Unable to connect to Data Center

Immediately after logging into the client (on pc) and getting to the blue title screen my game runs into an issue. i click "play" or "data center" and select Aether (home to my characters worlds on Goblin, Moogle, and Gilgamesh) my game says "connecting to Data Center" then a black screen with a loading icon in the lower left and a mouse that is responsive and movable but nothing else opens. this screen never gets advanced, i have tried for hours at a time, leaving the computer and returning later. I cannot advance past this screen. i have updated drivers, updated windows (version 8.0) messed with graphics settings varying from maximum to minimum settings. nothing works. i have disabled pop-up blockers, spyware/malware blockers, and windows firewall. nothing has worked. please assist, i just want to play the game on my beautiful new pc.

EDIT: when the loading screen is open i can alt+tab out of the game and everything else functions, and even more i can right-click on the games icon and select close game. doing so opens up a tab in the game with options "quit game" and "cancel"

i have an intel i5 quad core with an AMD Radeon r9 270x 4gb ddr3 RAM and a 500 gb HDD

4 hours later and still no change. help me find out whats going on please!

Depending on how technical you are, you may want to try changing DNS settings to use Google's dns servers.
Might be a problem with your ISP's DNS.
Or your modem/router...

Could try changing your Internet Explorer settings to default. That helped people that had problems with the launcher, but I don't think that should affect anything after the launcher.

If changing dns servers don't help and your ISP refuses to help you, look into testing WTFast or similar just to see if that works. If it does work, it's most likely your ISP that is somehow blocking you.

i already use google's DNS, internet explorer... riiiiiiigt lets just assume ive never touched that and its already default.

my ISP doesnt block any ports and is sure that my internet is functioning fine, so its on my end.

initially i thought it was an issue with port forwarding, but after disconnecting my router and connecting directly to the modem to bypass the router completely i had no change, and it still didnt work. my next thought was windows firewall or a bad update, so i turned off firewall and re-updated my windows, neither of which worked. i guess all thats left is for me to re download and patch the game... if that still doesnt fix it then ill likely be pursuing a refund on my purchase.

Saw a message about those servers yesterday i think there was a connectivity issue.

Aether has been working just fine all day.
Should do tracert against the servers to see if traffic actually goes all the way. ISP's are notorious for outright lies regarding their customers connectivity.

the issue is NOT port forwarding. i have now currently done these things: manually opened ports. reinstalled the game. updated windows. turned off all firewalls popup blockers and malware services. updated my drivers. and finally changing my DNS to google's (8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4) public dns. still no change. the same account works perfectly fine on my ps4, so i still feel like its an issue on my system somewhere. i am becoming annoyed, as it is increasingly difficult to contact Sqeenix support

Do a traceroute against the servers... PS4 may go through PSN to the servers and therefore not hit the same problem.
This is to determine if there is a routing problem over which you have no control.

You can also try WTFast as I wrote in my first reply. If that works, it is definitely routing problems somewhere.

Traceroute can help you figure out WHERE such a problem is. It's not about checking port forwarding.

I assume you have registered the PC code on the mogstation since you can log in at the launcher already.

Goblin have an IP of 199.91.189.26

If you need to see any other IP, use the Windows Resource Manager to see which IP's the game is trying to use.

im not entirely sure what you're expecting i should see with the traceroute. if i ping against the ip you listed there should i see a full list of whatever number of hops i specify, and is that supposed to tell me that the connection is fine to said ip?

Traceroute can help you see if there is a choking point where traffic is no longer forwarded. Like at the point where it's going from your ISP's network to whichever network comes next before it hits SE's servers.

Or just try with WTFast and see if it works that way. They have a free trial so you can test and see if it works at all.

Other than that, with some anti-malware and other security software it's not enough to turn them off, but have to be uninstalled completely to get rid of any interference.

If you still have problems and want help from other players, list more information, such as which ISP you're on, what anti-malware and other security software you have installed, other information about your computer...
Or try your luck with SE support.

alright scratch that. after pinging squeenix's closest data center 50 times (i wanted to be completely sure... dont judge me) my average ping is 84ms, removing a few outliers, which tells me that i am indeed connecting to their servers just fine. right?

1) tracert != ping
2) which IP did you ping?

From Windows Task Manager, Performance tab, you can select Resource Monitor, Network tab, select the ffxiv executable when you're at the start screen before selecting datacenter, see what IP's are listed, then select datacenter and see if any new IP's are listed.
Those are the IP's that are important to check.

If you still have anti-malware or other security software installed, but disabled, try uninstalling them completely as they usually come with filter drivers that are NOT disabled when disabling the software and only removal works to get rid of interference from them.

re-downloaded and patched, once again, and no effect, still have the eternal loading screen. i dont understand what in the world is causing it.

well... thats something... when i pull up the resource monitor i dont see a .exe for final fantasy, even with the game open and minimized on the play screen. unless of course what im actually looking for is Steam.exe, since im running through steam.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JustcallmeSoul

well... thats something... when i pull up the resource monitor i dont see a .exe for final fantasy, even with the game open and minimized on the play screen. unless of course what im actually looking for is Steam.exe, since im running through steam.

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The exe you're looking for should be ffxiv.exe or something like that. But, I don't run through Steam, so not sure how that works.

Just to be sure... You start the game, get a window where you have to input username, password and possibly OTP... press play there, then get into the main screen where you have to select datacenter?
Or do you get from steam directly to the main screen?

When you install the game through steam, have you tried to start the game through the start "menu" instead of through steam?

steam>client>login details>play button>intro and title screen (with options play, data center, configuration, etc)>?????????? ive never been past that screen. when i select data center it says "connecting to data center" for a few seconds, then appears to connect and sends me to the limbo screen i described earlier. is there a way (if i installed through steam) to run the content independently from steam?

ok within the resource manager, when i launch FFXIV i see ffxivboot.exe and ffxivlauncher.exe come up and start sending/receiving packets, after i login and launch the game via the play button on the launcher ffxivboot.exe and ffxivlauncher.exe stop sending packets and fall off the list. nothing containing ffxiv in the name replaces them. so it seems that we have found out something is wrong... welcome to three days ago.

I'm not at home right now so can't direct you to which executable to run, but steam should not be necessary at all.
See if you can find the Final Fantasy entry on the start screen somewhere, or search for where the ffxiv.exe file is. Not sure which file exactly needs to be run, but if you find it you can try from there.
Based on your latest post, find ffxivlauncher.exe and run that from outside steam. Can also try right-click and "run as administrator", just in case...

Did you uninstall all anti-malware and other such programs or only disabled?

Won't be able to suggest anything more until later today.

completely uninstalled all anti-malware programs that i had installed, but thats not it. i really, honestly do not think it is a communication error, the ports are open and i can ping to their servers with no issues at all. squeenix support is increasingly not helpful, but a friend of mine pointed out something that confuses me, my directory for the game (c:/programfiles(x86)/steam/steamapps/common/FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn does not contain a .cfg file.

The main folder should have a game and boot folder
The game folder should have movie and sqpack folders as well as some files, but I see no .cfg either.

The place you should check if you have a cfg should be
C:\Users\<user>\Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn

Dunno if it's different for steam, but it shouldn't be...

If you have no cfg there either... Check settings first on the launcher, then on main screen.

found a resolution and fixed the problem turns out on very rare occasions on select AMD cards there is a problem with the opening movie, by changing CutsceneMovieOpening in the ffxiv.cfg file from 0 to 1 i was able to load the game perfectly fine. took me 3 days to find a 12 second fix.

Good to see you found a solution.

(And good to see yet another reason to not go AMD graphics)