Okay, so I bought the Trilogy a couple months ago for PC, played through 1 and 2 with no issues beyond needing to make a small change to some files in 2 to allow importing the character.
But for some reason I'm having this issue connecting to the servers with 3. I bought the DLC's before I started with each game as well, so when I installed 2, the DLC pack came with it, so I did the same with 3 and its DLC pack.
2 it still connects just fine, even if it is the 'Cerberus Network', I assume that's just a fancy ingame way of saying EA servers or whatever to make sure the DLC can be played and whatnot. But 3 is not connecting at all.
I have looked all over these forums and various other places for solutions, but none of them have worked. This includes:
I also don't have any mods (I'm just starting the game) but I downloaded the thing linked in post #10 anyway and applied it, still nothing.
This is turning into a massive hurdle to jump just to play the game, and I'm considerably annoyed that my options for Customer Support (in Australia) are to either consult these forums, or call them on a number at times I'm barely available at. Why is email support not a thing?
Is there anything else I can try?
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Edit: The next day.
I've made time to call them. After telling the first guy about everything I've done to try and fix it, he suggested I repair the game again and during which he'd told me that I already had access to the servers, but he'll give me even more access (how the hell does that work?) to see if that connects. And then he seemed pretty damn quick to get rid of me because he didn't wanna wait another 30 seconds for the games repair to finalize so I could test it again, but told me if the issue persists, to call back.
Big surprise, the same issue persists.
I call back with my case number, get a completely different person who seemed to have trouble understanding what I'm telling her, which is really odd since majority of what I said was repeating back to her what I said.
This person gave me several troubleshooting options, like deleting the origin cache, turning Origin to offline mode to see if the game loads the DLC (it doesn't), running PC in safe mode with networking and starting the game, creating an administrator account for windows (even though the one I use already is).
My case is still open apparently, but I honestly cannot be bothered to call them back a third time right now, I might try again later. But this is some pretty shoddy work. I'm beginning to suspect there isn't actually any solution to the problem and people have just been forced to wait for one random magical day it does work.
So either I have to wait for that magical day myself, or I've blown $40 and am not getting the thing I paid for. And to my understanding, DLC's are not refundable.
Do you use special character in your user name or the email address.
Did you opened the ports in your router as described in post 10 as well?
Do you have a second copy of ME3 in your game library? (From Origin access or from a previous purchase)
@holger1405
1) No.
2) The router I never attempted because I know nothing about that, but I gave it a go anyway. Main problem was it was set up by the company that issued it, so it was all automatic and I assumed I wouldn't be able to make changes. Fortunately, I noticed that the port was already opened. Not sure how, why or when that happened, but the numbers matched up entirely, and the description for it even says 'EA' in it, so...
3) Yes, and both copies of it do the same thing. I've made sure to try both any time I did anything different.
IIBrowneeII wrote:
3) Yes, and both copies of it do the same thing. I've made sure to try both any time I did anything different.
So both copies are installed? To different locations of your hard drive?
Or did you installed the Trilogy version over the existing version?
If you're not sure:
If that don't helps, contact support again and make sure they understand that there are two copies of ME3 registered to your account.
There is a good chance that this is a entitlement problem at the account. So let support have a good look at that.
If you have no success there, please let us know.
Once again called back. This time the guy did pick my case up immediately and understood whats happening. He kept me on hold for a few minutes while he contacted whoever.
Supposedly he came back and said my account is lacking certain permissions and such (sounds like the same thing the guy from the first time I called in said) and that he's fixing my account for it now. But in order for them to take proper effect, I have to uninstall ME3 and Origin entirely from my computer, then reinstall them again and it should all work from there.
So I did that. Uninstalled and reinstalled for the 6th time in the last week (an act that is getting real old), and I started up the game again.
Still nothing. Exact same issue happens, won't connect to EA servers, won't authorize the DLC.
This time I had the thought to ask if I should call back if it still doesn't work, he said I should gather dxdiag and msinfo if it doesn't and send it to them so they can work directly from there. So I did that and... then I remembered I'm Australian, and my only options of getting contact with them is phone. Because screw me and my email ability apparently. So APPARENTLY I'll just have to call them back a 5th time...
