Prevent the game from trying to connect to Autolog

[CaptBasil]

In the apartment building where I live, all ports are blocked on the router, and I have no way to access the router and open the ports. And according to the EA website you have to have certain ports open to connect to the Autolog servers.

Since all connection attempts are gonna fail anyway, is there a way to stop the game from trying to connect to Autolog all the damn time? It makes two connection attempts when starting up the game, and then another connection attempt after every (!) event/race. I just want to play the game and not be forced to look at the "Connecting to Autolog Servers" screen all the time.

[CaptBasil]

Now that the game is on sale, maybe someone else has any idea as to how to fix this....?

Also, if you don't know whether you can open the ports on your routher or not, DO NOT buy this game. Seriously, you don't want to be forced to wait a minute every time the game tries to connect to Autolog.

[Stompem]

The game uses default ports used by your windows system, your browsers, most games and steam and they are not blocked at all which is obvious because you are here, so I think you know why it won't work and you will be waiting a long time for an answer to getting around it here, so just login with your EA acount and it will be fine.

[CaptBasil]

Obviously you didn't read my post and/or don't know what I'm talking about.

Here's the short version: My landlord blocked all the ports on the router. Because of this, it is impossible for me to connect to the Autolog servers. This is not an issue with my operating system or my PC.

I would just like to be able to play the game without having to wait for the game to tell me that the connection failed each time it tries to connect to the Autolog servers.

Originally posted by Stompem:

so just login with a legitimate EA acount and it will be fine.

I bought the game on Steam and didn't pirate it, if that's what you're implying. I don't even get to a point where I can enter any account information because the game simply can't connect to the servers.

[Kargor]

Well, a sale is too short a timeframe, but did you try blocking the connection YOURSELF?

Thing is, there are two ways a connection can be blocked by a packet filter: it could just drop the network packets into the equivalent of a trashcan, or it could send a "connection failed" back.

If the router on your premises just drops the packets, the software trying to make the connection will have to wait for a timeout before it knows that the connection didn't work. If, on the other hand, a "connection failed" is returned immediately it might not get into that "wait for a minute" state at all.

Thus, if you can make your own packetfilter send that response, the problem might be solved.
There are also more nerdish tricks to achieve the same result -- if you know the IP address(es) of the autolog server(s), you could route them to your own machine. Since there are no autolog servers on your own machine, the connection will fail immediately. And if the game even uses DNS to get the IP addresses, adding them to your hosts file will do the trick. But both of these require a great deal of knowledge about the autolog setup, though.

If everything is blocked on the router (excluding the usual http ports, I presume) you could run a quick test by trying to connect to some external facility that's being blocked. If you know that the connection will be blocked you can actually connect anywhere -- doesn't matter whether there's anything accepting the connection since you aren't get there anyway.

Thus, accessing e.g. "http://1.2.3.4:5678" in your browser will either give you a "connecting" indication for an extended period of time if the router just drops the connection attempt, or it should give a "no such server" indication right away if the router replies to the connection attempt. That's assuming the browser doesn''t go through a proxy. Win7 doesn't have a telnet client by default anymore, unfortunately.

[CaptBasil]

Originally posted by Kargor:

Thus, accessing e.g. "http://1.2.3.4:5678" in your browser will either give you a "connecting" indication for an extended period of time if the router just drops the connection attempt, or it should give a "no such server" indication right away if the router replies to the connection attempt. That's assuming the browser doesn''t go through a proxy. Win7 doesn't have a telnet client by default anymore, unfortunately.

Hey, thanks for the detailed response!

Like you suggested, I tried to connect to that IP address, but the browser just said "Connecting" for a while, until the connection eventually timed out. And I assume that's exactly what happens when this game tries to connect to the Autolog servers.

After searching the internet for a while to see if there's some kind of program that can just block the outgoing connection attempt so that it won't have to time out anymore, I realized I might be able to do just that in the Windows Firewall. So I added a custom Outbound Rule for this game, and it actually works! I still have to click through the in-game messages telling me that the connection attempt failed each time the game tries to establish a connection, but at least it fails instantly now.

So, thanks again for your help! Can I offer you some trading cards in return? ;)

[Stompem]

I could have told you that firewall settings etc would block the Autologger but that isn't what you were asking because it will still appear.

Editing game files as you were asking/implying is probably against the EULA

The game uses common ports so I don't see how it is being blocked by the router.

Disabling or blocking the Autologger could be taken as an attempt by a user to allow the game to be played in offline mode without inserting the game key.

[Harry]

well you're landlord is a idiot ask him to unblock them

[Stompem]

Get the landlord to open (forward) TCP Port 12335