LDD Cannot Access the Internet

[Felkin]

8 hours ago, ChristopherLee said:

Has anyone thought to email LEGO and ask them what the situation is?

I emailed yesterday, and just got a reply from them:

 

I’m sorry that you’re having problems with LEGO® Digital Designer (LDD). No matter what the specific problem is, usually it helps if you update your QuickTime program to the latest version.

If LDD gives you an error message saying you’re not connected to the Internet – even when you are – this may be caused by a firewall blocking LEGO Digital Designer from accessing the Internet. Try changing your firewall settings, or turn off the firewall and try again.

The following things can help:
•Check http://ldd.lego.com in a web browser
•Allow HTTP protocol on port 80 through firewall settings
•Make sure the following sites are added to “Allowed Sites” in firewall settings: 

◦ldd.lego.com
◦171.20.33.11
◦assets.lego.com
◦cache.lego.com

If you’ve tried that and it didn’t work, please uninstall the LDD program and install again from LEGO.com/LDD

 

So if they are bringing out a new version of LDD, they're not saying so yet. And no mention of why so many people are suddenly affected by it. Hmm....

[SylvainLS]

12 hours ago, PicnicBasketSam said:

Wait, really?

Yes. In order to maintain ldraw.xml, I check the changes in db.lif. Only files added/modified in 2248.1 were for 26604.

1 hour ago, Felkin said:

I emailed yesterday, and just got a reply from them: […]

I’m impressed, that’s a thorough answer.

They don’t seem to know about the problem though. That we are many, all around the world, to have the same problem can’t be due to local settings: we don’t use the same ISP or OS.

[dpkong]

So I've also been having this problem for the last couple of days. Don't really recall exactly when.

ldd.lego.com works fine
assets.lego.com and cache.lego.com comes up with 404 errors

but 171.20.33.11 results with 

This site can’t be reached

171.20.33.11 took too long to respond.

[SylvainLS]

21 minutes ago, dpkong said:

171.20.33.11 took too long to respond.

That’s not the problem. I looked at what LDD was trying to access:

1. It tries http://ldd.lego.com/service/integration.asmx/initialiseDesigner
2. It gets a temporary redirection (code 302) to http://www.lego.com/en-us/shared/pagenotfound.aspx?r=404
3. So it tries it and gets a permanent redirection (code 301) to https://www.lego.com/en-us/shared/pagenotfound.aspx?r=404 (just the same but with httpS).
4. And stops there.

Obviously, it’s the first URL (ldd.lego.com) that has stopped working.

[StarWars8Spoiler]

Day 4.  Methinks they're trying to shutter LDD for good, and are just doing a poor job of informing the public of their decision.

EDIT:

Talked to 'Jennifer' from LEGO, here's what she told me.

and later...

So to conclude, no estimated time for a fix, and it's not down for an update (that we know of).

Edited June 11, 2017 by ChristopherLee

[MatthewRC]

4 hours ago, ChristopherLee said:

Day 4.  Methinks they're trying to shutter LDD for good, and are just doing a poor job of informing the public of their decision.

EDIT:

Talked to 'Jennifer' from LEGO, here's what she told me.

and later...

So to conclude, no estimated time for a fix, and it's not down for an update (that we know of).

I think the reason why Jennifer said "no" was because she doesn't know whether or not LDD is getting an update. This is because the LDD Team has not told anyone at LEGO if there might be a new update. It's just between the people who work on the LDD servers.

[PicnicBasketSam]

Has anyone tried downloading LDD since this happened, or at least deleting and re-installing?

[MatthewRC]

5 minutes ago, PicnicBasketSam said:

Has anyone tried downloading LDD since this happened, or at least deleting and re-installing?

Some people have tried, and it didn't work.

[StarWars8Spoiler]

21 minutes ago, PicnicBasketSam said:

Has anyone tried downloading LDD since this happened, or at least deleting and re-installing?

Just tried it. Downloading is fine. Reinstalling also works fine. Still no web connectivity. 

 

45 minutes ago, MatthewRC said:

I think the reason why Jennifer said "no" was because she doesn't know whether or not LDD is getting an update. This is because the LDD Team has not told anyone at LEGO if there might be a new update. It's just between the people who work on the LDD servers.

The most important thing I took away from my chat with her was that they don't have any idea when it'll be fixed.

[Felkin]

Hopefully, it'll just turn out that somebody in Lego's IT updated or changed something (or unplugged the wrong thing), and everybody had gone home for the weekend before they realised that anything was wrong. It'll be interesting if this problem gets fixed tomorrow, when (presumably) everyone will be back at work.

