There seems to be quite an extensive number of people who have connection problems to Las Venturas Playground, as well as to other SA-MP Servers which have the SAC Anti-Cheat enabled. There are, both on the LVP forums as on the official SA-MP forums, quite some topics around which contain information on how to fix SAC-related problems, including tools and other ways of testing the connection with the SAC server. This topic provides you with an overview of possible solutions, helping you to get back on LVP and other servers as soon as possible.
What is SAC?
SAC is an abbreviation for SA-MP Anti-Cheat. It is a build-in system which is capable of detecting almost every cheat, and bans cheaters off all SAC-protected servers. In order to activate SAC on a specific server, adding the line anticheat 1 to your server.cfg is fine. After this, players will be required to report to the SAC-master server to request information to validy that you're an honest player.
Problems with connecting.
There are quite a few reasons why you can't connect to SAC, resulting in a blue in-game error message that says Error: SAC could not update!. Upon receiving this error, you get disconnected from the server you played on and are required to reconnect, or play on another server. This, of course, can be quite inconvenient when you're playing with your gang, or just having fun with races, RPG or other ways of playing. Therefore we've listed a number of possible solutions.
- Disable your firewall/anti-virus
The most common cause for SAC related problems is your firewall or anti-virus which is blocking the request to the SAC masterserver. Especially programs like Avast are known to be the cause of problems, and are not competable with the SAC systems. Before playing, shut down all your firewalls/anti-virus programs (including the Windows Firewall, Anti-Virus and possible systems you have activated in your router!) and try connecting to the SA-MP Server you'd like to join. If this works, you can try activating them again (one-by-one) to find the program that was causing the update error. Add proper exceptions for the whole GTA San Andreas directory, so it's allowed to access the internet.
- Run the official test-tool
The SA-MP Developer aru has prepared an official test-tool, which allows you to test if you can establish a proper connection to the SAC masterserver. The tool can be downloaded here, and can be executed from any location on your harddrive. All the tests should result successfully, if there is one that fails (or doesn't properly give you the first 16-byte output) you will not be able to connect to the server. If that happens, check your firewall and anti-virus as has been described in the first section of the possible causes for the connection problems. Remember to include the test-tool in the exception list, if you use that.
If you however are able to connect to the SAC master server, and still can't play on SAC-protected servers, there are still a number causes left that can stop you from playing. These options are a bit less likely however, but I'll list them for the sake of completion.
- Internet Explorer Proxy settings
A number of persons have reported to have problems with SAC because of their proxy settings, which they have set for Internet Explorer. It is possible that your proxy server is stopping you from prorely connecting to the SAC masterserver, so you can try connecting with these settings turned off. To shut down the proxy settings, you can try the following steps in chronological order.
After this, try again using the test-tool and connecting to the San Andreas: Multiplayer server of your choise. If it still doesn't work, there are still a number of solutions left you can try, but those would come down to your own mistakes.
- Have you upgraded to SA-MP 0.2.2 R2?
Of course, the current version of SAC is incompetable with the R1 release, mainly due to bugs and further code changes. If you connect using R1, you will get the SAC-could not upgrade message and will be unable to connect. In ordre to fix this problem, go to the SA-MP official website and download the 0.2.2 R2 release (which got released shortly after the R1 release!)
- Were you idling in-game?
In order for SAC to be able to prorely update, you are not allowed to idle in-game, or minimalize your game for a period longer then 30-60 seconds. If you during this period got kicked, just re-connect as there is no connection problem, you simlpy got kicked by the auto-idle-kicker, to give it a fancy name.
- Try re-installing GTA: San Andreas and SA-MP
Apparently re-installing the game and San Andreas: Multiplayer itself solves the problem for specific people. Re-installing might cause your firewall/anti-virus to pickup GTA as a proper application, automatically allowing it to connect to the internet or re-prompting for permission. Worth a shot, if all other solutions fail.
- Did you get an Internal Error?
Then you have been very naughty. If you get an internal-error, it means an cheat has been detected in your system and you have been reported as a cheater to the SAC master-server. This can be modifications using d3d9.dll (the speed-o-meter for example), singleplayer cheats, but in most occasions, a cheat intended for San Andreas itself. If you got caught cheating, you will not be unbanned on the SAC masterserver. If you think you're banned without proper cause, you can post in this topic on the SA-MP forums.
Other possible causes?!
There still are a large number of other, possible causes around which can cause your SAC not to update. I will frequently add new discovered causes to this post, to keep it up-to-date and help you as quickly and efficiently as possible. For now: good luck, and we hope to see you back on Las Venturas Playground shortly.
