I can get online. (Of course).

And STILL. NOTHING. I can't log on to City of Heroes! It's the SAME DAMN THING as the first fucking screen? WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK MAN???

[Render]

Did you install any new XP patches today? It is "patch Tuesday" after all. Something might have changed there.

Otherwise, the fact that two MMOs are the only apps affected makes me think you should have a talk with your ISP.

If their network or DNS servers are bogged down for some reason, the game clients might be timing out while mail and web browsers still work, as they're
not as sensitive to latency--though when that's happened here, it's usually just been a matter of waiting a minute and trying again, and I would think
you'd notice some slowness in web browsing and such, too, at least for sites that aren't cached on the local machine or network.

[Logan Darklighter]

I've turned off automatic updates since I no longer trust Microsoft not to put stuff on my computer that I don't want on there. I have considered going
and doing a manual patch up to SP3 and watching very carefully what goes in. But strictly speaking I'm out of date on this machine by choice.

I'm no longer so worried about the "Tunneling" thing. I re-installed Network services and checked IPconfig and it's back again. So that seems
to be a normal part of the system (albeit one I can and will turn off for added performance). But it's obviously not the problem at this point.

That City and Warcraft are both being affected and NOTHING else seems to me that some "port" or method of connecting that they both use is being
blocked or something.

Important point I'm currently over at a friends house with my computer and it's his connection I'm on. We both have Time Warner cable as our local
ISP.

HE however is able to get on with his City of Heroes client! And I cannot! He's also able to get Warcraft to run.

So it's something on my system that's fucked up. But what? Do I HAVE to upgrade to SP3 to continue operating?

[Render]

I understand your wariness. I don't let Windows updates run automatically on my own computers, but I do run the updater manually and decide what gets
installed. There are exploits that specifically target unpatched systems, so I would at least apply the critical security updates (well, the real ones, not
Genuine Widows Advantage!) Support for XP SP2 is supposed to continue through 13 July 2010, so until then you shouldn't have to install SP3 to get security
patches.

It's possible you and your friend are on different parts of the Time Warner network and it's still an ISP problem, but I agree it's more likely
your machine.

Looking on the City of Heroes forums, I did find this:

----- pasted -----

Have you tried the shortcut to bypass the updater? Once I did that I was able to connect without a single problem.

--- and this ---

To bypass the updater, create a shortcut to CityOfHeroes.exe (not the updater). Right click the shortcut and click Properties. In the Target line, modify it to
match this:

"Crogram FilesCity of HeroesCityOfHeroes.exe" -project coh

this assumes you installed to the default location. If not you need to modify the drive/directory path to where yours copy is installed. ----- end -----

Haven't had time to read the whole thread, but this was something that worked for some people after /flushdns and other things you mentioned had failed.

Was looking at something that sounded similar on a WoW forum, but then it went down for maintenance.

[Logan Darklighter]

I've been checking the files and came across something in the log files. There is a log of apparently all the times that I've tried to connect today
and been rebuffed. This goes on a LONG time. The following is just the last few near the end.

05-05-2009 23:27:22 4020 11 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

05-05-2009 23:27:22 4020 12 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

05-05-2009 23:27:22 4020 13 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

05-05-2009 23:27:22 4020 14 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

05-06-2009 00:03:41 3452 9 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

05-06-2009 00:03:42 3452 10 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

05-06-2009 00:03:42 3452 11 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

05-06-2009 00:03:42 3452 12 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

05-06-2009 00:03:42 3452 13 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

05-06-2009 00:03:42 3452 14 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

05-06-2009 00:03:42 3452 15 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

05-06-2009 00:03:42 3452 16 disconnect error 10053:An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.

Is host machine referring to my computer? Or somewhere up the line?

[Logan Darklighter]

I tried your solution, Render. It didn't work.

[Sofaspud]

Dumb question, maybe, but, have you contacted technical support?

Really, though, it sounds like your firewall is b0rking things. You patched CoX today, right? Have you told your firewall that the new version of CoX is a-ok
to access the internet?

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Logan Darklighter]

Not to be snarky - but I covered the firewall situation in my first post. There are NO firewalls running since this afternoon. I have taken the router out of
the loop so as to test with a direct connection to the cable modem, just in case there was a hardware firewall. STILL got the same results.

I am in the middle of composing a long, detailed explanation to tech support.

[Sofaspud]

I read your first post, and yes, I saw where you say you disable it to test. But one assumes that since that didn't fix it, it was re-enabled.

Most firewalls don't actually get disabled, I've found. Nothing to do with your technical skills, they just don't go away until uninstalled
completely. Windows Firewall is especially bad about this, and is ... difficult to uninstall, to boot.

ZoneAlarm has a tendency to not actually turn off properly as well, despite it's other rather good qualities.

You did not mention anywhere re-authorizing the _changed_ version of City of Heroes in your firewall. I had to do this myself tonight after patching. So I
figured, hey, maybe you've run into that issue.

None of the other steps you mention would affect whether a software firewall is blocking you.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Logan Darklighter]

Ok. It's time for me to bang my head on the desk and curse myself for an idiot.

DESPITE the fact that the firewall INTERFACE was not running, apparently some part of it WAS running in the background (Zone Alarm is what I use.)

I pulled up the interface, ran City of Heroes. The Firewall took note of City of Heroes changed program. I told it to allow it to run.

SONOFABITCH IT RAN.

It did NOT do that before. I had turned OFF the firewall last night when I ran into some slowdown. I also set it NOT to come up automatically at start-up. Well
apparently the interface is what doesn't come up. The goddamned firewall does though!

I am incredibly aggravated yet strangely relieved.