[Uleat]

It's ok on the forum..this might apply to Linux servers as well.

I don't think it's a port issue since you (and others) are able to communicate with the zone server..otherwise you would likely just crash or hang the client.

Since merchants are 'empty' as well, I'd venture a guess that something is causing your database queries to fail. (Could be database time-outs on zone boot-up...)

Have you been able to verify this behavior on zones over 32?

You might try increasing the number of static zones to 33, from 30, and see if that alleviates your immediate problem.