Unable to connect to game servers

At around 2:30PM PST today, my game client froze, and then I got an error saying I had lost my server connection. Whenever I've had this happen before, all I had to do was log back in again. This time, the START button was grayed out, and I couldn't log back in. I exited the game client and relaunched, checked the world status, everything was online, login again...and the START button is still grayed out. After about 30 seconds of waiting, I got a popup saying there was an error with the game lobby service. I have no idea what the problem is or what's causing it. I've contacted SE support, but in the meantime, I'm completely unable to connect to the game.

Bare with me... there is reason I'm asking this.

Are you running security software that sometimes prompts when a new program asks for internet access? If so, have you updated the white list (allowed) since it detected the new versions of the executables?

The reason I ask is because I've seen this happen with Zone Alarm in the past. Even though it prompts for the access, you click the box to remember your response, and tell it yes... it sometimes has a brain fart and doesn't assign it the full access permissions, and causes some weirdness sometimes. XIV runs several different executables throughout the log-in and launching process, and one may have either been missed or not updated properly if you have software that goes through a similar process. Might want to double check the allowed programs lists just in case it is this kind of hiccup.

Greetings,

It seems that there have not been any further posts about this concern being an ongoing issue. Because of this, we are considering it to be resolved. If this does continue to be a concern, please create another thread to further discuss resolutions or contact the Support Center at support.na.square-enix.com for assistance.