Time Out Error on 9 of 10 attempts to load a character - PCNA

Galagos1 · January 2017

This has been happening for over a week. I can get logged into ESO up to the point of the character selection screen. When I try to log into any character, after a long load screen the game times out. When I am successful at getting a character to load, when I attempt to switch toons, the same thing occurs again. Please please help. I only have a couple of hours per day to play and it takes me 30 to 45 minutes to successfully log in. Today so far it has been over an hour without success.

Galagos1 · January 2017

Its been over an hour today - no problems logging in but when I load a toon the game times out. I have probably tried to load 10 times. Its not internet. Its not ports - I have them set up in the way that ZOS prescribes. I'm guessing its the DDOS? Still its frustrating.

Vonovosi · January 2017

This has been happening to me since last Monday on PC NA. I can almost always get logged into all my characters but it takes 2 or more attempts. I keep getting logged out and get either an 'error has occurred' or a 'error 303' message after a long load screen and a boot. I have also been getting multiple failed log-in messages when I try to log in to my account, but they are not as bad. There are several other posts from other players on this page who are having the same issue.

Galagos1 · January 2017

This morning I put in an exception for ESO in my antivirus. Only had a couple of times that the game timed out while switching toons. This afternoon I can't get logged into a character, any character, without a time out error.

Galagos1 · January 2017

Hi ZOS, me again. Today I rebooted everything - modem and router. Double checked my router - the ports are still set up and the firewall exceptions are still there. Still having the same problem though. I don't have any problem logging into ESO. When I select a toon I get a load screen for a few minutes and then time out error.

I guess I'll go play Civ VI for a while. I've been enjoying that while ESO won't let me play. I've been thinking about trying Black Desert Online too. I've heard its pretty good. Maybe I'll do that instead.

Elsonso · January 2017

What general part of the world are you located in? You can be as specific as you wish, but don't give a city.

Galagos1 · January 2017

I'm in southwestern Virginia in the US.

Elsonso · January 2017

Galagos1 wrote: »

I'm in southwestern Virginia in the US.

I can connect with no problems from the midwest, and my average latency is normal.

The game is responsive, other characters are smooth, Rawl'kha is busy and not laggy for me (130ms).

One thing that I can think of is whether you regularly run virus and malware scans. For the latter, I mean something like Malware Bytes, not a virus scanner. If you are part of a botnet, whether you know it or not, you may find it hard to connect to certain places on the internet.

You might also want to visit Speedtest.net and run a speed test. Change the host to Softlayer in Dallas. This is a good poor-man's way to see if there is some general network problem between you and the NA megaserver. (If you are going against the EU megaserver, change the host to Softlayer in Frankfurt.)

Galagos1 · January 2017

Once I get a character loaded I also have no connection issues. I'm pretty much lag free in cities and in Haderus. Even in TF I don't get much lag. I have a normal latency - 130 or so. I also have no issues with frame rate.

It is interesting that you bring up the malware issue. I use BitDefender Antivirus and keep it active. There is an exception for ESO set up. I downloaded and ran the Malware Bytes software and no issues were detected there.

I also checked Speedtest.net for Softlayer in Dallas as you suggested and get over 16 Mbps down and 1.8 up. Ping was 67ms.

I appreciate your feedback. I'm thinking it is an issue on the ZOS side but want to rule out anything on my side as well. If you think of anything else let me know.

vonsch · January 2017

I have had the issue getting from the character selection screen into the game also, but it's telling me "unspecified error' not timeout.

As data, I am in the Atlanta metro area. I run AV every night and update sigs right before the scans.

But that's not all. When I do succeed in getting into the game, I can't stay connected for 10 minutes. The drop is instant all the way to the login screen and it matters not whether I am in a menu, doing something like riding around, or idling. If I am doing something such as deconstructing items, I know it's coming because I get a greyed out action line in a menu... or get dropped out of the menu and can't get back in. Within 10-30 seconds I am at the login screen.

So my issues don't SEEM to be timeout issues. They appear to be connections being dropped. That would argue for server-side. I could see this relating to the authentication system, and that changed recently with the Steam changes and problems that had abated for a while are suddenly worse than I have seen.

I'm not seeing any apparent ISP issues on my end. I had a VPN connection to work this morning that was stable and if my ISP were acting up that would have broken. Haven't seen anything beyond the normal issues with videos, etc. either. (I have two computers running side by side, so would notice if both suddenly went into "hang on, not getting data...' mode in at least some cases. Very rarely see that, and in those cases it's clearly been ISP/DNS issues.

This has been a problem on and off for months, but it's worse today than I have ever seen it. Sometimes I go days with only very occasional drops (and some of those probably inactivity, I do idle a lot during working hours.)

I'm somewhere past frustrated. If this continues my attempts to play will drop, and then I will decide continuing my subscription isn't worth it.

For a while using a direct launch of the game .exe and logging in directly seemed to help, but either things have changed, or that was just chance. Now it doesn't appear to matter whether I login via Steam or not.

Obsidian3 · February 2017

This has been happening to me, ever since 1T launched, in the last month it has been real bad, I lose connection every time I try to switch characters. Today it's real bad, took me 7 tries on one toon, and and after 11 tries on another I gave up. I did see a "fix" posted on another one of these threads, it said to shut down pc, then shut down modem, then restart modem, then restart pc. This just allows me to log in the first time, then when I go to switch to another characters, it's "Connection Timed Out" Or I get that "Error Occured, wait a few minutes and log in again". Sometimes I get logged of for inactivity switching zones, that's a fun one. It's ben an hour and half and I still cannot log in. Of course they're are never any replies to these threads, seen a dozen or so in the last month. Also I am in Orange County Ca.

Galagos1 · February 2017

This ended up being an issue with add ones for me. I deleted all of my add ons, reloaded them and restarted only the ones I really needed. No problems since. I haven't found the one that was causing the problems but I suspect that my Master Merchant database was too big. I hadn't reset it since the add on was first published.

robskij · February 2017

I am also having these issues, both on my Mac and on PC. I am based in Stockholm on 500 MBit fibre internet, and have almots no lag and around 65-82 FPS. Has been this way for 4-6 weeks now. Logging in and playing my first character is OK, but as soon as I switch character, the client times out. If I restart the client, all is usually well.

robskij · February 2017

Agree with Galagos1 above, for me I just reinstalled MM addon, thereby cleansing the database, no problem after that..