Hello,

I seem to have exhausted the tech support guys so in the hopes that someone in the community knows how to fix/ work around here goes.

I bought The witcher 3 on launch from GOG (cheapest) and decided to use the Galaxy app, i like convenient which is why i like steam, origin, uplay etc.

We skip forward to last month where i have more time after moving home working away etc to actually start grinding the game out, but every time i open GOG Galaxy i'm greeted with the error "Connection to GOG Galaxy Communication Service was lost and could not be restored! GOG Galaxy will now shutdown."

I have spoken with tech support who closed the call with the line "We can reproduce the issue but cannot fix, please download the titles instead." This is not an answer in my eyes, others may disagree but if the trunk on your car didn't work and the garage told you to use the back seat instead would you accept it?

My 2 part question is this:-

1. Does anyone know a fix for the issue mentioned above?

2. Is there a way to move the license to steam like uplay and steam have (software installed to uplay but steam manages the updating and launching).

I can provide system spec and base software as required.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT.

I have tried searching the forums but receive 404 errors both from my machine, a laptop and from my company desktop on a different ISP.

I can't help you with your issue regarding the game, but I can say this much:
Don't search the forum using Galaxy. It's broken and a known bug. You'll have to use a browser to do so.

F022Y, I agree that's not an appropriate answer.

As a coder I know fixes con be illusive, at least they can replicate, but they should have given you more details why they can't get a fix. Even just to say "we can't find the root of the cause as the moment".

No you can't transfer the license.

Out of interest, how many network interfaces are listed. Do you use any virtual machines?

Thank you for the response, unfortunately already tried this even to the point of different browsers (chrome on desktop, safari on MAC and IE on 2012R2 server) Thank you for the response.

I have 3 one for Netmotion VPN one for Hyper-V and the physical NIC. I have tried disabling the 2 virtual ones.

That's...bizarre.
When you say "searching the forums" you mean using the little button next to the "new topic" thing, right? Also, take note that it's finicky and hates anything that isn't an alphanumeric character.

Yes it's bizarre I've just resigned myself to the thought of "that's just how GOG is"

Many of us have, at this point...
Another option is to use Google, since that's honestly often a more reliable method than GOG's already-lousy search function. site:www.gog.com/forum followed by whatever you're looking for usually does the trick.

I thought as much, thank you anyway.

As nice as DRM free is convenience is more important to me, steam and the others just work so on the small amount of downtime i get i can just play instead of bashing my face against my keyboard to find fixes etc lol

Okay, judging from your replies you're a serious tech head. Most people don't have a windows server at home.

Are you using a custom DNS?

The fact that you 404 when searching gog forums is pretty good indicator that there is something wrong on your side, because it works for everybody else (ok, I can't speak for everybody, but at least it works for me right now. Searching for "witcher" returned 185 topics). Firewall, router, dns, ISP, (maybe something broken on country level? far fetched but possible)... Can you use rest of the internet normally and it only happens on GOG forums?

You mentioned "company desktop on different ISP" and that you have "tried disabling the 2 virtual ones". Did you check if you succeded in disabling them? Maybe all your traffic gets routed through your employer's network because you have VPN active and they have restricted internet rules where you work. Some VPN's can be pretty invasive what they allow you to do with your computer, maybe even disallow you to shut down their virtual interface. Or worse, they may let you disable the interface, but won't delete the routes, so now your traffic is sent to a black hole.

I'd start with "route PRINT" command and see if there is anything odd.

Nope good old google DNS in play.

Perk of the job (Server and network engineer) is I *need* a test server for deployments.
Only get it GOG's site, VPN isn't an issue as i get the same results on other machines without the VPN software but i must admit while playing with this the site was added to my hostfile.

To be honest though the fact the website doesn't work for me is a minor issue in comparison to not being able to play a game, all because the launcher doesn't work for me and the tech support team have just shrugged it off.

I feel I've taken up enough of everyone's time on this as well as my own, as mentioned before i don't get much "downtime" due to work so it's nice to sit down and play games that are already patched and ready.

Thanks again.

I suspect the issues are connected. Your hosts file is good example what could be wrong that I didn't think of. You point Galaxy to wrong server, of course it gets 404 back and it is not yet in state where it can encounter "impossible error, please reboot universe" and continue working. It may or may not have it's own infrastructure for the heavy traffic, but it's likely it shares user authorization with GOG site. Or part of it. Like searching in forums. Search cannot authorize you and dies with 404 in browser, galaxy cannot authorize and dies with "Connection to GOG Galaxy Communication Service was lost and could not be restored! GOG Galaxy will now shutdown.".

This is a lot of speculation on my part, but it still seems more likely that the issue is on your side and GOG can't do anything about it. But I admit I'm out of ideas what could be wrong, this is a point where I'd need to get my hands on keyboard and poke at stuff until it starts working, or breaks even worse, and you seem to be capable of that yourself.

Doesn't solve your Galaxy issues, but I'm pretty sure you can still play the game if you go into the game install folder and find the game's .exe (not the launcher) and make a shortcut to that on your desktop. Then start the game from that. You don't get any of the Galaxy features, since it won't be running, but you should be able to at least play the game.