Is the lobby down?

[David McCradic]

tons of servers used to show up in the multiplayer lobby, but not anymore. am i doing something wrong?

 

[Jay Ekkel]

thanks Ramon for bringing it to my attention. The lobby was up and running, but it seemed the storage ran out of space, and therefor was unable to list the current servers in the system. All is fixed now.

enjoy racing!

 

[Ramon van Rijn]

De Nada

 

[Chris Sykes]

Hi all,

I see lots have had problems recently with connecting to the game lobby, I haven't played in the last few weeks since installing windows 7, I've tried other games like GTR2 and have no problem getting the lobby list, anyone else got problems ?

 

[gweilo8888]

Yup, I'm absolutely unable to get onto the lobby server, or to view global rankings. I get an error saying the server can't be contacted, and no help or advice from the program whatsoever, not any information on what the failure mode was.

I've spent my entire evening trying to trouble-shoot this, and frankly I'm rather disgusted at the lack of guidance from Simbin. The official Simbin sites suggest firewalls to be the problem, but don't provide any information on which executables have to be given access through them. I've added the two executables I see running in task manager during a game, with full access to the internet.

I did after *much* digging find one further FAQ page (not for the most recent Race On, but for STCC) stating that I needed UDP ports 26900 to 26907 and TCP/UDP 48942 to 48957 open. I've done both, to no avail.

Frankly, I'm amazed that Simbin's sites don't clearly state for each game the requirements in terms of ports, firewall, etc. I'm left after numerous hours of trying with not even the slightest idea where the problem lies, and that hardly makes me likely to want to spend my money with Simbin in future after having purchased Race 07, Race on, GTR Evolution and STCC several weeks ago and now finding myself completely unable to use any online features.

 

[Tim McIver]

The lobby is currently down...

 

[David Guehennec]

The lobby is currently down...

anyone have more information about this problem?

 

[Warren Dawes]

Yes, the lobby seems to be down for now. Let's hope it is just a temporary problem.

 

[Piotrek Blaszczak]

Warren i hope so.Same problem here.Cannot conect to the lobby.

 

[Stirb Iuliu]

The lobby is down for me.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

I have forwarded the problem to the correct person (i hope). Lets see if it gets up again soon

Those modern lobbies nowadays think that they can have a rest in the weekend: no way

 

[Johnny Carr]

can a person host a race and have his/her friends join via ip address?

 

[Stuart Hendry]

I get the same, No response from lobby server :frown:

hope it fixed soon especially for the FP guys who have a league race at abu-dhabi tonight :eek:

 

[Jonathan Gould]

lobby down for me right now too

 

[Rogga_M3]

Is there any time estimate to when the lobby might be up again?

 

[Eric. K]

can a person host a race and have his/her friends join via ip address?

Not in this game

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Is there any time estimate to when the lobby might be up again?

So far i havent heard anything yet.

 

[Marco Boemi]

Lobby still down...

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Yes, just checked and still down unfortunately. Contact the right persons but still no response. Lets hope that there is somebody to fix this even when its weekend for them also.

Lobby needs to be up as saturday night is prime time gaming night!

 

[gweilo8888]

Thanks for the confirmation, guys. While no less dissapointing, it's good to know the problem likely isn't on my end...

Gotta say though, this really needs more work from Simbin. They shouldn't be relying on users to point out that paid-for features aren't working, particularly ones that seem to fail with regularity and for lengthy periods of time. Speaking as somebody with near on two decades experience in network management and internet consulting (albeit no programming expreience, but I'm well aware of what's possible), this should be scripted on their end. It's not particularly difficult to set up a script to query the server on a regular basis, either simply checking for appropriate responses that confirm the server to be operational, or even fully simulating a short game.

Equally, if the lobby server's down, Simbin really ought to have either a fallback server configured, or at the very least a public notice (preferably viewed through the game itself, and clearly shown on the game's websites also) that the server is down, along with status updates on when the problem is to be resolved.

The current system relying on users to loudly shout "There's a problem", and then cross their fingers and hope - that smacks of amateur hour, not a professionally coded game in a highly competitive market with numerous reliable and well-reviewed competitors.

 

[David McCradic]

Looks like I picked the wrong week to start playing online! hehe.