Cannot run the game: login fails

[dazjorz]

Hi,

When I saw this game was in the Steam free weekend, it worked on my Mac, and it was 50% off, I almost directly bought it. I played it for a few hours then, and it was a lot of fun.

Now yesterday and the day before, I've been having a lot of problems connecting. Apparantly, even if I just want to show this game to friends and only need the single player, I *need* to log in to the authentication server. This is a problem by itself, for example Steam allows offline play and your game doesn't. Apparantly you also need to maintain a connection to the login servers after the game started, which simply, honestly, sucks. It smells like DRM, a way of DRM that's even more broken by design than DRM itself. It would be better, I think, if you would remove this constant connection to the login server, and just do an initial login after which the game has tokens to send to the master server when it needs to communicate with it.

However, that's not initially why I posted this. The reason seems to be obvious: logging in seems to fail. The process stays at "Awaiting response" as I'm sure you're aware. Is this, maybe, because all those players are constantly connected to your login server, ddosing it? Or is there just a large queue of users waiting to log in?

I hope you're already looking into this issue as I'm typing this, but still wanted to write it down. Please let me know if you're doing something about this, because I'd like to play the game

Thanks!

[Ajuk999]

Hello daz, welcome to the Altitude Community!


I presume you are talking about this problem that many have had. This is due to the Steam Servers being overloaded, since 70% of the players online now, are all from steam. Plus there was a sale on steam for $4. There has been a humongous overload on the servers.

[dazjorz]

No, it's not. It's about this problem:

http://imagebin.ca/view/Jtit5d.html

http://imagebin.ca/view/UgFrBo.html

I've had this problem for two days and when it gets closer to the night, it suddenly starts working, probably because people quit the game and the servers become more free. I never had the "steam servers too busy" problem.

[Ajuk999]

Open the game, Press F1 to open the console, then type "reportBug" press Return. The Developers will take a look at it. It might just be a Firewall issue.

[dazjorz]

Originally Posted by Ajuk999

Open the game, Press F1 to open the console, then type "reportBug" press Return. The Developers will take a look at it. It might just be a Firewall issue.

I think on this network it might be a firewall issue, there is an annoying firewall active on this network. However, I've played this game on various networks. I've seen this issue on all of those... My Mac has its firewall turned off and neither of those other networks have firewalls. And, apart from that - when it becomes later on the day, the issue goes away. Has nobody else seen this?
(Also reportbug doesn't seem to work here, probably because of the firewall. Even worse: the "cancel" button on the bugreport window does not work.)

[lamster]

Most users are not experiencing this problem. Where are you playing from? If other UDP games are working it's probably a regional routing issue -- there may be a broken link somewhere between your ISP and our master servers.

To diagnose this possibility, please try this:

Start -> Run -> cmd

tracert 75.102.27.114

Wait for the trace route to finish.

Using your mouse, left click and drag to select the results.
Right click to copy the selected results to the clip board.
Email the results to support@nimblygames.com

[Basha]

Hi, i had this problem too where I cant login for ages then suddenly I can, I found if i restart steam it starts working again. hope this helps.

[Ajuk999]

Thanks for the tip Basha, I am sure it will prove to be useful. Welcome to the Altitude community!

[dazjorz]

Originally Posted by lamster

Most users are not experiencing this problem. Where are you playing from? If other UDP games are working it's probably a regional routing issue -- there may be a broken link somewhere between your ISP and our master servers.

I have tried this game on various networks; UPC, a regular provider here in the Netherlands, the university network on the university itself, the student network, and a companies' own network. I'm pretty sure that if there's a problem, it's unlikely to be here; also the fact that sometimes it suddenly starts working while I don't even restart the game in between, especially when it becomes later and people stop playing, at least that was my conclusion.

Originally Posted by lamster

]To diagnose this possibility, please try this:

Start -> Run -> cmd

tracert 75.102.27.114

Wait for the trace route to finish.

Using your mouse, left click and drag to select the results.
Right click to copy the selected results to the clip board.
Email the results to support@nimblygames.com

As said, I have a Mac. Either way, I ran that traceroute command and when I next have problems on a network I know has no too strictly configured firewall, I'll run the traceroute and report it.

