Crash to Server Select

[YnfynytJester]

So this started happening January 8th, 2019... I'd be playing, and all of a sudden the game would crash to the Server Select screen. But there wouldn't be any servers in the list. So I'd quit, and fully relaunch the game... And I could play for somewhere between 3 and 10 minutes... and it would crash to the Server Select screen again!

I honestly can't figure out what the heck is wrong!

I've re-installed, fully, the game 4 times since Tuesday (It's now Friday). I wasn't having any problems prior to Tuesday the 8th.

My internet speed is around 230-250mbps. My CPU is a 2.9 gig 8 core i7. I've got 24 gb of ram. I'm running a GTX980 geForce graphics card. My drives are SSD gen 3s. My C drive is 250gb, and my 2ndary is 1tb. I have plenty of room on both (over 60% free on main, over 80% free on secondary). All my drivers are up to date. My ping is perfect, at 14mbps up, 230-250mbps down. I checked Can You Run It? and my machine knocks it out of the park for the game.

And, again, all was well until Tuesday. Now, the game is unplayable.

[proxos666]

@YnfynytJester

Run through some further basics 

remove and re-add exceptions in the antivirus and firewall for launcher.exe and swtor.exe

check temps

Grab the free version of www.pingplotter.com and graph to say www.google.com and see if there is any change in the graphing at the time of the drop back to the server select.

That graph can be saved as a jpg and shared in a post here

[YnfynytJester]

Attached screenshot with Core Temp running, and a Ping Plot against Google. (I feel like I should be able to Ping Plot SWTOR, but I don't know how.)

CPUs are running fine, temp not an issue. Fans kick in if they need to, but they're running pretty low rpms while playing the game (like always).

Waiting for inevitable crash to Server Select, at which point I'll screenshot Ping Plot again.

[YnfynytJester]

And it crashed. Ping Plot didn't change. Machine temps didn't change.

Haven't done anything with firewall and AV yet, as the game launches and runs, so it's getting through both I'm guessing.

[YnfynytJester]

Is it remotely possible that the packaged-with-SWTOR "BitRaider" is part of the problem? That thing is running constantly while SWTOR runs, and chews up a big chunk of CPU.

[YnfynytJester]

Interesting find on the SWTOR community:

[Belgorad]

@YnfynytJester

Bitraider is ran in the background as a ways to constantly download updates for the game while playing instead of having to boot the launcher, then wait for all updates to complete before playing the game.  Some players have issues with it, some don't, it varies.

Essentially you are using the streaming version of the game.  You can switch to the non-streaming version as per this guide here and see if this resolves your issue.

[YnfynytJester]

Doing the BitRaider removal stuff now. The "instructions" said to kill the bitraider, assets, and movies folders... did that, and now I have an 11 gig download. Hopefully this solves it.

[YnfynytJester]

Well, 30 gigs of downloads later... Ran the game... and crashed to Server Select. Honestly, I'm at a loss at this point. I checked my firewall, and SWTOR was in there, as it should be, set to allow all throughput.

So, to sum:

CPU and GPU temps are fine.

All drivers are up to date.

Have tested game in highest and lowest graphic modes.

Firewall is set to allow everything through for SWTOR.

Internet pipes are clean and allowing full speed.

Machine specs are more than enough to play the game (and honestly play, at full settings, games much more demanding than SWTOR.).

Ping is fine.

HD space is ridiculously more than required.

RAM, Video, and CPU are also all much higher than required and recommended.

Have tried with and without Bitraider running.
Have run as sole application running (no browsers or anything other than standard windows services and AV/Firewall services).

Am hard-lined to my network. No network changes in recent memory.

Problem did not exist before 1/8/2019.

Game crashes to Server Select screen, 98% of the time without any servers in the list, and an error telling me that it can't find any servers.

[proxos666]

@YnfynytJester

For the game to crash to server select it would take a termination of the communication in like microseconds, usually there is some indication of what is the cause but not always unfortunately.

Remove and re-add all firewall rules and the same for the antivirus exceptions for launcher.exe and swtor.exe , I have seen these fail after an update and need to removed and re-added to become effective again.

 the easiest way to eliminate that internet connection is to take that system to say a friend's house and test with his internet connection or if you can tether to your mobile phone and play the game using the mobile network data as a test.

Also do you have another computer you can load that game onto as well and play on your internet connection ? this eliminates a system issue and points to the network somehow if more then one system is affected.

These are things that you can do to continue to narrow down what this isnt.