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It seems Blizzard have been having some issues with World of Warcraft and the newer WoW Classic with them coming under a DDoS attack. Their countermeasures (well, whatever they've done recently) seem to have blocked Linux players in Wine but there's a fix.

You will be able to load the game and bring up the server list but once you click to join a server, it just doesn't work. If you find this happening to you, changing your networking TTL can help. First, run this command in your terminal to find what your current default is:

sysctl net.ipv4.ip_default_ttl

Make a note of the number it shows in case you need to change it back for whatever reason. As for the actual fix, set it to something different like this:

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_default_ttl=128

128 is the default in Windows 10.

What does the command do? It changes your "Time To Live" and that's all. As always though you run such commands at your own risk, just here to provide information that might be helpful.

Another possible solution is to enable IPv6 support in the WoW Login screen options, although that won't work for everyone and depends on your ISP and Router.

While you're not supported by Blizzard playing on Linux, people have enjoyed WoW for many years thanks to Wine. Sometimes there's blips like this but thankfully the workaround does work for myself and a number of others who also tested it.


If you use a game launcher like Lutris, it can run commands or scripts you set before launching a game and after you close it, so it's handy for stuff like this where you might not want a permanent change. If you wish to try it through Lutris using that method, you will need to open the options for it: right click -> Configure -> System Options tab, tick the Show advanced options box at the bottom and then scroll to find this:

I've just setup two tiny little scripts to put TTL up and down again on launch and exit. Here's my "upttl.sh" script as a rough example:

#!/bin/bash
[ "$UID" -eq 0 ] || exec kdesu bash "$0" "$@"
sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_default_ttl=128

You will likely need to replace kdesu with gksu if you're on a GNOME based desktop, which is what will show an actual prompt to ask for your root password since it's needed to change the TTL. Make sure the script is set as executable too. You can use the same for when the game closes, with a lower number than 128 or whatever you wish to set. This is just an example though, whatever way makes it easier for you.

Hat tip to Jaco.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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28 comments
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Quoting: lejimster
Quoting: PieOrCakeI played WoW for over a decade, but thankfully managed to kick the habit before the BfA xpac was released. I've been WoW-free for a couple of years now, and holding steady!

I played it for a 2 week trial thingy years ago and I barely left my room during that time. When the trial expired I decided against buying it for my health lol.

I played for two or three years myself and I still consider Burning Crusade to have been the best game experience I've ever had. Unfortunately I have an extreme habit-forming personality and so I avoid MMORPG's because I'm still at a point in my life where I need to be proactive with other things.


Last edited by Madeanaccounttocomment on 10 September 2019 at 3:33 am UTC
Guppy Sep 10, 2019
Spendt the better part of yesterday troubleshooting this on the wow forums :) surprising how many Linux wow players there are.

But speaking of - the one thing that doesn't work for me with Lutrix in wow (classic) is the in game ticket system, it seems to want to load a webpage but instead just shows notting. Anyone have a fix for that?
CanadianBlueBeer Sep 10, 2019
Well, that explains why it stopped working.

Will test that for tonights gaming. (I hate having to reboot into that "other" system)
:)
Guppy Sep 10, 2019
Quoting: CanadianBlueBeerWell, that explains why it stopped working.

Will test that for tonights gaming. (I hate having to reboot into that "other" system)
:)

It stopped working? been playing for the past 3 hours with no problems - granted I use 80 for TTL
sigz Sep 11, 2019
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: sigzprefer the ipv6 setting in first place if you can, it's never the good choice to have to modify the system to fix a program.
As I understand it, ipv6 doesn't work on all servers so the TTL fix is likely the better option.

That's why I said if you can. I should have better said, "it's not the best choice to modify the system, but it can be considered on last solution" :P


Last edited by sigz on 11 September 2019 at 2:56 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Sep 11, 2019
Quoting: Guppy
Quoting: CanadianBlueBeerWell, that explains why it stopped working.

Will test that for tonights gaming. (I hate having to reboot into that "other" system)
:)

It stopped working? been playing for the past 3 hours with no problems - granted I use 80 for TTL
I think they were talking about WoW not working, not the fix :)

Quoting: devnullSetting a default of 128 is kinda silly. I don't play WoW but if you can identify what networks are required (with tcpdump for example), a better option is a policy route...
This is just the quickest and simplest solution to get people back up and running while it was an issue.
Caenth Sep 11, 2019
Yes, I can log in without problems without the fix again, but it saved me from two evenings without WoWC!
14 Sep 14, 2019
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I decided to see if I could log in without the workaround, and sure enough (like Caenth), I can! Yay.
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