Due to the huge amount of players who are having trouble making new characters/logging into the game, I have posted this sticky thread in the tech support.

Technical Answers to the following may not be correct, and Problems may become outdated. I am also writing this for Windows (XP, mainly) users. Please, post the corrections needed.

Short version:

Note: Game accounts and website accounts are not connected at all. They *may* be the same (if there are no numbers or symbols in the website account). IRC usernames follow this rule as well. This means that typing the password you "registered" with to log into the game with MAY NOT WORK because although you have registered on the website, you havn't on the game.

General Problems:

#1)
I open the client and get to the point where it says select a server. I select damn.informatik.uni-bremen.de and the computer sits there for a while and in the end doesn't connect to it and says "connection failed" in red.

Problem:
Your internet connection may be disabled, the server which you are trying to connect to may be down, or the server you are trying to get onto may be restarting.

Answer:
Check to see if your internet is working by browsing. If you can't, then your connection is down. If you can browse, then you should wait for a few minutes before trying to log on again.

If you can't create a new character, you have one of these problems:

#1)
I select a working server and i get to the login page. I try to make a unique name and hit enter. It then deletes my username!

Problem:
You have numbers or odd symbols in your name.

Answer:
Take out the numbers and/or symbols in your name. Symbols include spaces. Use - or _ instead.

#2)
I select a working server and i get to the login page. I try to make a unique name and hit enter. I type in a password and it deletes everything!

Problem:
Your name is taken by someone else.

Answer:
Try to make a new character with a completely unique name. For instance, i am pretty sure youuoy isn't taken (of course, it may be taken now that i wrote it ). This doesn't always work, but it is a good check to make sure that this is your problem. If this weird name works as a new character, then you have to pick a new name for your real character because it is taken. If it doesn't work, you have another problem.

If you can't log into your already made character, then you have one of these problems:

#1)
I type in my character name and password correctly (for sure), i hit enter, and everything gets deleted.

Problem:
You have typed in your password wrong!

Answer:
Try putting in your password correctly this time, and then hit enter. If it still doesn't work, try looking through this thread again and see if your symptoms match anything else. This problem will be aparent in B4 client (it will tell you).
-You've just got to wait until your character that was logged in gets logged off from idling. Wait 10 minutes and try again .

Elongated version:

Note: Game accounts and website accounts are not connected at all. They *may* be the same (if there are no numbers or symbols in the website account).  IRC usernames follow this rule as well. There is talk that later there will be a link between your website account and your game characters, so that if you loose your password we can email it to you, so that we know who you really are (to battle password guessers), etc.

General Problems:

#1)
I open the client and get to the point where it says select a server. I select damn.informatik.uni-bremen.de and the computer sits there for a while and in the end doesn't connect to it and says "connection failed" in red.

Problem:
Your internet connection may be disabled, the server which you are trying to connect to may be down, or the server you are trying to may be restarting.

Answer:
-Firstly, check your internet connect and make sure you can browse websites and such. If you cannot browse, then your connection is severed. Then, hit start, go to run, type in "command" and type in "ping damn.informatik.uni-bremen.de" to see if the main server is online (put the IP of the server you are trying to connect to in place of damn.informatik.uni-bremen.de if it isn't the main one). If Packets Sent is much less Packets Recieved, the server is down or is having massive lag. In this case, you just have to wait.
-If you can browse and the server is not down (for sure), then it may be that you don't have the right ports open. For this, you need to go to whatever firewall you have and forward ports 13326 and 13327. For more information on how to forward ports, type in "port forwarding on windows XP" in google for forwarding ports on your windows firewall or "port forwarding <router name goes here>" for forwarding ports on your router firewall (if you have one).

If you can't create a new character, you have one of these problems:

#1)
I select a working server and i get to the login page. I try to make a unique name and hit enter. It then deletes my username!

Problem:
You have numbers or odd symbols in your name.

