"there was an error retrieving the policy file, please notify us"

This appears to be the 2.5 rendition of Permanent Thirding. Clearing cache doesn't remove it, changing character doesn't remove it, relogging, refreshing, restarting the browser, none of this stops it. Usually, this seems to happen after a botched refresh, but now, I've been having Policy Files all afternoon for no reason.

Is there any way to kill this or fix it?

Don't know if this helps, but I get the same thing when attempting to play while connected to a VPN connection.

This is a fairly new error message we enabled about a month ago for a bug that's been around since Adobe changed their Flash player. Before this error message, people used to just get thirded with no explanation.

The cause of this error is often a corporate firewall. I get this error when I try to play behind Disney's firewall. If you can figure out how to enable port 843, or tunnel it through a proxy, you might be able to fix it.

As for a bigger, more general workaround, we're still looking into it.

This happened to me, and I'm not behind a firewall (my software firewall allows connections from Flash and Opera).

EDIT: I also disabled my firewall, to no avail.

The server is down; this message appears on most unexplained failed loads it seems.

Getting the same thing this morning. Was connecting fine then... just crapped out.

Tried two PCs on two different internet connections.

we will try to make this error appear only when it's accurate, not anytime you fail to establish a connection to the server.

-PL-

Sounds great. Thanks phil & welcome back.
You've been missed.

Has there been any progress as to a way to fix this... at school I cannot access the game because of this firewall... could you describe how to get around it or something. Thx

I have actually been working on a general solution to this, but it's not ready yet. In the meantime, for a quick fix, I use this software:

http://www.proxycap.com/

You need to route ports 843, 55475, and 55476 through your SOCKS proxy server. If you don't know the proxy address, your web browser should be able to tell you in the network settings. Generally, HTTP proxies are on port 8080, and SOCKS proxies are on port 1080.

Let me know if it works, or if you just don't understand these instructions.