FIX (For some of you..)"An unknown error has occurred" A problem for many college students..
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• PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – April 7, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
• ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – April 7, 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC) - 6:00PM EDT (22:00 UTC)
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I'd say it kind of is their fault if every other mmo/online based game I want to play works other than this one.Although I'm sure ZOS would prefer for this to be fixed, it's not their fault or problem really. If your school network won't allow the ports it's of your school. I know most schools in the area around here don't allow ports for known high bandwidth games, Netflix etc.
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billyu5✭Question is i'm considering if this even a port issue. My college internet holds up games like WoW with no problem. I even use Netflix at the same time and no problems. Download speeds are comparable to my home connection. The only game i'm having problems with is Elder Scrolls. Luckily this weekend just happens to be the week I go back home. If it's not working their it may be something completely different.1
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Sakiri✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭You are confusing actively blocking ports (which can be done to prevent bittorrent from working) and being required to open ports, which is only a requirement if the service is losing the requester identifier somewhere along the line.
By default, everything should be blocked from the world to the internal network. The firewall is intended to be smart enough to allow through packets that are sent in response to a request originating from the trusted network.
In my case, I run a Netscreen 25 firewall (which is massively overkill for a home network). I have never had to open any ports for any game, torrent or other service to work. It is simply a bad practice as it is poking holes (small ones admittedly) in the security the firewall provides.
The crazy part is that they are not asking for port forwarding, which is again indicative that they are simply stripping out part of the identifier from the return packets under some conditions. So the firewall still knows which internal IP address requested the data, but the "key" so to speak is missing.
(trying to avoid tech speak terminology)
Just blue skying here, but I suspect the problem is caused when a users session gets handed off to another server (due to too many players in an area) so that the pack response hits the users firewall from a different source address then the firewall was expecting. So the user sends data to server (a) and gets a response from server (b) and doesn't know what to do with it because it doesn't match what was expected.
There's a reason they won't open them and I'm telling you what it is.
They refuse to open them for one reason and one reason only.
They don't want you doing what they consider inappropriate activity on the network.
Hard to say, no one has tried a server system like this that I am aware of... frankly the situation is even worse for home users then colleges. Many if not most ISPs give users a locked down router/firewall that they can't make changes to. Again this is not about unblocking ports, but about opening them through the firewall.
Think of it like connecting from work.
They don't want you watching Netflix at work.
They don't want you torrenting or playing games at school.
The incident I referred to wasn't a "they won't open them", but an actual block.
State university doesn't want students using the internet for anything but study.0 -
Kujako✭eq2imora_ESO wrote: »There's a reason they won't open them and I'm telling you what it is.
They refuse to open them for one reason and one reason only.
They don't want you doing what they consider inappropriate activity on the network.
The "they" in my case, is me. And again you are confusing blocking ports to prevent activities and requiring that they be open. The former is what work, schools etc do, the later should not be necessary for a game.
I guess I could enable logging for a bit to try and build a list of server IP addresses. That would make me feel better about opening the ports, if I could limit the source IP addresses to just ESO. Still bloody stupid.Edited by Kujako on April 3, 2014 4:21AM0 -
So this thread lead me to realize what the problem is with my local network. This might very well be similar to what university networks have. My home has two WAN connections and I have a load balancing router. So if I connect to a new server, it's possible my external IP changes. This is likely what confuses ESO servers.
To solve my problem, since I own the configuration, I made connections to 198.20.200.0/24 (which appears to be the server IP range) only use one connection except for failover.
If you're behind a university network, it's unlikely you'll be able to change it.0 -
Sakiri✭✭✭✭✭
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The "they" in my case, is me. And again you are confusing blocking ports to prevent activities and requiring that they be open. The former is what work, schools etc do, the later should not be necessary for a game.
I guess I could enable logging for a bit to try and build a list of server IP addresses. That would make me feel better about opening the ports, if I could limit the source IP addresses to just ESO. Still bloody stupid.
And you again, are failing to understand that they have them blocked, closed, holed up in a foxhole somewhere, and "need" them open or not, they will not be open.