[PicnicBasketSam]

8 minutes ago, Felkin said:

Hopefully, it'll just turn out that somebody in Lego's IT updated or changed something (or unplugged the wrong thing), and everybody had gone home for the weekend before they realised that anything was wrong. It'll be interesting if this problem gets fixed tomorrow, when (presumably) everyone will be back at work.

I would like to point out that this started on Thursday, and thus people would have been in at work the next day. Although, it's quite possible that more than one day (Friday) would be needed to clear this thing up, which would explain why nobody seems to know when it will be fixed.

I have a guess that someone triggered the "send update" button early and the LDD people immediately disabled web access to the program so an incomplete software update didn't get sent out, and they're going to leave the internet connectivity like that until it's finished enough to be released.

[StarWars8Spoiler]

I remember that an hour before this happened, I was messing with the Developer Mode functions. I had initially thought that I broke the program somehow! 

[justinwebb]

3 hours ago, PicnicBasketSam said:

I would like to point out that this started on Thursday, and thus people would have been in at work the next day. Although, it's quite possible that more than one day (Friday) would be needed to clear this thing up, which would explain why nobody seems to know when it will be fixed.

I have a guess that someone triggered the "send update" button early and the LDD people immediately disabled web access to the program so an incomplete software update didn't get sent out, and they're going to leave the internet connectivity like that until it's finished enough to be released.

As a software dev myself, that isn't a thing and doesn't work that way. 

[dpkong]

6 hours ago, ChristopherLee said:

 

The most important thing I took away from my chat with her was that they don't have any idea when it'll be fixed.

To be fair I think she doesn't have any idea what's going on. It's good enough if they know there's a problem and lets hope someone will fix it soon.

[mocbuild101]

Same here....

But if Lego will not be updating LDD ever again (read here), then maybe they have cut off LDD's gallery page too...

[o0ger]

4 hours ago, mocbuild101 said:

Same here....

But if Lego will not be updating LDD ever again (read here), then maybe they have cut off LDD's gallery page too...

They have updated LDD since then.

[MatthewRC]

2 hours ago, o0ger said:

They have updated LDD since then.

You're right, o0ger. It was said LEGO would not update LDD anymore, but they surprised LDD users with Version 4.3.10.

[PicnicBasketSam]

12 hours ago, justinwebb said:

As a software dev myself, that isn't a thing and doesn't work that way. 

Oh, okay then. Well... anyway, I still don't have internet connectivity on LDD, making this Day 5 of the problem. I am very curious as to what is happening at LEGO right now.

[mocbuild101]

1 hour ago, MatthewRC said:

4 hours ago, o0ger said:

They have updated LDD since then.

You're right, o0ger. It was said LEGO would not update LDD anymore, but they surprised LDD users with Version 4.3.10.

Well that's confusing!

But that means it's not the program, because I'm having the same problem (not that I use it...) with 4.3.

[SylvainLS]

1 minute ago, mocbuild101 said:

Well that's confusing!

The update was only about parts (data). The program itself (logic) isn’t updated anymore (no bug fix, no new feature).

[NathanR]

2 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

The program itself (logic) isn’t updated anymore (no bug fix, no new feature).

Really? I remember hearing that designers at Lego still enjoyed using it, and it was kept on as an internal tool.  Or have they switched to more advanced CAD software?

[SylvainLS]

I’m, of course, talking about LDD, the one that’s (was?) distributed to us, commoners, the one that, when you try to file a bug, is said to not be maintained anymore, the one that the article cited above talks about.

It has been said, I can’t find the quote but I think it was about the passage from LDD 3 to LDD 4, that Lego’s tools had all been rebuilt around a common base. So I guess the designers’ CAD software is an LDD on steroids, one that they won’t share with us because it’s too complicated for kids and non-professionals, and contains too many secrets. Anyway, I don’t think designers can create new sets in our LDD because it lacks many many new parts.

[Swan Dutchman]

I just noticed today I don't have internet access for LDD anymore. I tried reinstalling it and it didnt work. Such a relief however that I am not the only one having issues with LDD! This means I am not the one who did anything wrong

[StarWars8Spoiler]

Bad news.

Just spoke to "Donna" from Lego's customer service. She's telling me they don't have plans to work on this problem as technical support for LDD has been discontinued. I don't think this issue is going to be fixed. We might have to live with an offline LDD.

[SylvainLS]

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!