I was playing earlier today, but while making a transition from a system to sector space, I lost my connection to the game server. This has happened on occasion before -- annoying, but I can usually connect right back up.
This time, when I tried to connect again, it starts to load my character, then sends a Server Not Responding error, and soon after times out.
Then I tried again, only this time, I timed out trying to connect to the login server. After a couple attempts at this, I figure maybe the server is down, so I check the website, it's still listed as up, and nobody is complaining in the forums, so I decide my problem must be an isolated one.
I try completely shutting down the client and restarting it. This time I can't even get to the login timeout, because now the launcher won't get past checking for patches.
So I shut it down and try again. Now it won't even launch the launcher, as it tries 4 times to find updates for that before I give up.
I shut it down, and reboot my computer. This time I manage to get all the way back to login again. Try the character I want to play: times out connecting to game server again.
Try again, this time with another character. Get into the game. Hooray! Only, this isn't the character I want to play right now, so I log out, and try again with the character I do want to play. No luck, timeout on game server connection again.
I try another, third, character, and suffer the same timeout there... and after that, I'm back to the timeout connecting to the login server.

UPDATE: When I managed to connect to the login server again, I again failed to connect with the character I want to play. Log in AGAIN, try the character that worked before, and that one connects.
What has happened to my characters? Why can't I play them?
Comments
I tried to enter the Sol Starbase and dropped connection.
Next night I was in the middle of a PvE space combat mission and dropped the connection.
Just now I was in the middle of a PVP ground match and crashed to desktop.
Three times in three days. My PC is stable, I never had this issue until they released season one.
"Trying to update the launcher. Please be patient. Tried connecting 14 times." .....and counting on hold with tech support 20min now and they close in 8min wonder if I will get through.
it seems with my limited time to play I can never get on I am going to be asking for a credit this is insane
worst MMORPG maintenence ever Cryptic needs some lessons from Blizzard
well its now 4min past their close time and I am still on hold my launcher has now tried "updating" 19 times
Cryptic you should allow the launcher to run on the users computer locally and connect when they log from there that way at least the options and links to new and alerts is accesible!
I believe this is due to the crypticstudios.com site being down since the launcher connects to patchserver.crypticstudios.com I will stay on hold a little while longer then if not answered will try to connect later tonight. what a joke of a launch for this game and I love Star Trek please fix these issues soon !!!!!
I have submitted a support ticket and asked that the players who have to put up with all these frequent downtimes get some sort of credit for the constant downtime when we are paying to play and cannot during many of ours busy schedules!
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=148897
I am on shaw and just used my iPhone on Bell to access the site crypticstudios.com and it works but on wifi through my ISP its down I work for Shaw and will call a backdoor number I have to have them find the issue
Demon971
I am saying this issue is a routing issue from Toronto that is affecting all Shaw Customers from Specific routes to sites
To Cryptics servers is one route that broken the issue is in Toronto
by wifi I was just turning my wifi on and off on my phone while trying the site cryptic site as a way of diagnosing the issue and trying to see if it was a Shaw Problem at all before i tried it
using a router wifi or not is still through your ISP
no worries Fellow Trekkers this issue will get fixed Shaw is all about service and this may seem like a major inconvenience but its a minor part of the total Internet Service you are paying for
the on call Techs work 24/7 as do the operations teams soif they cant fix this issue remotely a tech can be dispatched to troubleshoot or replace the troubled equipment
it got to 48 tries with me, and almost 8 hours since i was shut out of my game..
I'm on Shaw in alberta. and really getting annoyed with it not connecting, someone needs a bloody kick in the balls.
I have found no consistency at all in the disconnections, or failures to connect.
I have also been encountering an issue which is most annoying, and sometimes I can get by it, by forcing an admin launch of the Cryptic Launcher. But then it seems that I am doomed to fail again to connect,.. when I get thrown back to my login screen.
When starting I will get the "Cryptic Launcher AutoUpdater" in the top left corner of the screen. It about 2 inches wide, by 1.5 inches tall,.. mentions attempting to update the launcher, be patient, and then shows the number of times the connection has been attempted.
Using the prescribed tests cryptic wants us to use,.. here are the results I got.
Has anyone seems similar numbers?
contacting nettest server..
