Yet another server connection issue

[pete1404]

Ok, so... I swear I searched for pages and pages reading every thread that seemed to be about this issue. I, however, seem to have a twist.

My EQEmulator works!

Sometimes.

Here's what happened.

Last night, I installed EQ Titanium from my old CD's. Followed all of the instructions on the EQEmulator website, yada yada. Finally it's time to log in and play! I chose a server (SoA) and created a character. Wow! Looks just like Live! I logged in for a few minutes before leaving to go do something else. I came back later to find that, after logging in and selecting a server and hitting the "Play Everquest!" button, the game crashes and kicks me back to the login screen. I explored these forums looking for advice. I turned off my antivirus, first. Boom! It worked. I played for an hour or so last night. Today, I try to log in again... same issue. Kicks me back to the login screen. If I try to log in after getting kicked, it gives me the error:

"Error 1017: Cannot login to the Everquest server. You may need to re-run the Update Patch. Repeatedly seeing this message indicates a loss of connectivity to the Patch Server. This is usually temporary."

Again, I search the forums. I read something about firewalls, so I switch that off. Boom! It worked. Played for another little while. Now... it's tonight. I logged in to try to get some levels and explore some more, only to get booted while zoning. No big deal, I thought. However, when I tried to log in after getting kicked, guess what happened? Same error.

I can't keep turning off more and more things! Or is there one thing I'm not turning off? What really irks me is that it was working! Not even an hour ago it was working just fine.

Please help!

[blackdragonsdg]

Don't turn off your programs as those may not be the problem. As a troubleshooting method turn all your programs back on then try to play on a few other servers just to see if the connection problems persist. If the problem continues on other servers then it is a safe assumption the problem is on your end but if the problem is nonexistant on other servers then the problem is not on your end.

[pete1404]

Sure enough, this time, it worked. I tried to log in to a different server, and it worked. Tried my server, then it worked. I'm nervous about next time, though. I had friends that were logged in while I was trying to get in... could it still be a server issue?

[blackdragonsdg]

If you can connect and play on multiple public servers with no issues but you still get issues on one specific public server then yes it is possible that the problem is on that server. The problem could also be somewhere in between your computer and that server, like a failing router on the internet which is causing severe packet loss. You might try talking to others on the server where you are having connections issues just to see if it is happening to other people. Outside of talking to people about the problem there probably isn't much you can do except give it some time and see if it problem clears up on its own.

If you are having connection issues to your own server then it is likely a configuration problem, this is especially true if the server is local.

[Corysia]

In order to get my server working, I had to open up ports 5998 and 9000 in my firewall. I opened them for both UDP and TCP -- not sure if I needed to do both or just UDP.

[pete1404]

Well, I'm again locked out, even though I was able to play with no problem last night.

I share a router with a few other people, but the amount of activity on the router seems to not make a difference. (That I've noticed.) I haven't gone in and opened any ports or gave it any exceptions or anything like that, and I've been able to successfully get on the server and play before. I have a gut feeling that my router is the issue, so I may try to remove that from the equation tomorrow or something. Any other ideas? Why do so many people seem to have connection issues??