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Network Errors with Hell Let Loose and Starship Troopers: Extermination
Bilskirnir3124 Nov 30, 2023
My System Info

Linux Distribution: Arch
Desktop Environment: MATE
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
GPU Driver Version: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 23.2.1-arch1.2

Have you checked for system updates?: Yes

Link to system information from Steam.

You can note your issue below here



Hello,

I recently switched my gaming desktop to Linux. I’m running Arch (fully updated, installed via archinstall; install logs here with MATE. I am using IVPN in addition to Network Manager (with nm-applet). I have Steam installed and have largely had little in the way of trouble getting my games to run. I am, however, having problems with two specific games: Hell Let Loose and Starship Troopers Extermination; both of which use Easy AntiCheat and Unreal Engine 4. I first thought it was an EAC problem, but with Battlebits Remastered I don’t have any trouble with EAC despite it also being an EAC game. None of my other games with online components have had network issues so far.

I’m running both games on Proton GE from the AUR. I have tried the default, Steam assigned version of Proton, and Proton Experimental as well. I have the Proton EasyAntiCheat Runtime installed as well. To the best of my knowledge that is all the needs to be done to configure it. According to what I’ve read, Steam should handle it from there.

Hell Let Loose reaches the “Press any button,” screen, then briefly has the message, “connecting to online servers,” (or something like that) then fails with the message:

“Notice
A network error has occurred. Please try again.”

Starship Troopers meanwhile will reach its Early Access message. When I select, “continue,” I receive the following message (after some waiting time):

“Request Timeout or null response.”

It seems that neither can access the internet for some reason I am unaware of. At this point I’m out of ideas on dealing with these problems on my own. I can’t seem to find anything with web searches relating to these problems. That said, my googlefu might just be atrophied. Things have been working smoothly for me for too long I guess. I suspect that the problem is either with my internet configuration or with how the games are configured by Steam to connect to the internet. Then then Steam itself works fine with my internet configuration.

I am posting a question about both of these games together due to the commonality. Both use EAC, and both are failing in the same manner.

Both games have ProtonDB entries that list them as having functional multiplayer/online components.

Thanks for the help. Let me know if I can provide anymore information.


Note any particular steps to reproduce it below here

Unfortunately I don't think there is a way that I can make this particular issue reproducible. Most people I see talking about these games seem to have less or no issues with them these days.
BlackBloodRum Nov 30, 2023
Quoting: Bilskirnir3124I am using IVPN in addition to Network Manager (with nm-applet)
Have you tried the games without a VPN active? Many services try to hinder VPN usage in general, and anti-cheats are very likely to try to prevent connections from one.
Liam Dawe Nov 30, 2023
Yeah, I would absolutely never use a VPN trying to play anything online, it will cause issues.
Bilskirnir3124 Dec 1, 2023
I will take a stab at that tomorrow. My VPN setup doesn't allow traffic outside of the tunnel without some configuration changes. And it's split tunnel functionality on Linux leaves a little bit to be desired unfortunately.
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