Hi there. Recently started playing UO and have a few days left of the free trial. I intend to start paying for the game in the next few days.

Anyway, I can't seem to log in from the main menu screen. I instantly get the message "Network error, cannot connect, please try again in a few moments". I emailed the EA support team a few days ago and still nothing. I tried reinstalling the game and that worked yesterday, but again today I can't log in. When I started, it worked fine for a few days, and this only just started.

Rather than wait ages for EA to get back in touch I was hoping someone here might have a suggestion.

I'm using vista if that helps at all.

Cheers

Palmer Eldritch

Make sure any firewall you have, either Windows firewall on your computer or a firewall on your router/hub, is allowing UO to talk to the patch server and the login server.

Second, did you install/launch UO while logged in as either the administrator or a user with administrative privileges on your computer?

My firewall is off. And yeah, I only ever log in under one user, which i guess is administrator. I'm not great with computers so you'll have to be patient with me

I appreciate your help

And I have no clue how to check the firewall on the hub. . .

Try this:
Go into whatever folder/directory you have UO installed.

If youre using the newer "3D" Stygian Abyss(also called the Enhanced Client), double-click UOSA.exe

If, after it loads, says 4.0.5.1 in the lower right corner then it's a network problem. If it says 4.0.5.0 then it's a problem with your patcher not allowing you to automatically download the 4.0.5.1 patch that was released a few days ago, which could be a network problem, but could also be other things, but at least this is somewhere to start.

UO will simply not let you connect if you don't have the right version, in this case the 4.0.5.1 version. Like, not at all. They have it set this way so if they fix an exploit or other bug, it forces everyone to have the latest version of the game software to play.

Let me know what it says and we can take it from there.

I got 4.0.5.1

I should maybe also add that every time i start UO up it seems to be downloading the same patch. Download takes a few seconds but installation is instant causing me to doubt that anything actually happened. . .

The patcher is actually just grabbing a file from the patch server to tell it what version it should be at. Sounds like that part is working.

So it sounds like you enter your username and password at the Login screen, hit Login and *then* it gives you the network error message? If so, then we're back to firewall problem. Is this what's happening?

Yeah that is what is happening. I have added uo to the firewall exceptions list, just so you know. (even though firewall is off)

Is your computer connected to a hub/switch/router which connects to your cable or DSL modem, or is your computer connected directly to the cable or DSL modem?