Guild Wars 2

It seems this is a widespread issue.

I am looking for a fix.

I play, then randomly, it seems, the screen goes black. As it goes black, I get a chirp/completion sound. The GW cursor stays, the music seems to stay but it remains black.

I have a i7-4770k, and updated drivers with an gtx 970.

I can play for an hour or somethimes only a few minutes then it goes black.

I have to ALT-F4 and restart.
I’ve read about somethign about DDOS protection on routers, or some stuff like that.

Anyone have a bypass/fix?

Some say run in windowed mode via command line commands. Is this mode full-screen windowed or non full screen windowed?

Any help is appreciated.

It is breaking my immersion and fun.

This isn’t really a widespread issue, but … it’s something with your computer. I’d guess most likely some sort of hardware related issue, possibly temperature triggered, from the “play for a while, then it fails” description.

I’d start my investigation with that, and you should hopefully be able to clear it up.

Rather than being a widespread issue, blackscreens are just symptoms which can have different causes. What you describe there reminds me of an issue I have/had. It is possible that the problem is related to your ISP. Try using a vpn tunnel for your connection and try to play the game for some time. If u dont experience any blackscreens, this might be the case. If the issue should still persist, it might be some hardware problem or software incompatibilty.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

This isn’t really a widespread issue, but … it’s something with your computer. I’d guess most likely some sort of hardware related issue, possibly temperature triggered, from the “play for a while, then it fails” description.

I’d start my investigation with that, and you should hopefully be able to clear it up.

It’s a widespread issue and has zero to do with our computers.

Communication has to come from the server cleanly or we drop to a black, white or other screen.

Eltruism.6581:

It seems this is a widespread issue.

I am looking for a fix.

I play, then randomly, it seems, the screen goes black. As it goes black, I get a chirp/completion sound. The GW cursor stays, the music seems to stay but it remains black.

I have a i7-4770k, and updated drivers with an gtx 970.

I can play for an hour or somethimes only a few minutes then it goes black.

I have to ALT-F4 and restart.
I’ve read about somethign about DDOS protection on routers, or some stuff like that.

Anyone have a bypass/fix?

Some say run in windowed mode via command line commands. Is this mode full-screen windowed or non full screen windowed?

Any help is appreciated.

It is breaking my immersion and fun.

If all of your drivers are up to date.

If all of your connections are solid to any other website, application or game.

If your ISP isn’t having issues.

It’s not you. It’s not.

I have this issue too starting from two days ago. Same thing; black screen, cursor still movable and music still heard. I believe it is a widespread issue and not something wrong with the computers.

When you get black screen again try f11 f12. If you get log off and setting menu its 99% your router/internet problem. I had this when used Zyxel while my D-link was at service.

atheria.2837:

Eltruism.6581:

It seems this is a widespread issue.

I am looking for a fix.

I play, then randomly, it seems, the screen goes black. As it goes black, I get a chirp/completion sound. The GW cursor stays, the music seems to stay but it remains black.

I have a i7-4770k, and updated drivers with an gtx 970.

I can play for an hour or somethimes only a few minutes then it goes black.

I have to ALT-F4 and restart.
I’ve read about somethign about DDOS protection on routers, or some stuff like that.

Anyone have a bypass/fix?

Some say run in windowed mode via command line commands. Is this mode full-screen windowed or non full screen windowed?

Any help is appreciated.

It is breaking my immersion and fun.

If all of your drivers are up to date.

If all of your connections are solid to any other website, application or game.

If your ISP isn’t having issues.

It’s not you. It’s not.

Unfortunately, your mental model of how the Internet works isn’t quite accurate, and it’s led you down a perfectly logical path to an incorrect conclusion.

Think of it more like the roads in a city or something: there are lots of paths, some smaller, some larger, and you can get to different destinations without covering the same paths.

So, if your ISP is working fine, ANet servers are working fine, but something on the path between the two happens to be busted up … problems with GW2. If that isn’t on the path to, say, google, or netflix, or some other game, it doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist, you just took a different set of roads to a different destination and bypassed the issue.

https://www.pingplotter.com/fix-your-network is a good guide to tracking down where on the path between your computer and anet the issue falls; if it is with the anet servers, then screenshots showing it will be compelling proof in a support ticket that anet need to take action.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

atheria.2837:

Eltruism.6581:

It seems this is a widespread issue.

I am looking for a fix.

I play, then randomly, it seems, the screen goes black. As it goes black, I get a chirp/completion sound. The GW cursor stays, the music seems to stay but it remains black.

I have a i7-4770k, and updated drivers with an gtx 970.

I can play for an hour or somethimes only a few minutes then it goes black.

I have to ALT-F4 and restart.
I’ve read about somethign about DDOS protection on routers, or some stuff like that.

Anyone have a bypass/fix?

Some say run in windowed mode via command line commands. Is this mode full-screen windowed or non full screen windowed?

Any help is appreciated.

It is breaking my immersion and fun.

If all of your drivers are up to date.

If all of your connections are solid to any other website, application or game.

If your ISP isn’t having issues.

It’s not you. It’s not.

Unfortunately, your mental model of how the Internet works isn’t quite accurate, and it’s led you down a perfectly logical path to an incorrect conclusion.

