problems connecting to irc - please help!!

[bloobums]

I'm trying to connect to irc.utchat.com using the built-in unreal tournament '99 chat client.

Whenever I try to connect, I get connecting to irc.utchat.com, eventually followed by Timeout connecting to server and Server disconnected. I can play online fine, so I don't think it's my internet connection thats causing the problem - any help greatly appreciated :heart:

[Darkus Edius]

I'm gonna try to help you :D

Download a 'real' IRC client first, XChat is an excellent open-source (free) client, or you could also try mIRC (which has a 30-day evaluation period.) If you are running Windows you might also have MSChat installed (you will have to find the .exe manually if you are running WindowsXP,) you can use that in a pinch.

Try connecting to the server with one of those and see if you get the same error. If you do, there are a few things that could be going wrong:

A. The server really is down (obviously :D)

B. Your router/firewall is blocking the IRC ports. I believe they are TCP ports 6666, 6667 and 6668 by default, but I could be wrong :D Someone else here may know the exact ranges.

C. Somehow you pissed off NickServ/got banned and they aren't letting you through. That happened to me on one server once, and I got a 'no response.' Usually you will at least be able to connect and then get kicked if this happened.

D. You are trying to reconnect too quickly (it would ususally say 'Throttled' but not always.)

If you can connect with a real client, the problem lies within UT (obviously.) Go to your UT/System directory (typically C:/UnrealTournament/System) and find the file 'UnrealTournament.ini' and open it with Notepad. Find this header:

[UBrowser.UBrowserIRCSetupClient]

And make sure it looks something like this:

[UBrowser.UBrowserIRCSetupClient]
IRCServerHistory[0]=irc.utchat.com
IRCChannelHistory[0]=#utgames
IRCChannelHistory[1]=#utchat
IRCChannelHistory[2]=#utmods
IRCChannelHistory[3]=#utlevels
IRCChannelHistory[4]=#uthelp
(in the above example I deleted the default 'open' entries; you will see what I mean)

Try it with a real client and let us know how it goes? Good luck!

[bloobums]

OK, well I have checked my unrealtournament.ini file (all fine) and tried connecting via xchat - and I get the following error message: "Connection failed. Error: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine"
I think this may be due to my firewall? I'm using zonealarm, and I'm not sure how to open ports or do anything with my firewall :eek:

Thanks for your help so far :D

[><{{{*>]

completely turn off zonealarm and see if it works, if it does you can turn zonealarm back on and work out how to open the ports later.

[Darkus Edius]

Yeah, especially ZoneAlarm Pro, that one is particularly restrictive to IRC. Turn it off completely when you need to use UT's IRC, nobody is gonna hack you through UT, so don't worry about it :D

[bloobums]

nothing worked :(