I asked about the second ME3 in my games list, apparently that should have nothing to do with the issue.
Personally I think he just glossed over it way too fast to even consider it, but what do I know.
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Edit: 5th callback.
Having exhausted every option I've found on these forums, and informing this once again new person on the phone that I've done everything he's asking if I'd done, troubleshooting or otherwise, I've been asked to provide 'dxdiag' and 'msinfo', as well as two 'uotrace' and screenshots of the alerts that come up when I start the game.
He immediately saw in the uotrace that my connection eventually goes to an 'Unknown Host' for five jumps, where the ping suddenly jumps to 230+ms, before it eventually gets to EA. Supposedly it shouldn't be over 100ms, but I don't see that being an issue cause, again, I connect to Mass Effect 2's servers perfectly fine.
Either way, supposedly they're going to have people look at this issue, but they may not be able to come up with anything unless I can contact my internet provider to learn what the Unknown Hosts are and also maybe refresh the ports... or whatever. It was a lot of techno talk I don't understand, and honestly don't think I'd be able to explain to whoever answers the call from my provider.
Really startin' to feel like I'm just not gonna get it and lost the $40 I paid for the bundle.
So, to humour the idea presented to me that it could be my connection, I experimented.
I installed it on another computer in my house, that computer has a VPN installed in it. So I downloaded Origin, downloaded the game, ran it with the VPN active... No change.
So to take that a step further, I decided to download it on an old Laptop I have. Not the best machine out there, but slow as it is to perform, it can run the game. Then I took the laptop to work, which is an hours drive away, and connected it to their network which is not the same providers as I have at home and I tried settling the issue while on my break.
An entirely different machine, an entirely different network... Exact same issue.
So I feel pretty confident in that proving my connection isn't to blame.
That also has me run out of options pretty much entirely, I have tried everything I've seen on these forums and tried every bit of trouble shooting they've offered me over the phone to a point of them even looking at these forums.
Hi @IIBrowneeII
I contacted the CMs on this board, but I am not sure if they are able to help you. Only support can change settings at your account.
@holger1405Yeah, well... I'll call them back at some point, I'm a little burned out on that for now.
But I did have an interesting development. I was banging my head against the wall on it last night again and... I don't know what my thought process was, but I turned off my internet entirely and started the game. For some reason that somehow turned on at least two of the DLC's. Specifically From Ashes and the Alternate Appearance Pack.
I turned the internet back on, the game fails to connect, that somehow turns them off again.
So I turned Origin to offline mode, that brings those two back. I stayed in game and turned Origin back online, went back to the main menu, tried connecting, nothing, turned it off again, reloaded the save, somehow that turned ALL the DLC's on. Or I think it did anyway, I haven't progressed far enough to see if Leviathan/Omega/Citadel are active, but even so, that's a hell of a lot more than I had.
So I saved the game there with all those DLC's on, reloaded an earlier one that I had, and for some reason only the Ashes and Appearance DLC's were active again. Reload the new file, all of them.
Somehow I got to this weird stage where I have two separate save files in the same career, and one of them has all the DLC active. Meanwhile if I turn Origin back to Online, it takes all of them away and I can't reload those save files at all.
Bizarrely, it seems like if I want to play the game right now, I have to not be online and I have to mess around turning it online and offline for some random chance at getting all the DLC active, and I have to save it.
I'll be sure to bring that up to them whenever I get around to calling them back, but until then, I seem to be able to at least play the game as intended now. For the most part anyway, I can't really do anything about the Galaxy at War thing, but being stuck on 50% in is a pretty damn small price to pay.
They work offline because you downloaded the "binkwxx.dlls".
You applied both DLLs to the ">drive<:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Mass Effect 3\Binaries\Win32" folder and did overwrite the existing DLL?
The save games however should work nevertheless unless they where created without a DLC that is now available again
(As the DLCs could not get registered.)
Lets try a different approche.
Then clear your Origin cache after the this guide:
All settings in Origin (only in Origin not in the games) are back to default settings after this.)
