Turbine is really failing me here :( Nobody will give me Tech Support.

[Televangelist]

So I heard AC has added a lot of cool things, and I resubscribed in order to be able to check it out.

The problem? I can't connect. When you get to the loading screen, the first vial fills up but the second one never does, and eventually I get a "connection to the server was lost" message.

So I check on the knowledge bank, and that appears to be a common issue. I doublecheck my settings: I have absolutely no firewalls enabled, and my router is set to enable ports 9000-9013 on UDP for my home PC's IP address (------.101).

The game still doesn't work. Exact same problem.

So I try contacting their "live chat" with tech support, which used to work fine for me. Been trying for the past two weeks. No luck.

I filled out the form on the website when all their customer support reps are "busy". No response, been well over a week now.

I e-mailed Frelorn, AKA Andy Caltado, over a week ago. No response at all.


...I'm at the end of my rope, guys. I've tried everything the knowledge bank suggests. I've tried contacting tech support both through live chat and through the "submit a problem" form. I've e-mailed Frelorn. Got nothin' back.

I really want to play AC, but at this point, I'm not sure how. The month I paid for has almost expired - and I have not a single minute of playing to show for it.

[Televangelist]

...Okay, from reading other posts on this forum, other people aren't able to get through to tech support either. Glad to see I'm not alone - I've tried probably more than 40 times.

What happened? Did the tech support guys get fired or something? Are they using their two vacation weeks?

I called the Turbine CS # on the phone to see if I could get patched through to tech support - they mentioned the "live help desk" (so it does still exist at least), but then the fire alarm went off in their offices so they had to end the call.

:( I want to play AC!

[Frelorn]

I am by no means tech support, but as far as the live chat not working, that leads me to believe there is some issue at your end we have not thought of yet. If you use firefox as a web browser, have you tried in IE or vice versa?

I just checked now and the link is on and working for me here at home. If this does not help, I will point this post out to our tech supprt guys to see if they can help.

[Televangelist]

Good idea - I hadn't thought of that since it worked before from this PC. I normally use IE, I'll download FireFox and give that a shot.

Hope there wasn't an actual fire in your building. :)

EDIT: Should I be trying a program like HijackThis! which will show me everything running on my computer's network, as a way of finding what may be at the bottom of the problem?

[Televangelist]

Okay, I tried what Frelorn suggested. No luck.

Just to clarify: The "interface" for the Live Chat is working for me. It pops up, asks me for my first and last name, e-mail, and game. I enter all that in, it accepts it, and then it sends me to the chat screen where it then shows "Contacting..." with the flashing green and white light.

It stays there indefinitely until finally kicking me to the "submit a problem" form.

I've also tried accessing the live support from other PCs in other locations, for what it's worth. No luck.

[vvenaya]

I have exactly the same issue ...

Game gives black screen when trying to login
Life chat aint working .

I give em 24 hours before i cancel this game .
Most crappy support ever.

vvenaya.

[Joelhodgson]

Ok here is a tech question. I am at my wits end with AC and my geforce fx 5500. I have updated everything video audio motherboard. But for some reason I get Graphical lag. I can attack something and then it just stops. After a few secs I get a flood of attack text scrolling up in chat window. Then the final nail. The cpu just shuts off. No rebootin and what not. Hard reboot. WTF is the prob with the nvidia geforce 5500 and asheron's call?
I know I wont get a response since I didnt get one last time I asked. If I don't get one this time, as bad as I hate to I will unsub, since I cant play on this machine. My old ladys plays it fine with a geforce 4200 ti. :P

And please for then love of god dont tell me to go to that lame tech support site you guys got. Ugh.

Common card, worked up till the Feb Patch. Patch hit me no play anymore.

[Televangelist]

Guys, I really think for simplicity and Turbine's sake we should keep it to individual threads for individual issues; it sounds like the problems you're having (graphical lag with GeForce 5500 and a black screen upon logging in) are different than mine.

FWIW, sometimes when I got the black screen bug twiddling my graphics and acceleration settings on the card and/or newer/known-working drivers seemed to fix it.

As far as the GeForce card, it is extremely unlikely that the February patch changed something that specifically interfaces with your card - even less likely that it'd be something which would cause a cold reboot. What's more likely is that there's something defective or that's broken with your video card (these things can and do wear out) - I'd suggest trying to get it exchanged at the store for one of the exact same type and trying again, or downloading one of the heavy-duty graphics-card diagnostics programs out there, which would generate logfiles that an expert might be able to interperet. You seem fixated on the graphics card's interaction with AC being the problem, but given that February did not alter the client's interaction with your graphics card, it appears that other explanations are more likely.

(edited to try and offer what little I know to the two others seeking help)

[Hazmat]

Ive never used live chat and it is down now but does it use Java?

If it does then make sure your vidio card does not have Anisotropic filtering turned on. For some reason, Java stuff does not play well with Anisotropic filtering. The usuall result is inability to open applets or more commonly the applet will only open in 1 of 20 or so tries.

[Hearth Beric]

What brand router are you using?

AC1 requires that your router pass what is known as "loose UDP packets". More and more modern routers see loose UDP packets as a security flaw and thus refuse to pass them. I spend over 3 weeks trying to figure that one out. I must have googled everything under the sun trying to figure it out, then called Turbine and talked to every tech (on my dime) there and they couldn't figure it out, I even called a buddy of mine who has every certification known to man and installs routers for a living. That is when we used his $5000 packet sniffer and figured it out.

We tried everything from opening all ports from 0 to 65535, doing DMZs, etc. No joy.

Bottom line, if you have a good router (like some of the newer Linksys, Cisco, Netscreens, or SonicWalls) you are hosed. You can play every other game out there (because they don't use loose UDP packets) ... even the old Asheron's Call 2 game would work ... but not AC1.

[vvenaya]

I had to put my Main cumputer on DMZ in order to get it to work ...

Everything else failed.

Vvenaya

[SDM]

Televangelist,

Please check your Private Messages on the forums. We will need to take a look at some system logs to determine what exactly is causing this problem.

If anyone is having a hard time connecting to the Live Support please feel free to contact us via Email as well.

http://turbine.fuzeqna.com/asheronscall/consumer/question.asp

Using the above link will allow you to send an Email inqurie to our Asheron's Call support staff.

~SDM

[Lunchbox_VN]

I was in the same spot you were actually, I had tried everything and even sent in the system logs that SDM is referring to, and after checking in to the support phone line about the status of the logs for two weeks and support telling me they were still working through it I just decided to reformat and now I can play fine.

I am pretty jaded towards turbine tech support after that ordeal, but I am able to play now, and I still love AC

[Aquilis]

try opening ports 9000-9050.



open the .ini file in my documents/asheron's call with notepad and you can try different port settings by editing the line for port number.

[Televangelist]

I've tried DMZ, and that hasn't seemed to do it. My router is relatively new; Linksys WRT54G. Ports 9000-9013 are UDP enabled, and I've got it in the INI to specifically use 9001, but I'll try 9000-9050 just in case.

Thanks, SMD - I'll do that PM now.