Peter
What is SAC?
SAC is an abbreviation for SA-MP Anti-Cheat. It is a build-in system which is capable of detecting almost every cheat, and bans cheaters off all SAC-protected servers. In order to activate SAC on a specific server, adding the line anticheat 1 to your server.cfg is fine. After this, players will be required to report to the SAC-master server to request information to validy that you're an honest player.
Problems with connecting.
There are quite a few reasons why you can't connect to SAC, resulting in a blue in-game error message that says Error: SAC could not update!. Upon receiving this error, you get disconnected from the server you played on and are required to reconnect, or play on another server. This, of course, can be quite inconvenient when you're playing with your gang, or just having fun with races, RPG or other ways of playing. Therefore we've listed a number of possible solutions.
- Disable your firewall/anti-virus
The most common cause for SAC related problems is your firewall or anti-virus which is blocking the request to the SAC masterserver. Especially programs like Avast are known to be the cause of problems, and are not competable with the SAC systems. Before playing, shut down all your firewalls/anti-virus programs (including the Windows Firewall, Anti-Virus and possible systems you have activated in your router!) and try connecting to the SA-MP Server you'd like to join. If this works, you can try activating them again (one-by-one) to find the program that was causing the update error. Add proper exceptions for the whole GTA San Andreas directory, so it's allowed to access the internet.
- Run the official test-tool
The SA-MP Developer aru has prepared an official test-tool, which allows you to test if you can establish a proper connection to the SAC masterserver. The tool can be downloaded here, and can be executed from any location on your harddrive. All the tests should result successfully, if there is one that fails (or doesn't properly give you the first 16-byte output) you will not be able to connect to the server. If that happens, check your firewall and anti-virus as has been described in the first section of the possible causes for the connection problems. Remember to include the test-tool in the exception list, if you use that.
If you however are able to connect to the SAC master server, and still can't play on SAC-protected servers, there are still a number causes left that can stop you from playing. These options are a bit less likely however, but I'll list them for the sake of completion.
- Internet Explorer Proxy settings
A number of persons have reported to have problems with SAC because of their proxy settings, which they have set for Internet Explorer. It is possible that your proxy server is stopping you from prorely connecting to the SAC masterserver, so you can try connecting with these settings turned off. To shut down the proxy settings, you can try the following steps in chronological order.
- Go to Internet Explorer
- Go to the Extra menu, after which you click on Internet Options
- Go to the Connection tab, and click on Lan Settings.
- Now un-check the checkbox located in the Proxy Settings dialog.
After this, try again using the test-tool and connecting to the San Andreas: Multiplayer server of your choise. If it still doesn't work, there are still a number of solutions left you can try, but those would come down to your own mistakes.
- Have you upgraded to SA-MP 0.2.2 R2?
Of course, the current version of SAC is incompetable with the R1 release, mainly due to bugs and further code changes. If you connect using R1, you will get the SAC-could not upgrade message and will be unable to connect. In ordre to fix this problem, go to the SA-MP official website and download the 0.2.2 R2 release (which got released shortly after the R1 release!)
- Were you idling in-game?
In order for SAC to be able to prorely update, you are not allowed to idle in-game, or minimalize your game for a period longer then 30-60 seconds. If you during this period got kicked, just re-connect as there is no connection problem, you simlpy got kicked by the auto-idle-kicker, to give it a fancy name.
- Try re-installing GTA: San Andreas and SA-MP
Apparently re-installing the game and San Andreas: Multiplayer itself solves the problem for specific people. Re-installing might cause your firewall/anti-virus to pickup GTA as a proper application, automatically allowing it to connect to the internet or re-prompting for permission. Worth a shot, if all other solutions fail.
- Did you get an Internal Error?
Then you have been very naughty. If you get an internal-error, it means an cheat has been detected in your system and you have been reported as a cheater to the SAC master-server. This can be modifications using d3d9.dll (the speed-o-meter for example), singleplayer cheats, but in most occasions, a cheat intended for San Andreas itself. If you got caught cheating, you will not be unbanned on the SAC masterserver. If you think you're banned without proper cause, you can post in this topic on the SA-MP forums.
Other possible causes?!
There still are a large number of other, possible causes around which can cause your SAC not to update. I will frequently add new discovered causes to this post, to keep it up-to-date and help you as quickly and efficiently as possible. For now: good luck, and we hope to see you back on Las Venturas Playground shortly.
Peter
& of course to Peter>... 
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