Guild Wars 2

Before I get into the details, I know this is a problem that’s been around. I’ve searched far and wide and tried everything that’s been told. So far no dice. Anyway:

About 6 months ago, after buying and playing GW2 for a month or so, I went to log in and “Connection error(s) detected. Retrying…” popped up on the client and didn’t allow me to log in. After messing around with a few settings nothing worked. I uninstalled and went to reinstall the game, but “Connection error(s) detected. Retrying…” popped up again and nothing happens. I kinda gave up and said, “screw it.” However, wanting to play GW2 again, I’m still running into the same problem. I searched deeper this time but still nothing has shown even a small improvement. Downloading the newest installer .exe still results in the error. Any advice?

Small note: The red text “Connection error(s) detected. Retrying…” does sometimes flicker a few seconds after opening the installer to show the normal grey text showing the download progress. However a few seconds of waiting eventually just leads to “Connection error(s) detected. Retrying…” staying solid. (No more flickering)

Thanks for the help in advance,
Tom O

Healix was on the right track! Whether or not it was “netsh winsock reset” or a combination of everything they told me, the email I got from GW2 support today fixed everything like a charm.

1. This is likely coming from something running on your PC, let’s start by preventing any programs from automatically starting with Windows, then repairing those Winsock entries. To do this:
2. Press and hold the Windows key and then hit the R key. This should bring up the Run dialog box.
3. Type “MSCONFIG” without the quotes, and click “OK.” This should open the System Configuration Utility.
4. Click on the “Services” tab and check the “Hide All Microsoft Services” check box near the bottom, then click the “Disable All” button. (You MUST click “Hide all Microsoft Services”)
5. Next go to the “Startup” tab and click the “Disable All” button.
6. Once these items are all disabled, click the “OK” button and you will get a prompt to restart your computer. Please restart your computer.

1. Once you return to Windows, use the following instructions to clean up those Winsock entries:
2. Click the “Start” button to bring up the Start Menu.
3. Type in CMD into the “Search programs and files” field but do not hit enter. Doing this will change your start menu to show the program “cmd.exe.”
4. Right-click on “cmd.exe” and select “Run as Administrator.”
5. Type “netsh winsock show catalog >C:\LSP.txt” without the quotes. This will save a file to the root of your C drive called LSP.txt. Please attach that file to this ticket. (We would like this report even if the issue is resolved)
6. Once complete, type “netsh winsock reset” without the quotes. When the command is completed successfully, a confirmation appears, followed by a new command prompt line.
7. Once completed, please try running Guild Wars 2 again by “right-clicking” on “GW2.exe” and selecting “Run as Administrator.”

Creating the LSP.txt is probably unnecessary for the people that attempt this later since I believe it’s just more info for GW2 to collect to help future players, although I’d just do it. Can’t believe the fix was as simple as that after the months of attempting fixes. Thanks to everyone who offered advice and ideas!

Been getting the same error for about 2 days now even battle net is having it so it must be me :/ alrdy flushed dns and tried using googles dns what is up……

Have you tried “Run as administrator”?

I have a exactly same kind of problem and tried everything (DNS change,reset DNS, Register new IP, restart game client and computer) , but nothing can solve this problem.

Until I right click on GW2 Shortcut and choose “Run as administrator” then my game patching is starting to work again.

Edit : I recently found that this problem come from my antivirus and google DNS problem combined. but I’m not sure about “Run as administrator” choice.

Yea, I’ve tried everything I’ve seen. The problem now is I can’t even install the game. Admin doesn’t do anything, sadly. Firewall / antivirus isn’t blocking anything, Google DNS didn’t help, etc.
Thanks for suggestion though Kiroz.

I have the exact same problem, I tried everything online such as Google DNS and rebooting the router. No other machines in the house have problems with the Internet so I am not thinking it is a ISP issue.

I have Comcast and I use the Norton Security Suite that comes with it, by any chance are you using the same?

The reason why I ask, I noticed that my Norton software wasn’t actually functioning properly, and it was immediately resolved once I used the windows 8 refresh feature, perhaps this was malware related?

I have AT&T and my brother is on the same network and able to download and install GW2 just fine. I don’t use / never have used Norton, so it’s not that. I did get malware awhile back, and since the timeline is relatively far away, it’s hard to remember if issues happened immediately after getting it. However, I’ve done everything and I (to my knowledge) have 100% removed any malware on my computer. No extra processes/programs are running before or after opening GW2 installer.

Tomcycle.8309:

I have AT&T and my brother is on the same network and able to download and install GW2 just fine. I don’t use / never have used Norton, so it’s not that. I did get malware awhile back, and since the timeline is relatively far away, it’s hard to remember if issues happened immediately after getting it. However, I’ve done everything and I (to my knowledge) have 100% removed any malware on my computer. No extra processes/programs are running before or after opening GW2 installer.

Well it is something system related, because as soon as I rienstallrd windows 8 on my machine it started working again so I don’t know. I doubt the ISP will be able to help.

After years of experience I know it’s pointless contacting tech support in general, they don’t really know how to fix anything. It’s best just to spend your time reinstalling windows and backing up your files.

I spent only 2 hours fixing my issue versus the countless hours being spent fighting with tech support and ultimately not getting your issue resolved.

Open the start menu and search for cmd.exe. Right click it, and run it as an administrator. Under the command prompt, enter the following commands and then reboot:

netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset

If you had any programs modify/corrupt Winsock or TCP/IP, doing this will reset them to their original state.

You may first want to check the hosts file (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) to ensure that you didn’t modify and forget about it. If there are any GW2 related entries, remove them. You’ll need to open notepad as an administrator to modify this file.