WoW Crashing my laptop at the university.

[Epincus]

So I need ideas and you guys, as usual, are really smart and stuff and can hopefully help me fix this.

I'm at my university at a math lab with absolutely nothing to do until someone comes in for help, and basically in the last two days the university must've screwed something up. If I attempt to start WoW up, the second it would load the page to enter username/password it would just completely lock up my system. I've tried both windowed and fullscreen, wireless/wired. Same effect. Reinstall did not fix the problem, nor did any of their other fixes.

Additionally, I tried the WoW repair utility when it first started, THAT crashed instantly (but didn't take the computer with it). Figured it may have been a virus, not sure how I woulda gotten it, but oh well. Housecall locked up my system for a couple seconds, then gives me the error as follows: "Warning, the HouseCall-API did not define a Native Binding!"

All of the above mentioned errors do NOT occur at my household, which tells me it's concentrated at my university, and it seems rather excessive for my university to just break shit for the hell of it. Any ideas on what the problem is or how to fix it?

[Skyylya]

My guess is that your university is protected against certain things.

college servers are generally different than your household as they don't connect directly to the internet but go through the schools server, which is sometimes protected against certain things by whatever security level the IT people set. It's the same concept as why some people at work can't view certain sites, my own work for example has myspace and youtube blocked, so i can't view those sites.

The college server might be restricting the cookies that are allowed in, so you're not recieving anything from the game server for example giving you the error.

Have you been able to connect to the game at school before and it's not working now?

The only way to get around it is to tunnel through. There's an application i used to use called httptunnel or something like that, I'm not sure if it's still around and it costs a little money, like 5 or 6 bucks a month, but it'll allow you to get through the schools server blocks.

This is just my best guess, it could also be something completely different...

I found the site for the http-tunnel:

http://www.http-tunnel.com/html/solutio ... client.asp

[Killgannon]

so you can play WoW fine on the same laptop at home and nothing crashes correct?

the only thing i can think of is WoW has really bad network error handling (i dunno i dont play it...) and your .edu blocked ports.... otherwise im pretty clueless can you play FFXI?

[Epincus]

Have you been able to connect to the game at school before and it's not working now?

The only way to get around it is to tunnel through. There's an application i used to use called httptunnel or something like that, I'm not sure if it's still around and it costs a little money, like 5 or 6 bucks a month, but it'll allow you to get through the schools server blocks.

This is just my best guess, it could also be something completely different...

Two days ago I connected to it perfectly fine. Came in yesterday and all of the above mentioned stuff was down. Furthermore, it wouldn't make any sense because this isn't an office building I'm in, our department is in a social gathering location.

Checked WoW before I even got in here today and it worked at home. Arrival and it was down again. FFXI I don't have on this machine (HD Capacity), but I'd imagine I would get similar results since trendmicro won't even work.

[Skyylya]

You said you were at the math lab, i assumed it was an office building. It wouldn't matter anyway, any internet connection on campus would run through the schools server HUB whether it's a dorm, social building or class building it's all hooked up to the same network.

It's either one of two things, the schools network cock-blocking you, or something on your PC that's causing problems. You said that it's not something on the PC cause it works fine at home, so that means it's the school network. Maybe they updated it in the last couple day's or changed it's settings?

Do you have any other programs that operate in a similar way accessing outside servers? Like kazaa or whatever programs people use now? If another program is also blocked that also tells you it's something with the network and not WoW.

I really don't think your school has a special thing on it's server to 'break' wow. It's most likely the server's settings if not a problem with the game or your PC.

If it's not this then i really don't know what the cause is, i'm sorry.

[Epincus]

The way you describe it makes NO sense to me, because why would they block online games in the dorms of all places? Nontheless thanks for the help, I still don't understand quite why it causes my laptop to completely lock up. =\ Anything related to filesharing I haven't been able to get to work here for awhile now, but WoW still worked. Oh well. Guess I better find something to pass my time with.

[Skyylya]

Like i said i could be wrong, it could be another problem altogether that you could fix i just don't know it. This is the only thing I can think of. When i first started playing ffxi it was in the summer of '04, when i went to school that fall i couldn't play because my school blocked external servers like what ffxi is run on. however, it didn't completely lock up my PC, that's the only thing that'd lead me to believe it's not server related and is a PC problem, since you have a laptop I have no idea what the problem could be as I have no clue how they are designed in comparison to a desktop. Alternate solutions, check drivers, check for a virus, check temps as that's a usual suspect when it comes to lock-ups. Call the manufacturer and describe the problem to them.


On a side note: A lot of schools block stuff like that because it's a big source of viruses and anything that goes to your PC goes through the schools server first. So anything that would infect you, infects the entire server, being every computer hooked up to that network.

It's like A is the internet, B is your schools server, and letters C through Z are the computers hooked up to the school server.

A is connected to B which is connected to C-Z. C-Z are not directly connected to A, therefore anything connected to B would share the same security settings. maybe not the best description but it's usually how it's set up. Anything on the school network is subject to the administrators security settings.

[Koga]

Only thing that comes to mind is that WoW has a background program that checks for hacks and posts a report to their server... it updates itself on its own as well.

Maybe the port it uses to update itself is blocked and it wont allow itself to run on outdated versions.

[Sigi]

That's most likely the answer. I'd ask your IT group for the college if they've updated the firewall settings to exclude specific ports, and if it would be possible to see whether or not they could set up a permission for systems to play WoW, etc.

Dunno, couldn't hurt to bribe them either.

[Epincus]

That's most likely the answer. I'd ask your IT group for the college if they've updated the firewall settings to exclude specific ports, and if it would be possible to see whether or not they could set up a permission for systems to play WoW, etc.

Dunno, couldn't hurt to bribe them either.

I don't think they're smart enough to be bribed, but I'll definitly ask them about the ports. Thanks. =)