Local IP: 68.145.220.206
Ping: 501.7 msec
Port: 80: 116 KB/sec 3 KB/sec 123 KB/sec 500
Port: 80: 344 KB/sec 10 KB/sec 366 KB/sec 500
Port: 443: 224 KB/sec 7 KB/sec 237 KB/sec 500
Port: 443: 5 KB/sec 5 KB/sec 7 KB/sec 500
Port: 7255: 344 KB/sec 16 KB/sec 366 KB/sec 500
Port: 7255: 270 KB/sec 17 KB/sec 288 KB/sec 500
Port: 7003: 496 KB/sec 23 KB/sec 529 KB/sec 500
Port: 7003: 182 KB/sec 12 KB/sec 196 KB/sec 500
Port: 7202: 150 KB/sec 9 KB/sec 160 KB/sec 500
Port: 7202: 499 KB/sec 21 KB/sec 530 KB/sec 500
Port: 7499: 565 KB/sec 24 KB/sec 601 KB/sec 500
Port: 7499: 562 KB/sec 20 KB/sec 598 KB/sec 500
Port: 80: 115 KB/sec 9 KB/sec 123 KB/sec 500
Idle NIC bandwidth Send: 7 KB/sec Recv: 2 KB/sec
hit return to exit
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Users\Soulfyre>tracert patchserver.crypticstudios.com
Tracing route to patchserver.crypticstudios.com [208.95.184.25]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 * * * Request timed out.
2 6 ms 7 ms 7 ms 64.59.130.114
3 8 ms 7 ms 15 ms rc1no-pos6-0.cg.shawcable.net [66.163.77.5]
4 7 ms 9 ms 8 ms rc1so-pos15-0.cg.shawcable.net [66.163.77.9]
5 23 ms 23 ms 25 ms rc1nr-pos0-8-5-0.wp.shawcable.net [66.163.76.86]
6 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms rc1sc-ge15-0-0.wp.shawcable.net [66.163.73.186]
7 48 ms 49 ms 48 ms rc1sh-pos13-0.mt.shawcable.net [66.163.76.73]
8 62 ms 60 ms 61 ms rc1hu-pos5-0-0.ny.shawcable.net [66.163.77.154]
9 66 ms 65 ms 69 ms cr2-nyiix-peer.nym009.internap.net [198.32.160.185]
10 65 ms 68 ms 67 ms cr2-cr1.nym009.internap.net [66.79.146.198]
11 72 ms 82 ms 71 ms bsn006-nym009-9-cr1.bsn006.internap.net [66.79.158.9]
12 67 ms 67 ms 67 ms bsn004-bsn006-792-mpr1.bsn004.internap.net [66.79.145.34]
13 67 ms 67 ms 67 ms border12.te8-1-bbnet2.bsn.pnap.net [63.251.128.105]
14 72 ms 71 ms 71 ms cryptic-1.border12.bsn.pnap.net [63.251.130.10]
15 70 ms 69 ms 69 ms patchserver.crypticstudios.com [208.95.184.25]
Trace complete.
The above was submitted in a ticket.
I even reset my Netgear Switch, Router, and Cable modem, per setup standards for use with Netgear equipment. No Joy. Even a direct connection to the modem fails to connect.
Then I attempted a full re-install. No I have to wait until the patch downloads again, before I can play.
Personally I was hoping it was an issue related to file corruption. Looks like I was wrong.
Just goes to show one thing. The developer are trying to hard to push out TOO MUCH, and TOO SOON.
This is breaking the server interaction, and as a result stealing our money payed for subscription, due to unplayable down-time.
I have been playing up until now on Windows 7, Ultimate 64 Bit, even played the game without issue on Vista Ultimate 64 Bit. So I know this is not an OS issue. I am running fully patched on both Vista and 7, and was doing so before thees issues began to appear.
I'm thinking there is a definitely issue with the automated patch functions. Manual downloads should be enabled from the support section of the website. This would help to relieve some of the strain on the game servers.
To much automation,.. not enough "required user knowledge" in play.
Unfortunately, I'm still having problems... which might be due to crashes the program had while I was still trying to get it to work earlier... or to the new graphics driver I downloaded when I thought that might be the problem.... gah, frustrating. Just want to play.