Note that the game blocks on "Waiting for reply". This means it already sent its SSL authentication. I'd say that if 'traceroute' displays a problem, it would show before a SSL authentication can even be sent, it would already fail while making a connection. Anyway, I'll try once I have the same problem.

Thanks for your help, and I'm actually surprised I'm the only one with the problems. Maybe they were temporary, in that case, I'm sorry. Since reporting this problem, I haven't seen the problem anymore on networks other than the firewalled one. I'll let you know in case I see it again.

[dazjorz]

Originally Posted by Basha

Hi, i had this problem too where I cant login for ages then suddenly I can, I found if i restart steam it starts working again. hope this helps.

Ah allright, that would be cool. I'll try that too!

[nyctopterus]

I'm having the same problem, also on a Mac. The game worked for a couple of hours, and then started hanging on "waiting for reply". I hadn't changed anything at all.

Kinda frustrating that you can even play single player mode.

[morpheus]

i mean, that nimbly games authentication server is stressed with a high user load
also the webserver is overloaded today, unresposive for some seconds and come back after while

[stalker]

It happens to me frecuently and it's not my internet/ISP fault because I can run/play other games smoothly and perfectly with not internet crash or problems.

[morpheus]

Altitude Free Weekend (Altitude on Steam) has ended. I hope things will go back to normal.

[Elendir]

Hi everyone,

I'm experiencing the same problem but on windows xp.
I tried to connect at work (on Mac) and it was working fine.

The process seems to be stuck at "waiting for response" then appears the error message.

Just in case I forwarded all the needed ports.
I also tried to set a specific ssl port, and disabling upnp.
Nothing seems to work. The tracert also works fine.
Looking at the logs I only get this particular error :

...
INFO [2011-07-25 21:26:23,937] [main]: Update check complete; up to date!
INFO [2011-07-25 21:26:23,937] [main]: Using steam authentication to log in.
INFO [2011-07-25 21:26:23,953] [main]: Steam Auth blob size is 210
ERROR [2011-07-25 21:26:37,421] [Thread-12]: java.io.EOFException: End of stream
java.io.EOFException: End of stream
	at mR.d(SourceFile:67)
	at mR.e(SourceFile:97)
	at yB.a(SourceFile:28)
	at xo.a(SourceFile:561)
	at RH.run(SourceFile:461)
...

Setting debug true in options.xml does not help more.
Hope someone will find a solution.

[lamster]

Please try this:

Start -> Run -> cmd (to open a dos prompt)
In the dos window, type
ipconfig
From the results, select the "IPv4 Address" corresponding to your primary internet connection. In my case the value is 192.168.1.4

Now, use a text editor to open C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\altitude\config\optio ns.xml
On the line starting with <networkOptions...

Replace
bindIp="ANY"
with
bindIp="ipv4address_obtained_from_instructions_abo ve"

Replace
port="27272"
with
port="48000"

Replace
upnpEnabled="true"
with
upnpEnabled="false"

Then save options.xml and relaunch Altitude.

[Elendir]

I get exactly the same result binding with my ip 192.168.0.2 (static dhcp)
I also forwarded udp 48000 just in case.

Note that the upnp seems to be working because I see the entry (when it's enabled) in my router web interface.

[lamster]

Do you have any firewalls (including Windows firewall), security, or antivirus software running? If so try disabling it.

[Elendir]

No antivirus nor firewall.
Windows firewall is off.

Edit : Even with my pc in a dmz I've got no response.

[lamster]

Got another idea for you to try

Windows Control Panel -> Device Manager -> Network adapters -> right click your ethernet card and select Properties

Under the "Advanced" tab, find "Transmit Buffers" and change the value to 512.

[Elendir]

Sorry, I have no such option with my network card apparently.

Anyway, thanks for your help.
I'll look further tomorrow, it's 1am here

[lamster]

Is that an nForce chipset? Try disabling "Checksum Offload".

[Elendir]

WOW !!!

Indeed it is a nForce chipset, and it worked !

Thanks a lot for your patience.

[lamster]

Awesome