I'm doing a level job for someone, which makes this more frustrating. Every time I try to join (even a game that obviously exists) or create a game, I immediately get the game does not exist message. I've reset my vpn multiple times, restarted my computer, etc. This problem is happening on any account I try to do anything with. Any ideas?

VPN ? is it your router?

did you try changing your IP manually by using Start -> Run -> CMD -> Ipconfig -> Ipconfig/release - > ipconfig renew?

if you did that, and all the other tires, I would recommend you to reinstall diablo 2.

Tried your suggestion, and I reinstalled D2 before posting here. Arghhh so weird

I'm thinking the accounts themselves and not my connection may be tagged for some reason.

This post was edited by cloudblade70 on May 1 2011 04:24pm

are you on the right realm?

Just googled that for you, try and do the same to look for other info.

1. Realm Down or Unable to Connect to Battle.net

This is one of the most common errors that occur online. At the beginning of ladder season 2, there was a huge influx of botters that really slowed down blizzard’s servers and joining and creating games online took forever. So Blizzard created these measures to try to free up their servers and to discourage botting and other 3rd party programs.

You mainly get a realm down or “Unable to Connect to Battle.net” message when you either switch characters too many times or you join too many games in a certain amount of time. Therefore, Blizzard thinks you are botting and temporarily bans you. Now don’t worry; nothing will happen to your account.

There really is no solution to this error. You just have to wait it out. Most realm downs last for about 5-10 minutes. Sometimes, it may even last for 1-2 hours. In the most severe case, they last for 24-48 hours. And this is a fact: the most times you try to logon while you are temporarily banned, the longer your temporary ban will be. But this does not mean like if you try to log on 3-4 times during a realm down and you’re ban will go up to 1-2 hours. Blizzard only reinforced this rule because botting programs will continue to try to logon if they can’t access battle.net.

Another less common way of getting these errors is spamming in the chat channels. Of course most people do not do this but if you have downloaded a third party program, a spam bot may have been included in it. So the bot may be spamming in the channel different ads with your account name next to it. So this is another reason (out of the hundreds) NOT to download illegal programs.

2. The connecting to b.net is stuck at “connecting to the fastest server…”

This is another error that some people get. It’s usually due to a firewall or router issue. Depending on the firewall or router, there are different solutions. On Windows XP Service Pack 2’s firewall, make sure you set Diablo 2 as one of your exceptions:

Go to Control panel and open of Windows Firewall. Click on the middle tab called “Exceptions” and choose Add Program. Select Diablo 2 as the program you want to add.

There are many different routers out there. I would suggest looking in your router manual about playing online games. If all else fails, try directly connecting your computer to your cable/dsl line and turning off your firewall all together and connect.

3. The connecting to b.net is stuck at “Checking versions”

This part of the connection is known to take a while sometimes. For new players, if you feel that it’s seriously stuck there, that often means that you need to download a newer patch and there’s some sort of connection error preventing you from downloading it directly when connecting to b.net.

The solution for this is to just download it manually off Blizzard’s website: http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=msc0387p

After you download it, all you have to do is double click the file.

If you already have the latest patch and still get the error, try restarting your game or computer to see if it solves the problem.

4. You are unable to connect to battle.net because “x” is using your cd key.

First, you have to understand that only one cd key can be used online at once. So NEVER share your cd key with friends and NEVER tell anyone online you don’t know what it is.

Second, Battle.net checks BOTH, your Diablo 2 cd key and Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction cd key. When you get this error message, it should tell you which cd key is being used.

The most common reason for this problem is when you get disconnected from battle.net due to a connection interruption. Battle.net does not recognize that you are disconnected immediately. All you should is wait for about 5 minutes and you should be able to logon again. Note: this is only for when the error tells that you are using the cd key yourself.

If you are not the one using your cd key, it seems that someone somehow obtained yours. Many 3rd party programs are able to steal your cd keys. And on very very rare occasions, someone may have generated your cd key using a cd key generator. In these cases there is nothing much you can do but buy another game. This is when knowing which cd key is being used is helpful because you have to know whether to buy D2 classic or D2: LoD. Alternatively, you could mail your cd case with the cd back to Blizzard, and they will give you a new cd key. However, this takes about 1-2 weeks.

Ok that’s about it. I may have missed a few cases, so if you want, you can help out and post them here. And if you’re still having trouble, we can help you here or you can have a look at Blizzard’s technical support site here: http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=ami0222p

Also, sometimes Bnet will crash your game or just kick you for no reason; both are indicated by "Connection interrupted" (same as when you loose internet dialup, but you should know which is the case). This often leads to "Realm down" as well.

Something you didn't mention as well is the case when you try to connect to (or create a, which is mostly the same thing) game and the client crashes in between (happens frequently with one of my two...). You'll be able to log into bnet just fine (operating systems will properly close down TCP connections), but you won't be able to log into games for a while (probably because bnet is too buggy). Again, best thing to do is just wait a bit.

If you "failed to join game" a game that you've just created, then trying to create it again will give you "A game with that name already exists". Trying to join that game, however, will tell you "Game doesn't exist".
This situation will sort itself out as well, just wait for a bit.

Last but not least, if you can log into bnet, but are unable to connect to any games (without any of the above being the case) --- that's another gateway issue with an overly restrictive packet filtering: bnet is hosted on a given IP address, but games are hosted on other addresses --- so if your configuration allows access to just one address for bnet you won't be able to access the servers with the games.

This post was edited by TupacAshakur on May 1 2011 04:25pm

Tried everything I could think of. I refunded my level job, but still lost 20 fg for the classic rush -.- Hopefully this will resolve itself with time so I can play my own chars, zzz.

This post was edited by cloudblade70 on May 1 2011 05:06pm

Your VPN is causing problems. My brother had this issue. :)