IvyTower bug (Not all ports are open for the game?)

I've been playing this game every release on both QA and regular, so I think the firewall should be aware of this game and have it's relative ports open. I have visited the linked faq and haven't found anything to help me diagnose this issue, but this crash is keeping me from being able to play for more than 3 seconds at a time. (which means, i can't do anything).

It's happening on both builds (steam and non-steam)

Let me know what to share with you to diagnose. I'm no expert on firewalls and ports, and haven't a clue how to open them manually, but I do know that both SotA and Steam are listed on my 'allow access to this program' list.

 

@Chris @Lord Subtleton

 

Ah.. okay. I found the problem. My computer has an integrated graphics card, and somehow the SotA executable put the integrated card back on default. When I went into properties and switched that back to NVIDIA, the game stopped crashing.

I don't know if the default changed because of a SotA update, or maybe another software update on my end (either with the operating system or the video card.) but it's probably on my end.

Thanks Attenwood, you're the best!

***EDIT STILL A PROBLEM***

okay, i was in game for several minutes, running fine, definitely using the correct video card, but while still on the island, (coincidentally?) once another player joined me on the island (i didn't know this was supposed to be possible on Arabella's island) i crashed with Ivytower again.

 

It may be possible, since my default graphics card selections were reset, that my firewall program list was lost/reset as well.. trying to look into that (though i'm no expert and not sure how).

 

IVYTOWER means that some, but not all, of your ports are blocked for communication to the game service. By default, windows allows all ports open (or none), so we usually see this when a user has custom firewall rules in place. The other possibilities are that the router or ISP is blocking communication.

As a temporary work-around, you can play in single-player online mode.

 

Ah, I will attempt that. Since I am in China, there is most likely an ISP firewall that is out of my control, though it hasn't been much of a problem over the past year that I've been here.

For now, I'll try single-player, thank for letting me know that should help! If you want to help me trouble-shoot my windows ports, I'd be happy to check that (with assistance/direction) to ensure it's not the problem. Thank you!

 

This is likely a temporary problem. If you switch over to the live game and still have the problem, it's most likely as ISP issue. If the problem is only on QA, it could be that your ISP is reacting to something that the game is doing. Certain scenes in the current QA build are bugged (e.g. the first scene with Arabella is one) causing a spew of diagnostic messages.