NEVER been able to connect to the chat server :(

If it's sudden then server is probably just down temporarily or rebooting! You have to do nothing!

ESET antivirus products are currently blocking the chat server for some reason.
The only fix currently is to uninstall it

There's an issue every so often where people simply cannot connect to the chat server.
It's unfortunately network related an oftentimes it's a firewall or ISP blocking access.
Eventually the site will be updated to work around these issues, but for now there are a few things to try.

Things to try

Double check your firewall settings, disable adblockers, try uninstalling your antivirus (You can replace it with one that's not on the list...), etc.
These are the most likely culprits for blocking your connection.
Avast, AVG and BitDefender BLOCK the chat server connection even when they are disabled. They have to be uninstalled! Help the web move forward by getting rid of technologies that hold it back ;)!
Go to Websocketstest.com and then submit a bug report with your results on here (Screenshot and result id if you can).
We've used these results to try to find fixes and workarounds to the current issue until I can implement a fallback that doesn't rely on websockets for the chat.