Log in Problems

[thaxn]

Once again I am having problems connecting, to my knowledge this is not happening to anyone else, but I'll give a brief explanation anyway.
When I attempt to connect from any client or any machine I get a portion of the splash screen and then it just stops.  This happens with every splash screen.  Sometimes I get in with repeated attempts, other times I can spend all day trying to connect and get nowhere.
This happens from my work computer, personal laptop, other computers at work both wired and wireless, and from home.
My suggestion is simple, to alleviate this problem can we place one splash screen into the rotation that is not so much a splash screen but a simple text line such as:
     Welcome to the Kingdoms of the Lost.
I hope that even when I am having difficulty connecting, when I get to the portion of the rotation that has this simple line I will be able to get in.

Thanks for listening, I hope to be able to log on at some point today.

Thaxn

[thaxn]

By the way, here are examples of what I get when I try to log in, regardless of mud client (yes I've even tried Telnet using the Connect now option from the KOTL website).


                          __                    __
          __       __     \_\  __          __   \_\  __   __       __
          \_\     /_/        \/_/         /_/      \/_/   \_\     /_/
        .-.  \.-./  .-.   .-./  .-.   .-./  .-.   .-\   .-.  \.-./  .-.
       //-\\_//-\\_//-\\_//-\\_//-\\_//-\\_// \\_//-\\_//-\\_//-\\_//-\\
     __(   '-'   '-'\  '-'   '-'  /'-'   '-'\__'-'   '-'__/'-'   '-'\__
    /_/))            \__       __/\          \_\       /_/           \_\
 ___\_//              \_\     /_/  \__
/_/  ((                             \_\
      )) __             Kingdoms of the Lost is based on
__   // /_/
\_\_((_/___                  ROM Versio



             _   _
            ( | / )
             \|/                  /'
              |\     . ,_  ,_  _ / _  ,_ _   ,'
            (_| \_)_/_/ (_(_/_(_/_(_)_/ ( (_/_)_
                         _ /__________
                     /\(_/                  IMPLEMENTORS
                 _   |/     _/_ /_  _       Chalgyr Vokel
                (_)_/|     _/__/ (_(/_      Chalgyr@yahoo.com   
                -----|\                     Gillian Verity
                 _   \/                     Herberkids3@yahoo.com
                ( |                         


                 
      b                            ,,,,                    ,d
      8b,                       ,(()(()),               ,ad8P
     d888b,_                   ,(((""""))),           ,d8888b,
     88   `"Ya,_              ,(()<@  @>(()        _a8P"  `888b
     Y8ba,a   `"Ya,_          (()(  ..  ))(      _aP"   ad88888b
     `8888P       `"Ya,_      ())(\ -- /(()    ,aP'       `Y8888
      Y88P'           `""Ya,_ )(())`--'())  ,adP'   ,@,     Y88P
      `Y8'     


                       !_
                       |*'--.,
                       |_.-'`
                       |
                       |
                      /^\
                     /   \
                    /,    \
                   /#"     \
                 _/## _   _ \  _
                [ ]__[ ]_[ ]_\[ ]
             !_ |_=_ =-_-_  = =_|           !_
             |*`--,_- _        |            |*`--.,



                               {@}}
               <>               8@8
             .::::.             888
         @\\/W\/\/W\//@         8@8
          \\/^\/\/^\//     _    )8(    _
           \_O_<>_O_/     (@)__/8@8\__(@)
      ____________________ `-"-=)=-"-`
     |<><><>  |/ |  <><><>|     |.|
     |<>\     | /|     /<>|     |K|
     |<>



               \-,_           .      ,-----.      .           _,-/
            ,   \  --,       /|\    / , | , \    /|\       ,--  /   ,
           _)\   |    `\    ((|))  /  - * -  \  ((|))    /'    |   /(_
          /,  \_,/  \   `\   |M|`-'   ' | `   `-'|M|   /'   /  \,_/  .\
          `-,  ,\    |    \  |M|                 |M|  /    |    /,  ,-'
          |G,/ / ,-, |     | |M|   

[Chalgyr]

Hello again.

Okay, I posted it to the imms - thalia's at work currently.  I don't have a solution myself at this point.  Out of curiosity, do you just connect once, or do you try to connect over and over and over again?

'cause I have had to close out over 100 of your open connections today, so I'm just trying to figure out what's going on.

Thanks,

Chal

[thaxn]

No, I try to connect, fail, try again, fail...and so on. 
Occasionally in the past I have gotten in if I keep trying, and attempting from other machines and with multiple clients requires multiple attempts, and multiple failures.

[Thalia]

Your connection is/was timing out during IP address validation, probably something with how your IP is set-up (since it's not a normal internet service provider like Comcast).  You should be OK for now... as long as your IP address doesn't change.

[thaxn]

Still having the same issue.

[Thalia]

We're not registering timeouts anymore.  Have to take a look at it more when I get home from work.  I'll let you know when I know anything more.

[Thalia]

Thaxn -- What operating system & software do you use?  Any reason to think that your ISP would block or limit access to games?

[thaxn]

Worked perfectly today, both from home and work.
I've had intermittent problems that go away for weeks at a time and then randomly come back, and there should be no reason for any blocking at all, either from home or work (work is a state university and games are certainly not limited or blocked).

[thaxn]

The problem is persisting.  I checked with our network group and they informed me that there is nothing that they know of that should limit telnet in any way.
While I have in the past experienced the problem at home, it now seems to be isolated to the University.
For a Holiday present to me...is there any chance that as part of the changes issued at the festival, one of the splash screens could be replaced or another one added into the rotation that is a simple one line Welcome message?

Thanks again for taking the time to look into this.
Thaxn

[Chalgyr]

Hello - maybe Thalia will correct me on this, but there's nothing in the splash screens themselves that should be giving you problems.  They're just helpfiles.  If you type help greeting2 - you'll see the kalchi one for example.  There's no special code to them at all that should be causing you this problem, especially since no one else is experiencing.  Check our actual address with your network group perhaps?  It shouldn't be happening at all - but it seems to me that the university's routing to the kotl.server might be the issue?  we're hosted at mudmagic.com if that helps them determine this.

[Thalia]

At this point, since you are the only one having this kind of problem and only when you are connecting from University, it's more likely something on the University end than on ours. 

Without a better idea of what is actually causing the problem, it isn't clear to me that changing the login screens will resolve the problem.  For example, if the problem is that the university only allows  streams of 400 characters to be sent & received, then you could be booted out of the game when browsing the boards or fighting in heavy combat.  If the problem is that ASCII artwork on the login screens is tripping some sort of virus protection, then other ASCII art within the game or just heavily colorized text could also trip the virus protection.

Are you using the same computer and same telnet app from work and home?

[thaxn]

I have used both the same computer and a different computer.
I think I've found a work around, I was able to get in today after a bit of playing with it.
As you said, even if I could get it, it should boot me if I were to do something like type help greeting or help greeting2...or for that matter if I type score, but that has never happened.

The only other thing I could come up with, was that the initial telnet packet size might be an issue...it shouldn't be, but denial of service attacks tend to have large packet sizes on odd ports, so when I clicked connect, I immediately hit Enter 3 times so that I was sending small packets at the same time as recieving...basically chunking up and interrupting the receipt of the packet.  This shouldn't have worked, but I got in on my work machine and tested it on my laptop as well (both of which were unable to connect just moments before).

As I said, this certainly shouldn't have worked, but at least I now have some semblance of a work around.

Thaxn