Hey all, I’ve been running into a weird problem in StarCraft 2 1v1 matchmaking where my games keep failing to start. I think someone’s queue blocking me. From what I’ve figured out, they’re using a tool like Wireshark to sniff out the IP ranges of SC2’s game servers. They queue up at my MMR with a bot, match with me, and then block the server IP on their end (maybe with a firewall), so the game times out and never starts. It’s been happening for hours—every time I queue, it just stalls and kicks me back. Anyone know how to fix this or report it properly since I can’t see their username? Blizzard support tips would be great too. Thanks!
thats not a thing, stop watching protech.
Hey NightKnight,
Computer owners can block/allow any IO connections they wish since the computer is their property.
So unfortunately, blocking IPs using the native abilities of one’s OS or even a 3rd party program is not something Bliz can regulate, hence it’s not breaking any rules.
It’s definitely real. People have been using different apps to do it for several years. The issue with Protech/Seal is that he did the blocking too. So it was more an issue of being hypocritical when he made a stink about it when it happened to him.
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After digging into the issue more, it’s very clear what the problem is. When someone is using scripts to automate the match making process while blocking all the IP ranges their account will eventually become " locked. " This function does not seem to actually work as you can re-queue almost immediately after receiving this message.
The way I see it there are two options to address this issue:
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Make the IP ranges for all the servers dynamic rather than static, or come up with some way to spoof the IPS so that when people use programs like WireShark to sniff the IPs they can’t maliciously use this on people who have longer queue times.
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The game company needs to re-visit the account locking processing and ensure that when the system detects users doing this, it actually locks their account for 30minutes or an hour, and repeated offenses longer and longer. Under normal circumstances you could simply report the player for doing this, except the match never starts so there’s no profile to report.
I did find an app on teamliquids website, but anyone with basic firewall knowledge, and IP sniffer knowledge doesn’t need to use this. It’s incredibly perplexing to me how the game company couldn’t account for this type of manipulation. Although I speculate the measures are in place since that message does eventually pop up " you can’t enter the match making queue because your status has been locked " it just doesn’t seem to function properly or as intended.
I don’t know who that is but after reading your post and a little digging he seems to have switched up his main content to 1v1 rather than team games due to the issue.
I speculate that the same people who are harassing him are now using the same scripts or bots to block his games in the 1v1 gm ladder, but since 1v1 doesn’t require such a long queue time he is able to find other opponents, and as the bot/script runs it hits other accounts resulting in his same problem.
EDIT: Seems like his stream times and my play times are roughly the same, so it sounds even more likely that this is the issue.