Sylvan Heart installation problem

[Rent]

Hi all,

I'm trying to get Sylvan up and working on a new Win8 install and I'm having some really frustrating issues. As I understand it I should be able to download the Sylvan Installer, let it install and then either play directly through the Sylvan Heart shortcut (or Decrypted_client.exe) or by installing Razor and pointing it at my Sylvan Heart install folder and giving it the right server info.

The issue I'm having is that when I run the client (either through Razor or by itself) and attempt to log in it hangs on "Connecting" for a while and then tells me "Couldn't connect to Ultima Online. Please try again in a few minutes."

What REALLY bugs me is that I had it working. Logged in, ran around a bit, everything looked fine. Logged in a couple of times actually through both the shortcut and Razor and everything was peachy. An hour later after changing nothing I tried again and got the above message. Did an uninstall and reinstall and I'm still stuck in the same spot.

If any of you can help me out I'd really appreciate it. I'm driving myself nuts trying to make this work.

[Garrick]

The reason you cannot connect right now is due to an unspecified server downtime.  Given the hour it is unclear if it is a machine failure, net failure, or any other number of issues.  Hold tight as I am sure that once the host or an admin wakes up they'll be able to get it situated and post what happened.  For future reference look in the 'Shard Downtime' section for downtime info and notices when you run across connection issues.

[Rent]

Thanks Garrick.

If the server has been down for the last hour or so and that's my only problem I feel like a real dunce for tearing my hair out over this.

[Garrick]

It's ok. It's been acting up since 1a.m. or so.  I'm sure it's weather related or a big net outage in the host area.

[Rent]

Just for future reference is there any way to check the server's status other than trying to log in?

[Garrick]

Right here on the forums.  Rarely does an outage not get posted in the server downtime section within minutes of it happening.