(Solved) Cannot connect to socialclub... again... and again (error code 202)

[Holypopsicle]

You know before the game starts a launcher pops up saying social club on it, circle runs runs runs and sometimes it just makes you wait forever and sometimes it says:

"Rockstar update service is unavailable (code 202). Please try again later or check the GTA Online Status page for maintenance and outage notifications:
https://support.rockstargames.com/hc/articles/200426246"

You click on the writing and it opens the browser showing the server status page - all is up and running. Still it doesn't let you connect somehow.

This is not the first time it's happening to me, it happened like 3-4 times in the past as well. This time I just felt like saying something about it, in case they don't even have an idea that one of their servers serving this part of the world is down. Seems that way from this end.

There are ppl out there saying delete your cache, repair installation from steam, uninstall reinstall, mess with your computer's time settings, do this do that... all that bullsh't... Well it seems like a server issue to me, though that server web page shows everything's up and well, and in the past just trying the next day usually got it working again for me. Rockstar s*ckstar whatever.. hope there's someone looking into this, not that I have to play this, just sayin.

[Holypopsicle]

Ok it's apparently been more than a day and it's still doing the same thing.
Maybe they banned an ip range for that server I'm getting routed to by the social club update client... Or maybe their servers are getting attacked, or the servers are too sucky to handle the load. Anyway this used to happen from time to time and it used to be temporary.

If any of their system guys care to read, this might be useful. Details:
The social club launcher tries opening tcp http connections to 2 remote addresses
cdn-87-248-203-254.ams.llnw.net (87.248.203.254:80) and
cdn-87-248-203-253.ams.llnw.net (87.248.203.253:80)
like 4-5 times total. Tries one after the other. Fails, tries again. Connection attempts time out after like 10 secs on either address. Any browser connection attempt returns server is taking too long to respond error.

I've checked my account in "socialclub.rockstargames.com" via an internet browser, there are no notifications. Nothing out of the ordinary. Not banned accidentally, nothing ever happened to my characters that'd look my account look even suspicious either. Guess it's the usual socialclub nonsense.

Anyone else getting the same error, make some noise?

[Nite69]

something is wrong with your connection then, I been able to login to social club and get into GTA Online just fine.

[psykoteky]

Restart pc, modem, router - try again.
Try changing your dns servers from automatic to google (or back to automatic if already using google. Google ip's are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Restart the pc between each change/apply.

And for "all that bllsht"

You can also give this link a look - ** Big link of social club / connection related fixes **
If that doesn't work - be aware that situations can arise inbetween you and R* servers - and nothing you can do will fix it - but wait it out.

All that said - they don't officially come here for anything-
https://support.rockstargames.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

[Holypopsicle]

Originally posted by psykoteky:

Restart pc, modem, router - try again.
Try changing your dns servers from automatic to google (or back to automatic if already using google. Google ip's are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Restart the pc between each change/apply.

And for "all that bllsht"

You can also give this link a look - ** Big link of social club / connection related fixes **
If that doesn't work - be aware that situations can arise inbetween you and R* servers - and nothing you can do will fix it - but wait it out.

All that said - they don't officially come here for anything-
https://support.rockstargames.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Yea tnx for sharing what you know. Checked it out. Things you said in there lol... Fun stuff. That's indeed exactly what I meant when I said "all that bs" in the first post. But ofc not everyone know what's happening underneath, so the virus/malware checks can help some ppl. Also checking the launcher.log is good advice. Tnx for that. Doesn't help me, it says what I already know,

"[ ERROR ] Error 0x2efd: A connection with the server could not be established"

but still good advice.

Anyway, my connection is fine. I have ways to test it. Dns requests are resolving fine too. I can connect to everything just fine, except for that social club thing. I don't need to flushdns it's pointing to the right ip, I've checked from different sources. My firewall isn't blocking that, no. I've seen the packets going out. I don't need to mess with my registery, everything's working as intended, just having a connection issue to a specific server. Only one who *might* be of help to me here would be the guy who could check that server's blacklist to see if I got in it somehow. Having it go through a vpn would probably solve this too but atm I don't care to do that, that's all.

I haven't been playing this like 2-3 months, came back and found it like this. So it's not a situation between me and their servers caused by something I did recently. Like I said, I've seen this happen randomly many times before. It's just weird getting blocked indirectly, lol by the update server. It's like something deniable a geek would do to ppl he doesn't like just to cause em trouble, like changing someone's house alarm password, or resetting his garage door unlock code to default so the remote wouldn't work.

[Holypopsicle]

Alright, after a few days of talking with rockstar support, gave up on trying to connect to one of their update servers that didn't accept connections from my end and went for the "looking for one that works" approach. This might make me look like a fool a little but I don't care, gonna share because it might help ppl.

The solution was pretty easy. Change dns servers, flush dns, that's it. Then you see if your game is trying to connect elsewhere this time and if it's working.

1) Get to your network and sharing center, change adapter settings, find your active connection, right click, properties, TCP/IPv4 properties, preferred / alternate dns servers at the bottom. For me, using google dns (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) (like the fella called psykoteky suggested) got it working so I'm not looking for another.

2) For windows 10, hit win key, type "cmd", hit enter, type "ipconfig /flushdns" and hit enter
This'll make your computer forget the previous ip matching for the place you're trying to connect and ask the current dns server again.

3) Try starting the game, see if that worked. If not, go looking for another dns server and hope it makes you connect to one of the update servers that you can connect to.

Apparently there are us, eu, asia, etc. servers all around for the patches.rockstargames.com domain. If you're getting assigned by your dns to one that doesn't work for you, 202 is what you get - connection attempt time out. Now my social club launcher is trying to connect to different addresses which work.

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Also Rockstar Support suggested these stuff, I'm adding as a sidenote, might be useful, even if it's only to check if you can connect to patches.rockstargames.com - download starts => means you can.

1. Download and install the latest version of Social Club:
http://patches.rockstargames.com/prod/socialclub/Social%20Club%20Latest%20Setup.exe
2. Download and install the latest version of the GTAV Launcher:
http://patches.rockstargames.com/prod/gtav/Launcher_EFIGS/GTA_V_Launcher_1_0_877_1.exe

I had uninstalled the social club launcher (which you can do by going to Program Files\Rockstar Games\Social Club\uninstallRGSCRedistributable.exe) and installed from that social club latest setup file yesterday, which I got using another isp. But it was still trying to connect to the two addresses that didn't work for me with the old dns. Saying just in case.