Router problems for hosting.

[norb]

There is some common universal plug&play code that I found. It's not something that I wrote, but found it online. If the router supports it, I believe that it will map the port. Now I have seen on my own router that it can map it to the computer name and not the ip. So I've seen what you describe work. But it's so hard to tell with all the different routers out there whether or how it will work on all machines.

So you might have to add your machine to the router manually or force a static ip if it causes problems. My fios router will do it by machine name and seems to work with the map port code.

[John Buford]

I have an odd case. I believe Norb mentioned there were no problems except for one team member who had two routers and that may be my issue.

My physical setup is I have a DSL modem which is also a router (ZyXel P-660r-D1). Behind that I have a Trendnet TEW-631BRP router. I need the latter for wireless for the significant other else no SOW!

My modem is set to forward ALL incoming requests to the Trendnet router. In other words all it does is ensure my PPoE connection to my ISP and pass all data/port requests to the router. My Trendnet router has the port forwarding to the static IP of my gaming computer.

What's happening is weird. I create a room. 2 or more people join. I enter the staging area. As soon as the FIRST of those that joined make it into the staging area, none of the rest can join either from the room or by IP if they back out. But wait it gets better.

Mr. Gordon found this out. I am sitting in the staging area hosting with the one and only other person to make it in with me, Mr Gordon, who was unable connect in the staging area, went out to join by IP. He entered my IP and then a bogus port (31792 in this case). He submitted it. It failed of course. Then he changed it back to 31791 and presto! It let him in. He had 3 other people try this and it worked for all of them. In this case it seems the pattern is if you enter any bogus port and get the failed message and then enter the correct port, it lets you in.

After that, as long as I did not leave the game, they were able to join, even if I went out to the main lobby and rentered creating another room. However, as soon as I restarted the SoW client it was back to the original behavior of only allowing one other playuer to enter the staging area with me as host.

I have been wracking my brain wondering how this can happen with a two router configuration. I am of course assuming it is my issue and not a software issue.

Any ideas, or suggestions are welcomed as I am at a loss.

~B

[norb]

I think that something might have to be done to both routers. The ports maps two times. It all depends on how they are set up, but that's a weird setup. If only one of them is giving out the IP addresses, then it's not too bad. In this configuration, only the first router should be giving out addresses, the second one should only be an access point.

[John Buford]

norb wrote:

I think that something might have to be done to both routers. The ports maps two times. It all depends on how they are set up, but that's a weird setup. If only one of them is giving out the IP addresses, then it's not too bad. In this configuration, only the first router should be giving out addresses, the second one should only be an access point.

I converted the internal router to a switch... with the modem/router handling dhcp. No luck.

So I finally just pluged direct into the modem and I am having the exact same symptoms so I can rule out the internal router. One person can join.. no one else.

It's either something configured with the modem/router, something in my XP SP3 setup or an act of God.

I can't figure out how to describe that for a net search... heh.

[norb]

If the connection can be made by one, then it's either in raknet or the system. It sort of goes with the other issue, that it's having problems creating the threads and sockets. Are you all patched up on your machine, meaning do you have all the latest windows patches installed?

[John Buford]

norb wrote:

If the connection can be made by one, then it's either in raknet or the system. It sort of goes with the other issue, that it's having problems creating the threads and sockets. Are you all patched up on your machine, meaning do you have all the latest windows patches installed?

Yes it does seem that it can maintain only one socket, if that's the correct terminology. If have searched my brains out on google to find some kind of report or request for help for issues with UDP requests only allowing one connection.. adn wether it's a router config issue, an XP config issue or something else... but so far no luck. I've re-enabled the fire wall to take a look at the exception logs but am not seeing anything I can interpret as refusals. That could mean I just don't know how ot read them, they aren't being recorded or the rejection is happening before it gets to my computer.

Yeah I keep my XP SP3 up to date daily on this box. I wish I knew if there is another owner of SoWGB that uses a ZyXEL P660r-D1 modem/router and perhaps has done some hosting. I also use Earthlink as a provider so maybe someone reading this who may have issues and uses Earthlink might chime in. I've hosted some other games thru them (and this hardware) and never had an issue.

Unfortunately I only get to test 3 or 4 times a day, when I can find at least two folks in between games.. and even then I am reluctant to change more than one parameter/item at a time. As it is, I have simplified as many options as possible by removing hardware, turning off EVERYTHING firewall/and AV oriented. I don't have a simple DMZ option as it were, but with this ZyXel, I can port forward anything and everything coming into it to a specific LAN IP, which is currently set to my static LAN IP.

I think I'm pretty much down to calling Earthlink, who have always been good with me on any techical issues, either for me or my clients... and hope I get a bored tech who loves these kind of problems.