The fact is, if you can't connect on those ports it's because the uni techs have them blocked, not because they're closed.0 -
Ah but if you can't connect you can't connect. This is more people that can connect but get kicked off when zoning, at least that was my issue. If the ports are closed you won't be able to play at all.
The original solution is misleading since you wouldn't be able to play at all if the ports were in fact closed.
Just to be 100% clear - my fix (turning of load balancing for ESO) fixed the issue entirely. I no longer have any issues connecting or zoning.Edited by neotron+esoub17_ESO on April 3, 2014 6:09AM1 -
neotron+esoub17_ESO wrote: »Ah but if you can't connect you can't connect. This is more people that can connect but get kicked off when zoning, at least that was my issue. If the ports are closed you won't be able to play at all.
The original solution is misleading since you wouldn't be able to play at all if the ports were in fact closed.
Just to be 100% clear - my fix (turning of load balancing for ESO) fixed the issue entirely. I no longer have any issues connecting or zoning.
How exactly do you "Turn off load balancing"?
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For someone at a college, you don't unfortunately. I do it because it's my own personal network/router (I assume you don't really want specifics relative to my router, but alas).
It's an issue ESO has to resolve since a majority of people affected have no way to fix it (other than possibly creating some sort of tunnel with a stable endpoint but that's crazy).0 -
Kujako✭
That is a solution specific to his setup where he was using multiple WiFi connections to aggregate a single faster one (correct me if I misunderstood).Kwoolley91 wrote: »How exactly do you "Turn off load balancing"?
Which again lends credibility to my theory that the problem is with the instancing server hand-offs.
@eq2imora_ESO, if the ports are being blocked you would simply be unable to play. The issue we are discussing is when you CAN play, but get disconnected frequently.0 -
@eq2imora_ESO, if the ports are being blocked you would simply be unable to play. The issue we are discussing is when you CAN play, but get disconnected frequently.
This is exactly my issue as well. I can connect, play in an entire zone without disconnecting, but as soon as I have to leave the zone. Forever loadscreen followed by a kick to login.
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Kujako✭Kwoolley91 wrote: »This is exactly my issue as well. I can connect, play in an entire zone without disconnecting, but as soon as I have to leave the zone. Forever loadscreen followed by a kick to login.
Which is why I suspect it is an issue with the instance server hand off. To reiterate my drunken theory, this happens when the client gets a response from a server other then the one it sent a request to, causing the firewall to block the transaction. Which is why opening the ports is a "solution". However, that lets anyone anywhere in the world through the firewall via the same ports. I will grant that this is not a likely problem, but off the top of my head it could be used by a third party to send data to the ESO client causing it to connect to a fake server with the goal of collecting your login information. If we could come up with a list of the ESO server IP addresses, we could create a more limited firewall rule that only let those specific IP addresses through. It's still a risk since IP addresses can be falsified, but it's "better".0 -
billyu5✭
Exactly this. WoW and GW2 work fine on college connections. So does Netflix. Elder Scrolls is the only game i'm having a problem with. When the early access began I was able to get through the first loading screen everytime and get to character creation but couldn't create a character. Finally created a character nearly 4 hours later but 20 minutes before class so I had to go. Now I can't get past the first loading screen which makes no sense. Just keep getting unknown error.Kwoolley91 wrote: »I'd say it kind of is their fault if every other mmo/online based game I want to play works other than this one.
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Vargtask✭✭Doubt it got anything with school network blocking ports, alot of us try to play from our regular networks at home and get the same problems. Nothing on our side seems to solve it and they closed the thread about it pending a solution. Unknown Error is the ***...0 -
Darzil✭✭✭
Which is why I suspect it is an issue with the instance server hand off. To reiterate my drunken theory, this happens when the client gets a response from a server other then the one it sent a request to, causing the firewall to block the transaction. Which is why opening the ports is a "solution". However, that lets anyone anywhere in the world through the firewall via the same ports. I will grant that this is not a likely problem, but off the top of my head it could be used by a third party to send data to the ESO client causing it to connect to a fake server with the goal of collecting your login information. If we could come up with a list of the ESO server IP addresses, we could create a more limited firewall rule that only let those specific IP addresses through. It's still a risk since IP addresses can be falsified, but it's "better".
