Login issues on Laptop

[Decrayer]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[Decrayer]

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.

 

[MaxSupernova]

"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.

 

[AEIOU]

+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....

 

[Farling]

The error message seems quite clear. The login is unavailable (it just isn't saying "because we can't contact the server").

 

[Dark Lord Galen]

The error message seems quite clear. The login is unavailable (it just isn't saying "because we can't contact the server").

Not to speak for AEIOU or anyone else... but I think what is being referred is it would be more clear than having an obtuse "login is unavailable" by having an error notice that tells the end user if its an internal Realmworks problem on the users end, a problem with the realm works server (on RW end... like server unavailable), or something external to realmworks altogether, akin to a 404 error that tells the end user the page they have just googled is no longer there.

Now the opposite side of the isle could say at what point would too many varied error "Codes" become cumbersome for the user and for the programmers at RW.....

 

[davidp]

Not to speak for AEIOU or anyone else... but I think what is being referred is it would be more clear than having an obtuse "login is unavailable" by having an error notice that tells the end user if its an internal Realmworks problem on the users end, a problem with the realm works server (on RW end... like server unavailable), or something external to realmworks altogether, akin to a 404 error that tells the end user the page they have just googled is no longer there.

Now the opposite side of the isle could say at what point would too many varied error "Codes" become cumbersome for the user and for the programmers at RW.....

This gets extremely difficult to differentiate. A lot of things can cause communication to not work from machine A to machine B on the Internet. And many of those causes appear to machine A as all the same symptoms. So it would be very difficult in many cases to differentiate between them.

For example, if the client tries to connect to the Realm Works server and gets a 404 error, that could be due to the Realm Works server having a bad configuration. Or it could be due to a proxy server between the client and server returning the error. Or it could be due to DNS pointing to the wrong server so even though the client thinks it is contacting the Realm Works server, it really is talking to some unknown other server.

And if the Realm Works client tries talking to the server but gets back a response that it can't create the connection to the server: This can happen from a misconfiguration of the ISP that causes a routing loop. It could happen due to the Realm Works server being down at that moment. It could happen because of an Internet outage cutting the client off from the server in some hop. It could happen due to DNS spoofing giving the wrong IP address for the Realm Works server.

This all seems simple in concept but becomes very messy and complicated in practice.

And in the grand scheme of things, would you rather have extensive messaging giving nuances of all of the possible causes for errors and trouble-shooting wizards to guide how to resolve common errors or some feature such as content marketplace or calendars or journals?

 

[davidp]

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.

 

[Dark Lord Galen]

.........This all seems simple in concept but becomes very messy and complicated in practice.

And in the grand scheme of things, would you rather have extensive messaging giving nuances of all of the possible causes for errors and trouble-shooting wizards to guide how to resolve common errors or some feature such as content marketplace or calendars or journals?

Agreed.. and the very point I was saying on the "opposite side of the isle". and every users tolerance for what level of error detail would vary. ...

Besides, we all know if the error coding were too forthright and simple guys like David would be outa work. :Snark: :wink:

Its a fine balance not easily achived.. heck Microsoft has been mucking it up since the first edition of windows "Help" which is now in its artform stage! (really how many buttons must one click to determine its no help and then have the audacity to ask me if it was then helpful???)
DLG

 

[AEIOU]

For my part, as much as I'd like to see computerese disambiguated, please move my +1 for this request to after exporting (and printing, and calendaring, and revealgranularitying, and journaling, and marketplacing, and smartmapicondiversificationing, and and and...).

 

[ShadowChemosh]

"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.

 

[MNBlockHead]

Feel free to display all error messages in binary code that can't be copied if it means that you have more time to work on calendars.

Sorry, someone was bound to go there anyway. ;-)

 

[MaxSupernova]

And in the grand scheme of things, would you rather have extensive messaging giving nuances of all of the possible causes for errors and trouble-shooting wizards to guide how to resolve common errors or some feature such as content marketplace or calendars or journals?

No one was asking for all of that, Rob. Writing an error message that is more clear takes ABSOLUTELY ZERO more time than writing one that is vague.

That is a completely false dichotomy that serves no purpose except to belittle a valid suggestion and a user.

 

[davidp]

No one was asking for all of that, Rob. Writing an error message that is more clear takes ABSOLUTELY ZERO more time than writing one that is vague.

That is a completely false dichotomy that serves no purpose except to belittle a valid suggestion and a user.

Please don't blame Rob for my comments. They are all mine.

 

[MaxSupernova]

Please don't blame Rob for my comments. They are all mine.

Of course, my apologies to Rob. I misquoted.

Is that the only response?

 

[rob]

Since I've been (incorrectly) implicated here, I feel the need to chime in...

1. David has been under a LOT of pressure recently, and I'd already gotten on his case about the error messages shortly before this thread arose, so I can only assume that he was feeling a bit edgy about the subject. Given that, please cut him some slack on this one. His response could have been better worded, but I don't think it was as bad as it was characterized here.

2. The error messages are admittedly VERY poor in a variety of places. In places where I've spotted them in the past, I've flagged the issue and we've made improvements. Joe has done the same when he's caught issues. But Joe and I don't see all the various error messages and error handling behaviors, so there are a lot of places where we simply haven't caught the programmer-ese.

3. There is a separate task clearly outlined on our task list to go through and review all error messages and error handling behaviors so that we can address anything that is not going to be helpful to users. Sadly, that task has languished on the list for a long time because we've focused our efforts on other areas where we believe users will derive greater benefit. Given the clamor for everyone's favorite feature, plus the comments above regarding your relative priorities, that task will likely continue to languish for a fair bit longer.

4. Programmers write software. They do it well because their brains work a particular way - one that is very different from the norm. It is arguably quite rare for programmers to also be mindful of the typical user - one developer I know refers to such a combination as a "purple unicorn" (i.e. mythical). Consequently, many aspects of software products are frequently not well handled for the typical consumer. Witness 30 years of products from Microsoft as Exhibit A. So the claim that it takes ZERO extra time to write a clear error message is flawed. If the programmer writes the error messages, then you get a message that makes sense to the PROGRAMMER - which is exactly what we have here. Someone else has to come in and "police" everything to make sure it's all being done optimally for the average user.

5. Policing everything for the typical user takes a significant amount of time, and it's usually done by someone who's not a programmer (since the combination is rare). For a tiny team like we have for Realm Works, there isn't someone else, so the task falls to other members of the development team who are already working their tails off to add further capabilities to the product. They need to stop and review everything, but that doesn't always get done as thoroughly as it could, since a thorough job would further slow down our progress.

Bottom line: We know error handling/reporting could and should be done better, and we've got tasks on our todo list to shore things up. But we're also mindful that most of our users would choose more features over improving the existing error handling/reporting. So it's a no-win situation for us, and we're doing a passable job IMHO, improving things incrementally over time. Is it ideal? Nope. But anything else would be doing a disservice to users, since they'd rather have new features as fast as possible.