I love a good problem, but this one is plain murder.

~B

[Braxton Bragg]

My old Router died an SMC router, Called my enginer, he came and put a new one in for me
a Belkin N15, ok my laptop's and other Xp tower system and my All in one works fine.
Now when he tries to put a secruity code on the router, it wont allow my computers to join the router network, having spent an hour or so he visited Microsoft latest update which download and install them selves on my new system, it seens there are pages and pages of problems with the latest Windows 7 update and the enginners are working on it to rectifer the problem.

http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-networking/

Braxton Bragg

[Little Powell]

John Buford wrote:

norb wrote:

If the connection can be made by one, then it's either in raknet or the system. It sort of goes with the other issue, that it's having problems creating the threads and sockets. Are you all patched up on your machine, meaning do you have all the latest windows patches installed?

Yes it does seem that it can maintain only one socket, if that's the correct terminology. If have searched my brains out on google to find some kind of report or request for help for issues with UDP requests only allowing one connection.. adn wether it's a router config issue, an XP config issue or something else... but so far no luck. I've re-enabled the fire wall to take a look at the exception logs but am not seeing anything I can interpret as refusals. That could mean I just don't know how ot read them, they aren't being recorded or the rejection is happening before it gets to my computer.

Yeah I keep my XP SP3 up to date daily on this box. I wish I knew if there is another owner of SoWGB that uses a ZyXEL P660r-D1 modem/router and perhaps has done some hosting. I also use Earthlink as a provider so maybe someone reading this who may have issues and uses Earthlink might chime in. I've hosted some other games thru them (and this hardware) and never had an issue.

Unfortunately I only get to test 3 or 4 times a day, when I can find at least two folks in between games.. and even then I am reluctant to change more than one parameter/item at a time. As it is, I have simplified as many options as possible by removing hardware, turning off EVERYTHING firewall/and AV oriented. I don't have a simple DMZ option as it were, but with this ZyXel, I can port forward anything and everything coming into it to a specific LAN IP, which is currently set to my static LAN IP.

I think I'm pretty much down to calling Earthlink, who have always been good with me on any techical issues, either for me or my clients... and hope I get a bored tech who loves these kind of problems.

I love a good problem, but this one is plain murder.

~B

Yeah I would call them, and hopefully you'll get a good tech. It sounds like you've tried everything else. I can't see why it wouldn't be working, so it must be something on their end.

[John Buford]

Little Powell wrote:

Yeah I would call them, and hopefully you'll get a good tech. It sounds like you've tried everything else. I can't see why it wouldn't be working, so it must be something on their end.

No luck with Earthlink. We went thru every setting, and as it is really simple there isn't much one can screw up. They want to blame it on the application, stating if one can connect there is no reason why there can't be multiples. It is interesting that they suggest going back to my original config, which is to have the dsl modem/router forward ALL incoming requests to my internal router and then port forward from there.

I'll be calling ZyXel next before I go back to my original network config. Just so you guys know, I did have to eat my dinner in the corner since my significant other cannot use her wireless connection while I am troubleshooting.. Do I maybe get some discount on the next release for this act of bravery (or is it foolishness)?

While I was sleeping, it occured to me maybe my NIC is acting up. That seems really hard to prove. I'm not seeing any other indication that it is have packet problems. I guess I can swap nic's but then I get to change router settings due to mac changes. Ugh.. will it ever end?

If I had another box here that would handle the SoWGB requirements I would do that.

~B

[Little Powell]

John Buford wrote:

Little Powell wrote:

Yeah I would call them, and hopefully you'll get a good tech. It sounds like you've tried everything else. I can't see why it wouldn't be working, so it must be something on their end.

No luck with Earthlink. We went thru every setting, and as it is really simple there isn't much one can screw up. They want to blame it on the application, stating if one can connect there is no reason why there can't be multiples. It is interesting that they suggest going back to my original config, which is to have the dsl modem/router forward ALL incoming requests to my internal router and then port forward from there.

I'll be calling ZyXel next before I go back to my original network config. Just so you guys know, I did have to eat my dinner in the corner since my significant other cannot use her wireless connection while I am troubleshooting.. Do I maybe get some discount on the next release for this act of bravery (or is it foolishness)?

While I was sleeping, it occured to me maybe my NIC is acting up. That seems really hard to prove. I'm not seeing any other indication that it is have packet problems. I guess I can swap nic's but then I get to change router settings due to mac changes. Ugh.. will it ever end?

If I had another box here that would handle the SoWGB requirements I would do that.

~B

Have you tried re-downloading the game and doing a fresh install? I remember when we first released the game, some folks had corrupt downloads that were causing some strange issues... I know it's a long shot, but something to try...