Think of it more like the roads in a city or something: there are lots of paths, some smaller, some larger, and you can get to different destinations without covering the same paths.

So, if your ISP is working fine, ANet servers are working fine, but something on the path between the two happens to be busted up … problems with GW2. If that isn’t on the path to, say, google, or netflix, or some other game, it doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist, you just took a different set of roads to a different destination and bypassed the issue.

https://www.pingplotter.com/fix-your-network is a good guide to tracking down where on the path between your computer and anet the issue falls; if it is with the anet servers, then screenshots showing it will be compelling proof in a support ticket that anet need to take action.

Although I do understand this “pathing” , I still had to read it to convince me that a VPN may work.

Thanks, I’ll try that.

VPN’s are so cheap now o_O

I had this same issue starting this last weekend. Music, cursor, black screen. Everything else was fine. GW1, Aion, Everquest 2, the internet was fine. I list these only to show I tried other things to see if I had a problem. So I think it’s not my router or internet provider. Now my SMS doesn’t work either. I don’t get a message on my phone anymore it just goes to the red Play button.

Anapxist.5314:

When you get black screen again try f11 f12. If you get log off and setting menu its 99% your router/internet problem. I had this when used Zyxel while my D-link was at service.

Tried it, nothing showed up or changed except my cursor turning into a settings symbol or some sort.

Eltruism.6581:

SlippyCheeze.5483:

atheria.2837:

Eltruism.6581:

It seems this is a widespread issue.

I am looking for a fix.

I play, then randomly, it seems, the screen goes black. As it goes black, I get a chirp/completion sound. The GW cursor stays, the music seems to stay but it remains black.

I have a i7-4770k, and updated drivers with an gtx 970.

I can play for an hour or somethimes only a few minutes then it goes black.

I have to ALT-F4 and restart.
I’ve read about somethign about DDOS protection on routers, or some stuff like that.

Anyone have a bypass/fix?

Some say run in windowed mode via command line commands. Is this mode full-screen windowed or non full screen windowed?

Any help is appreciated.

It is breaking my immersion and fun.

If all of your drivers are up to date.

If all of your connections are solid to any other website, application or game.

If your ISP isn’t having issues.

It’s not you. It’s not.

Unfortunately, your mental model of how the Internet works isn’t quite accurate, and it’s led you down a perfectly logical path to an incorrect conclusion.

Think of it more like the roads in a city or something: there are lots of paths, some smaller, some larger, and you can get to different destinations without covering the same paths.

So, if your ISP is working fine, ANet servers are working fine, but something on the path between the two happens to be busted up … problems with GW2. If that isn’t on the path to, say, google, or netflix, or some other game, it doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist, you just took a different set of roads to a different destination and bypassed the issue.

https://www.pingplotter.com/fix-your-network is a good guide to tracking down where on the path between your computer and anet the issue falls; if it is with the anet servers, then screenshots showing it will be compelling proof in a support ticket that anet need to take action.

Although I do understand this “pathing” , I still had to read it to convince me that a VPN may work.

Thanks, I’ll try that.

VPN’s are so cheap now o_O

Yeah, using a VPN means that your traffic will take a different route — basically, stop one is the VPN data center, and stop two is the ANet servers, instead of going direct. If the problem was only on the direct path, bingo, a VPN removes it.

The other thing a VPN can do to help is bypass “helpful” ISP packet filtering, blocking, or “quality of service” stuff; sometimes they seem to detect GW2 traffic as, like, torrents or something. Because the VPN hides the traffic, and changes the port and packet type, as far as the ISP can see, the problem doesn’t apply.

Which all sucks compared to the problem being fixed, since the VPN will increase latency at least a little bit, but … at least if it works it works, and you can play.

But who owns the VPN? And why would it work over the path that regular traffic wouldn’t work with?

KeyOrion.9506:

But who owns the VPN? And why would it work over the path that regular traffic wouldn’t work with?

A VPN is a “virtual private network”, and it works by throwing the normal traffic into an encrypted wrapper, sending it to a VPN server, which then pulls that traffic out of the encrypted wrapper and sends it off to the normal destination. (…and does the same in reverse to get responses back to you.)

So, “who owns the VPN” is “whoever runs the server”, which can be any number of people. Like, buy the VPN service from a company, and it’s run by them. Run your own on a server you rent in the “cloud” and you (plus the cloud provider) “own” it.

Why would it work over a path that normal traffic doesn’t? Because once you get outside your ISP network, there are a lot of different paths to different places. The VPN might take the same path as normal traffic to ANet, or it might turn off somewhere else, right?

Basically, when it works you can imagine there is a triangle formed between your computer and anet, your computer and the vpn server, and the vpn server and anet.

Only the direct path from your computer to anet hits the trouble spot — the route between the VPN server and anet is different, and avoids the issue. So does the route from your computer to the VPN server.

Obviously, this only works if the problem is not in the anet network, because if it was there, both the VPN server and your direct path are gonna hit that same trouble, right?

Thing is, for many people the issue is outside the anet network.

This is indeed a widespread issue and has been going on for years and it is not hardware related, it is a disconnection issue between your client and gw2 server because of your internet connection. As in other games you will experience a very long rubberbanding effect, gw2 is less tolerant and will disconnect you instead. Nothing much to do on your end or anet’s end, your isp needs to provide you with a very stable connection.