I've read other threads on this and none of them seem to work for me. I've applied a Microsoft fix for TLS and I'm using GOG Galaxy, but all I ever get is the (annoying) blue circle telling me it's trying to connect. GOG Galaxy itself happily connects to GOG (and updates the game) but the game does not ever go online.

Is there something fundamental I'm missing here, before I give up entirely on online NMS ?

Can it even be done ?

You don't need to TLS fix, just launch GoG Galaxy and that's it, minimize it and start game. You don't need to start game with GG, but you must launch GG prior of launching the game and you will have online connectivity. I use the direct download patches to update the game and I don't install it through GG, I just use GG prior to fire the game. And this only for NMS.

The TLS "fix" is needed for Win7 SP1 machines that default to TLS 1.0. HG updated the link security (as they should) to no longer use the depricated 1.0. Several threads about this here and on Steam.

Perhaps a slightly different way of phrasing this might help because I used to play completely off-line and it took me a while to readjust - if you launch No Man's Sky from a desktop icon or the Start menu then connection to the Discovery servers will not occur. The Discovery servers are maintained by Hello Games but access first goes through the game client which in the GOG system requires having Galaxy open. The simplest way to ensure this is to launch Galaxy and then launch No Man's Sky from within Galaxy. Another option to launch these separately was already offered. In my case the first 900 hours were completely stand-alone before I finally relented and installed Galaxy but sometimes I would forget and directly launch No Man's Sky and therefore did not have the path established to the Discovery servers and I would then exit and launch the game through Galaxy. Back in the old days of NMS there was a small reward for scanning something but to get a much larger reward of space bucks the discoveries had to be uploaded to Hello Games as opposed to the current system of space bucks for the discovery and nanites for uploading.

You can also intermittently play with Galaxy having been launched and discoveries that were not previously uploaded due to a lack of server connectivity will also be uploaded the next time that the game sees that connection has been established. The downside is that it is possible that someone else might visit and report discoveries before your discoveries are reported.

Your posts indicates that you probably have checked this a few times but just in case there are times when the Discovery servers are taken down but in more recent times this is typically only for a short period.

Just in case I also remember about some people reporting that they had run a patch for the TLS issue instead of the fix. The fix made the necessary registry changes while the patch did not. I am not sure if the patch is still around because of the confusion in that many did not notice that they had to then make manual registry edits.

I have Win7 pro sp1, and I DON'T need TLS fix. It's exactly like I said above, please try it out. I also have the game on my gaming laptop with Win10, and it's the same: launching after starting GG will get you connectivity. You get it right if you can see your GoG account name as your avatar name (otherwise you see "Explorer" as your name).

And to say it again: you DON'T need to install game through GG, you just need to launch GG before.

Thank you all for your replies, however note I was aware of needing Galaxy open and have never been able to connect with it open, regardless of whether I start from the Play button in Galaxy or not, and neither before or after trying the TLS fix.

I'll have a look at the registry setting thing and see if it's still an issue.

Again, appreciate anyone taking the time to respond.

Went through registry and even tried setting the extra keys Microsoft say are needed (but baffling don't set themselves with the Easy Fix !) and rebooted. Still cannot connect, but (surprisingly) if I turn on Networking during a game I have seen other people wander through the Nexus (the first time that happened it confused the heck out of me as I wasn't expecting it :-) ). This doesn't seem to change my ability to access the Void Egg missions so still kinda stuck.

Seems you can be seen by other players but still not connect online (e.g. to upload). Very odd.

But thanks for the advice to date.

Check your Antivirus, it must allow all traffic for the game.

Possibly relevant (and maybe not!) but today on the Discoveries page I've had a red circle and a notification that I've lost connection to online discovery services.

This may have started a day or two ago. Noticed that only my bases were showing up at the Anomaly teleporter. Just checked and no Community Mission at the Nexus, either.

For long before that, however, I've had the "connected" indicator and weekend missions and the rest.

Wonder if it's a network thing or a side effect of the Exomech update or ???

Funny how the xboxie servers are working. Just look at the community mission status on the galactic atlas.

It would appear that this is repeat of the original problems with servers that had plagued us since day 1 and continually worsened until they had to redo things in preparation for releasing a version for xbox.

Currently there is a massibe amount of posts on Steam where all players have no connectivity for the game, so it's related to the current game patching probably where NMS servers are down.

The servers were restored at approximately 8 AM UTC based upon posts made in other forums. I completed the weekly about a hour ago (relative to the time that this post is being made). It will probably take a while for the backlog of reported discoveries to be updated.

I completed the weekly with Internet unplugged and was rewarded with no stupid communications balls and no bases blocking anything. I accepted the mission un unplugged the cable just before opening the portal.

Still can't get online (in the "connect" sense, although I can see other players with "multiplayer" turned on).

However thanks to the community I did at least use the NMS save game editor to edit my game to turn on daily quests and to let me, as a result, get more quicksilver, so very useful and thanks all.

Why this is not allowed as standard for offline I don't understand, but out of our hands.