Help! "Unable to connect to server"...

Since the new update I have not been able to login.
Everytime I click on my connect button this box comes up that says:

Unable to connect to server
Could not resolve domain name: userserver.agni.lindenlab.com
Please check your network connection

I know my connection is good or I wouldn't be able to access the internet.. right?

So what am I doing wrong or do I need to do?

Could someone PLEASE help me?

Thanks!

Someone please help... I'm soo missing my SL!!

We bumped into a weird one only after ugrading to XP SP2, ignore this if that is not what you are running.

If you are running a residental gateway/router/firewall of modern vintage, XP's firewall is probably redundant and can be disabled. If you plug your computer directly into your cable/DSL modem, you do not have a gateway, so stop here.

If you do have a gateway/firewall box and are reasonably sure it's firewall is enabled, go into XP's control panel and disable the Windows Firewall. Then you should immediately surf to https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 which is a free "white hat" firewall tester of good repute. Run their "service ports probe" and if you don't get all green (and maybe 1 blue) or don't understand what it is telling you, turn your windows firewall back on and stop here.

If you have gotten this far, go back to the windows control panel, pick "add or remove programs", click the add or remove windows compoents" and open the "networking services" checkbox and unselect "Internet Gateway Device Discovery and Control Client" and press OK. Your machine may force you to reboot after that.

I have been unable to figure out what that IGDDCC is intended to do and was really botching up DNS queries on one of our machines and kept reinstalling itself even though it had no reason to.

If most of this post made no sense at all to you, please do yourself a favor and get someone who does understand it a little better. I'd hate to have made you make your machine a victim whilst trying to help. Good luck.

Well I did everything you told me to do and I restarted and tryed to login and now it says this:

Unable to find the server domain name
This could be the resolt of a lots network connection
or a server problem
Please try again in a few minutes, or click help
for advice yahta yahta...

So now what do I do?

Thanks for the attempt to fix my problem eventhough it still is a problem!

This might sound weird, but whenever I have gotten that message I retype in my name and password instead of leaving them saved and it seems to work. Hope it works

Usually after an upgrade I get the Norton Antivirus popup that asks me if I want to allow this program toconnect to the Internet. There is a drop down and I select PERMIT ALWAYS.

However, sometimes the box does not show up for some reason and I have to keep restarting SL until it comes up.

Are you running Norton? If so, this may be what's causing this...at least that's what it sounds like because until you allow it to access the Internet, it will not connect to the server.

There should be a manual way of permitting the program to access the Internet. I'll go run and look it up for ya...

OK, found it:
http://www.activeworlds.com/help/firewall_norton.html

This particular help article was written for ActiveWorlds it appears, but if you are having this issue and have Norton, then it should help you to get connected hopefully.

Hope this helps.
Mad

Zone alarm will also do the same if you are running that as a firewall.

Normaly a pop up wil appear after any change in the executable for any software attempting to access the internet.

Select always allow radio button and then OK/Apply.

In the case of SL, that happens twice for each update. 2 types of net connections each need their own permissions set.

I do have norton and I've made sure that it permits SL and I looked at the link you gave me and it says it needs aworld.exe permited through norton and if it wasn't already on that list then to add it.. well I went to add it on and it says that aworld.exe file not found.
So if I don't have that .. then there is something missing from my download then ... right?

I'm sorry I forgot to thank you for the help thus far!

Its still not letting me log in though... and I still can't find the aworld.exe.. and I've done a search on it..

so is there anything else I can do or am I doomed to never play SL again?? *crys*

Assuming that you have a hardware firewall per my instructions in post #3, do yourself a favor and uninstall Norton AV unless you frequently download programs from sources unknown. If you have a working hardware firewall, Norton AV protects you from very little.

If you choose this course, and can don't need to use Microsoft Internet Explorer, use Firefox instead. Similarly if you can avoid using Outlook/Outlook Express, I recommend you do so. In my experience, those two programs are responsible for the overwhelming majority of the malware that causes people to want or need Norton AV anyway.

Read her message again.



You're not finding aworlds.exe because you're not a member of ActiveWorlds. Substitute "secondlife.exe" for "aworlds.exe" and try again.

P2