User:Pmw57/Minecrafthelp/Troubleshooting/Connection to minecraft.net fails, with HTML text up in the news panel

= Connection to minecraft.net fails, with HTML text up in the news panel =

Problem
Cannot connect to minecraft.net when attempting to log in via the launcher, and HTML content appears in the news panel, for example:

&lt;html&gt;&lt;body&gt;&lt;font color="#808080"&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;center&gt;Failed to update news&lt;br&gt; java.net.someKindOfException: An error message of some kind here&lt;/center&gt;&lt/font&gt;&lt;/body&gt;&lt;/html&gt;

Cause
Java 7 is having trouble using IPv6 to communicate with minecraft.net

Solution
Tell Java 7 to prefer to use IPv4 instead of IPv6.

This can be achieved by creating a shortcut to the minecraft.exe launcher with those preferred settings:

PC instructions:

java -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=false -jar minecraft.exe
 * 1) Right-click on minecraft.exe and select "Create shortcut"
 * 2) Rename the shortcut if you wish to something else, such as "Minecraft with IPv4"
 * 3) Right-click on the shortcut and select properties
 * 4) In the Target field, replace the text with:

If the shortcut cannot find the location of java, use the following target instead:

"%ProgramFiles%\Java\jre7\bin\java" -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=false -jar minecraft.exe