Help!

Okay, I'm not sure if this is the right board... but still.

I moved house over the weekend, and I can't get SL to work at all on this new computer, I don't know if it's relevant but I can't log into MSN live messenger either.

I'm connected to the internet (obviously) which leads me to think it's clashing with my firewall, but even when I disable it I still can't log in. Anybody have any ideas? It's on the 'allow' list in my firewall settings, I don't know what's going wrong with it!

Thanks in advance for your help!

If you do think it is your firewall, sometimes they like to be buggy, and still not work, even if it is in your allow list. Try uninstalling it, then running SL to see if that is the issue, you can always reinstall the firewall.

Good Luck

I give up. I've tried everything. I can't even figure out what's stopping it from working.

I just can't access it from this computer.

It's kind of annoying that it won't work, I've spent a lot of money on it and it's great to know that I can't even use it anymore! Hoorah!!!

Did you try refreshing the DNS, etc??

Start > Run > type "CMD" (without quotes)

Type (without quotes) IPCONFIG /renew
Then: IPCONFIG /flushdns

See if that helps. Not sure if maybe somewhere your IP Address or DNS is saved for SL & it dont wanna accept the new one.

Its the most I can think of at the moment

And did you try resetting the Router? (if you use one)

Thanks for that. I gave it a go and it still isn't working. You know how sometimes when you try to log on, and you're not connected to the internet you get a totally different picture on the start up screen, with a big SL logo in the centre? I get that every time I open it. It's not even getting started, lol.

Hey River, it's Heather from the club (/me waves!)

Can you give us a bit more information. For example, do you now have a new service provider? If so, who? Is this an entirely new computer, or a different computer than your old one, but used? When you said you turned off the firewall, is that the built-in XP firewall? Do you access the internet through a router, or is your modem plugged directly into your computer? What happens with Messenger when you try and use it?

It sounds to me, you're not getting the live login screen and Messenger is not working, that a protocol or data type is blocked, but more info would be very helpful in trying to diagnose.

Don't give up girl!

Hey giiiirl!

Right, let me see if I can answer your questions. I'm not very technically minded, you see, lol.

This is an entirely different computer. I moved back in with my family over the weekend and I'm no longer using my laptop. This computer is under a different service provider than the one I used before. This computer has two separate firewalls, one is the built in XP one, and the other is a packaged one that's provided by the internet provider. I disabled both of them and it still didn't work. The internet is accessed directly, not through a router.

When I try to log in to MSN, I get the following message:

'Your firewall may be blocking Windows Live Messenger from connecting to the service. Please review your firewall settings.'

I've done this time and time again. Both MSN and SL are on the firewall 'allow' list anyway, but even when I turn both firewalls off I still can't get onto either programme. I tried reinstalling the NTL firewall but it didn't help at all.

Here's the how-to on firewall configuration, hope it helps:

http://secondlife.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=029

I sometimes use my linux notebook to SL at work (shhhh!)
I have a client-side firewall that receives blocklists daily.
At one point, SL stopped working ( I was getting the 'login packet not received' error), and it turned out that the previous update to my firewall added one of SL's networks to the blocklist. These are the networks that need to be open.

Question:
What are Second Life's subnets?
Answer:
Currently, they are:

66.150.244.0/23
69.25.104.0/23
72.5.12.0/22
64.129.40.0/22

Edit 2: I found my problem by checking the logfiles. I'm writing this from the linux 'book I mentioned above, so my path information isn't going to help you, but I'll give it so any other linux users reading this know where to look.

~/.secondlife/logs (under unix/linux a file/folder name beginning with a period is hidden, you may need to turn 'show hidden files' on under KDE's View menu, I don't use Gnome so I dunno).

I have files named debug_info.log, SecondLife.log and stats.log
Maybe they have the same filenames on windows, and you can just search for them.

First thing I would try is plugging your laptop into the modem and seeing if you can connect. This is largely a formality to confirm that the issue is this new computer, not outside of it. If your laptop won't connect to SL, then it's possible that you need some proxy settings from your provider, but that is just a wild guess. In any event, give their support a call.

Are you sure that what you are plugging in to is a simple modem, and not a combo modem/router? It is possible that it is the later and also has a builtin firewall that is blocking the protocol. If you can't deduce that from looking at it post the make and model here.

If that isn't the problem I would say that there has to be something running on your desktop that is blocking. XP (as far as I know...I'm no networking expert) doesn't have anything outside of its security suite that would do that, so there must be something running that is at fault. I would start killing processes and trying to connect after each stop and see what happens but that would be an arduous process and is the last resort in my opinion.

Hey River - nice to see your still alive - havent seen you down at the club lately but now I know where you been. Wish I could help but you may have to re-install SL. See you soon (I hope)!

Hey Steve, I've already reinstalled SL and it makes no difference. I hope to be back soon but I doubt I will be, lol.

I checked the ports that are blocked by the internet provider, and none of them are used by SL. Heather, I'll find out information on the modem tomorrow and I'll give you an update!

Thank you so much for your help.