Login issues on Laptop

Decrayer · October 4th, 2015, 12:27 AM

Hi,

Today I have a game session and yesterday I noticed a strange behaviour. I updated my desktop client twice and yesterday I also updated my laptop RW client to 1.0.1040.200.

On my desktop, the login and sync works just fine. But on my laptop, on the login screen of realm works, it shows me the "Login Unavailable" warning and the password part is greyed out.

Luckily, I was able to use the backup function together with dropbox to sync my laptop for now. But I wanted to report that error.

Lexin · October 4th, 2015, 03:17 AM

I get that from time to time. Closing the program and restarting it ususally sorts it out. I don't know what casuses it.

rob · October 4th, 2015, 03:42 AM

If you get "Login Unavailable", it means that an error of some sort occurred when attempting to contact the server at launch. I'm not sure why you'd get such an error if your internet connection is working correctly. Is it possible that you launched prior to enabling the wireless on your laptop? Or while the wireless was still in the process of establishing its connection to the outside world?

That's the most likely thing I can think of. I have it happen occasionally on MY laptop, and those explanations have always been the reason for me.

As @Lexin pointed out, you'll need to restart for Realm Works to re-establish contact with the server properly at launch.

Hope this helps!

MaxSupernova · October 4th, 2015, 07:35 AM

Quote:

If you get "Login Unavailable", it means that an error of some sort occurred when attempting to contact the server at launch.
[...]
Is it possible that you launched prior to enabling the wireless on your laptop? Or while the wireless was still in the process of establishing its connection to the outside world?
[...]
You'll need to restart for Realm Works to re-establish contact with the server properly at launch.

That'd be a great thing to have as the actual error message rather than "login unavailable".

Just sayin'...

davidp · October 4th, 2015, 08:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaxSupernova

That'd be a great thing to have as the actual error message rather than "login unavailable".

Just sayin'...

"Login unavailable" comes from one cause only: Realm Works was unable to properly contact the server when starting up.

Please check that you don't have any firewall preventing communication from Realm Works to our server. You can also check connectivity from your computer to our servers by going to this URL from a web browser:

https://service.realmworks.net/Basic_Service.svc

It should show a page that starts out with "Service" followed by "This is a Windows© Communication Foundation service." If you don't get a page that has that text first, it indicates some sort of routing problem between your computer and our servers. It would probably be best to contact your ISP fur further assistance as it could be a misconfiguration on their end causing problems (we have seen issues where ISP's have routing errors preventing access to our servers for some reason).

Thanks,

David

MaxSupernova · 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidp

"Login unavailable" comes from one cause only: Realm Works was unable to properly contact the server when starting up.

Please check that you don't have any firewall preventing communication from Realm Works to our server. You can also check connectivity from your computer to our servers by going to this URL from a web browser:

https://service.realmworks.net/Basic_Service.svc

It should show a page that starts out with "Service" followed by "This is a Windows© Communication Foundation service." If you don't get a page that has that text first, it indicates some sort of routing problem between your computer and our servers. It would probably be best to contact your ISP fur further assistance as it could be a misconfiguration on their end causing problems (we have seen issues where ISP's have routing errors preventing access to our servers for some reason).

Thanks,

David

I'm not sure I made my point clear. I wasn't asking for more information on the topic.

If there is a couple-of-sentence-long plain english easy description of what the actual problem is, why isn't that in the actual error message provided to users, rather than a vague "connection error" type message?

Users shouldn't have to search the forums to find the meaning of a basic error message with one cause and a simple set of tests to resolve it. Those should be available to the user when the message pops up.

How many support requests could be avoided if the error message clearly described the issue and laid out a few possible solutions?

The best kind of support is the kind you write once and never have to write again because users find it right at problem time.

ShadowChemosh · October 5th, 2015, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidp

"Login unavailable" comes from one cause only: Realm Works was unable to properly contact the server when starting up.

Thanks,

David

Just to toss out a small thing but if "Login Unavailable" means can't connect to the RW server. Maybe just have an error message say "Can't connect to RW Server". You are correct we don't need details as its too many. But "Login Unavailable" does not really get across the idea that a connection issue was the problem.

I think that is all that is being asked for to let the end user have at least a "basic" idea of the problem. Then they could check network connections, firewalls, antivirus software, and making sure they have the wifi turned on.

Decrayer · 12:14 AM

Ok, so now today all of a sudden it works again.

But on Sunday, I tried the follwing:

Checking internet connection - Dropbox did sync and I was able to browse on the internet, so that was not the problem.

Closed and reopened a couple of times - no change

Reinstalled RW - no change.

Yea, but anyway, now it's working again. Don't really know why, I changed nothing on my laptop.

davidp · October 5th, 2015, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Decrayer

Ok, so now today all of a sudden it works again.

But on Sunday, I tried the follwing:

Checking internet connection - Dropbox did synch and I was able to browse on the internet, so that was not the problem.

Closed and reopened a couple of times - no change

Reinstalled RW - no change.

Yea, but anyway, now it's working again. Don't really know why, I changed nothing on my laptop.

Due to a support case opened over the weekend, there appeared to be a problem that affects some client computers (but not all) and so we had made a change on the server that provided a work-around for those client computers. Most likely, your computer was one of the ones that was affected. It is unknown at this time what the specific cause on the client machines was that was triggering this but we are still investigating.

AEIOU · October 5th, 2015, 07:49 AM

+1 MaxSupernova -- The only way to make there error message more less useful would be to assign it a number or code instead.

It may not seem like much to create plain text error messages, but it's a huge thing for end users. Like doctor's washing their hands before interacting with patients, this should just be common sense programming. But it's not....

Lexin Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: Gwynedd, Wales, UK Posts: 238 October 4th, 2015, 03:17 AM	I get that from time to time. Closing the program and restarting it ususally sorts it out. I don't know what casuses it. -- Lexin GM from Gwynedd, Wales - seriously old school - playing RPGs since 1980! Tools: Realm Works, HeroLab, Campaign Cartographer 3+
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AEIOU Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2012 Posts: 1,147 October 5th, 2015, 07:49 AM	+1 MaxSupernova -- The only way to make there error message more less useful would be to assign it a number or code instead. It may not seem like much to create plain text error messages, but it's a huge thing for end users. Like doctor's washing their hands before interacting with patients, this should just be common sense programming. But it's not....
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