Can probably test it by running netstat -b as administrator (if on Windows) seeing which server you are connecting to. Do this when it's working, and when you zone, and see if it changes.
I think they could get around the issues on many consumer firewalls, if they are doing this, by using universal plug and play, which when the application fires up reconfigures the firewall for that session (if supported on the firewall). It's used by many services and games (eg Xbox, Skype).0 -
Kujako✭Can probably test it by running netstat -b as administrator (if on Windows) seeing which server you are connecting to. Do this when it's working, and when you zone, and see if it changes.
I think they could get around the issues on many consumer firewalls, if they are doing this, by using universal plug and play, which when the application fires up reconfigures the firewall for that session (if supported on the firewall). It's used by many services and games (eg Xbox, Skype).
I was thinking of just turning on logging on my firewall to see what talks over the specified ports, and UPnP doesn't really apply to the vast majority of hardware firewalls.0 -
Lioben✭The devs should answer to that. The thread is extremly valuable because it really does make a point. I can't even use my college Internet, because it has one static IP which is the same for all Computers, therefore i use a Mobile Broadband device to play. Unfortunately it has no static IP which causes a lot of problem.1
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Darzil✭✭✭
Almost all firewalls give only one static IP to the internet, and use some form of NAT to route traffic arriving at that IP based on traffic out from it. It's the case for most homes where there are more than one PC.The devs should answer to that. The thread is extremly valuable because it really does make a point. I can't even use my college Internet, because it has one static IP which is the same for all Computers, therefore i use a Mobile Broadband device to play. Unfortunately it has no static IP which causes a lot of problem.
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Lioben✭Almost all firewalls give only one static IP to the internet, and use some form of NAT to route traffic arriving at that IP based on traffic out from it. It's the case for most homes where there are more than one PC.
Yeah sorry i wrote something wrong. The problem was that the entire network of my university + colleges runs probably over a proxy that allows only HTTP (websites) or that the router filters online games. I can't even go in to Team Speak with that System.0 -
Tempiis✭trying to open the ports but i get an error message that says duplication error. any suggestions ?0
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Kujako✭trying to open the ports but i get an error message that says duplication error. any suggestions ?
Are you trying to open them in the Microsoft firewall or a hardware firewall/router? If the former, they where automatically opened by the ESO client. If the later, the method and potential error messages will depend on the make and model of the hardware. And for the record, it is only the later (external firewall/router) that is an issue.0 -
Lioben✭just got in for a few minutes but kicked out again and further got the message that there is a downtime soon which lasts 3 to 4 hours... nice that i could play half an hour on my free day...0
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Frough✭✭✭If a university admin has seriously closed outbound ports, there's no way that they're going to magically open ~400 TCP and ~400 UDP ports. Most of the time, outbound ports are already open, so this "fix" doesn't really address any issues.0
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Kujako✭If a university admin has seriously closed outbound ports, there's no way that they're going to magically open ~400 TCP and ~400 UDP ports. Most of the time, outbound ports are already open, so this "fix" doesn't really address any issues.
The issue here is that even of the ports are NOT actively blocked and even if you are on a home network, ESO wants those ports explicitly opened in some cases and under some conditions. Which is simply an unreasonable requirement that I can not see many people putting up with.Edited by Kujako on April 3, 2014 6:08PM0 -
billyu5✭Ah well game servers are now done and early access is over. 10 mintues of play time for my early access this is just sad. If they don't fix this by the end of the free month we get i'm not going to continue and absolutely never recommend this game ever. You think they'd be more concerned fixing the game when people can't even get on instead of fixing quest bugs but they aren't.0
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Kujako✭Just a heads up, they are asking for IP address and times from people suffering from this issue.
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/65328/unknown-error-received-upon-disconnecting#latest0 -
billyu5✭Ah good to see hopefully they mean the same thing as I do. I really do want to enjoy the game but can't enjoy it if I can't play.0