Supported symbols are:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz_-

Unsupported symbols are:
1234567890!@#$%^&*()=+[]{}\|;:',."<>/?`~    as well as any special language letters

Answer:
Take out the numbers and/or symbols in your name. Symbols include spaces. Use - or _ instead. The reason for this is that we do not want a bunch of hard to read (and type) names, or a bunch of michtoens, or a bunch of links, etc. This just makes it easier on everyone (except for the person who doesn't know why the thing won't let them make a new character )

#2)
I select a working server and i get to the login page. I try to make a unique name and hit enter. I type in a password and it deletes everything!

Problem:
Your name is taken by someone else.

Answer:
Try to make a new character with a completely unique name. For instance, i am pretty sure youuoy isn't taken (of course, it may be taken now that i wrote it ). This doesn't always work, but it is a good check to make sure that this is your problem. If this weird name works as a new character, then you have to pick a new name for your real character because it is taken. If it doesn't work, you have another problem.

If you can't log into your already made character, then you have one of these problems:

#1)
I type in my character name and password correctly (for sure), i hit enter, and everything gets deleted.

Problem:
You have typed in your password wrong! Or, in an unlikely situation, you are banned from the server you are trying to connect to.

Answer:
-Try putting in your password correctly this time, and then hit enter. If it still doesn't work, try looking through this thread again and see if your symptoms match anything else. Also, be careful when typing in your username and password; sometimes it takes a little bit for the client to be ready for input. Wait for the cursor to start blinking. This problem will be apparent in B4 client (it will tell you).
-You've just got to wait till the character idles out, or *possibly* you will get lucky and an admin will kick your character for you. At the moment, i'd not go around asking admins to kick your character though . It should take about 10 minutes for your character to idle out (8 minutes, really).
-If you are still stuck, it may be because your character is banned from the server you are trying to connect to. It may also be that your specific IP is banned (even if you didn't do anything, it may be that your IP switched to an IP that a "bad" player had at one point. In this case, contact someone on the dev team, such as Michtoen, Cher (Cheristheus), or Unislash).


Okay, that is everything i can think of at the moment. If you have some more errors or problems or fixes to my answers or anything of the sort, post and i will fix it!

Cheers,
Unislash

Note that at this time, public clients cannot connect to servers which are up to date with the CVS (at this time, this does not include the main server).

Thanks to: Longir and Darthvader, .

I would still like a definitive reply to the following problem please:

I select a working server and get to the login page. I type in my existing character name, then TAB (or click the mouse in the password box etc.), but it won't let me enter a password - the name disappears instead (and prompts for another).  After about 10 minutes repeating the exercise I can finally enter the password and proceed.

Other people in-game having confirmed that this has recently started happening to them, although many say they have never experienced it.

If there has been a recent patch which does this, please tell Smacky to add this important piece of information to his guide about when this occurs.
If the server program has not been patched with new code, then should I try downloading the client again? Or are there some PC settings which may affect this which I could have changed recently?

Best regards,
Tryagain

Hmm, i had this problem a *really* long time ago. So, we can *probably* say that this problem is fixed with B4. We will see though, eh tryagain?

Longir: Thanks, i will add it up there.

Cheers,
Unislash

There was a security patch recently added preventing you from logging into an account that is already logged in.  I tested  this by being logged in and opening a second client and attempting to log into the same account.  It was verified later when I lagged out and tried to log  back in.  There is your definitive answer.

what if i cannot even enter my password??? i cannot seem to be able to click on the password space to enter my password. i could only enter my username and nothing else. wat should i do???

hit enter or tab to move to password field

i tried thattoo, but i cant seem to get there either!!!!! it just erases my username and asks for it again, i try again, still no!!!!!

help?

so to be magus1423 it would be magusonefourtwothree, magus_onefourtwothree, magus-onefourtwothree, etc

Ok, so after the X-mas update, I go onto the client, select my server and type in my Name and password, both of which are correct. After that I get about a 5 second wait and then the client dislays some message which I can't read, and closes in about a second. Any help would be appreciated
Edit: I've managed to get a screen shot, it seems that I do log on, but just for a second, then the client closes for some reason. I see my character with all my stats and inventory, but then the client closes. The msg i talked about above is "Transfer Character to map"