Another Hosting Issue

[Mark of Stark]

I say another because I assume there are a lot of general ip related issues that come up here. After a quick look around I didn't find what I was looking for so I figured I'd post up.

So I recently picked up ultimate edition and tried tonight to get people to join a mock game just to verify connection, and no luck. So I went into my pc's firewall program and opened up port 1802 and then went into my modem/router settings and made sure UPnP was enabled and I opened up the port in the router settings. Now I though I had succeed since CanYouSeeMe.org could see my port after that, but still no luck.

Is there anything else I should look at before looking into installing a VPN?

[joeru]

Did you set up port forwarding to direct the internal traffic from your router to your computer running FG?

[damned]

either nat tcp 1802 to your pcs internal (usually starts with 192.168.something or 172.something or 10.something) ip -or- turn on upnp - you shouldnt do both...
have you got another pc at your location? try connecting to the host pc (while fg is running and hosting a game) on its internal ip address. if that doesnt work you probably have a local fw on the host pc.
make sure you are using LAN or wifi and not both on the host pc.

[Mark of Stark]

Yeah I can connect to my hosted game on my laptop on my 192.168 ip no prob.

[JohnD]

To be fair, these "IP related issues" aren't confined only to FG - they are evident any time someone wants to host a game/server of any kind from their connection which relies on a router and allowing traffic through a firewall/AV solution.

Your configuration needs to be right for the data to flow, regardless of whether you're trying to host a FG game or a Neverwinter Nights or a CoD4 server for example.

[Mark of Stark]

Oh yes I know, but right now the primary concern for me is FG2 :rv:

[damned]

ok so if you can connect from another computer on the LAN you shoudl check these in order:

local (software) FW does not have different restrictions for local LAN (trusted) traffic and internet (untrusted) traffic. if you have a software FW turn it off for duration of testing or create a rule to allow all incoming connections to TCP 1802.

then on the hardware firewall/router either set it to UPNP and make no other settings -or- add a server/nat entry for TCP 1802 to point to your 192.168.something address. and make sure that the 192.168.something is still 192.168.something and not 192.168.something.else

generally that is it. and make sure you only use wifi or ethernet and not both.

also - sadly - some isp's will block all incoming ports...

[Mark of Stark]

Alright, so to break down what I am working with

I have a windows firewall which is always disabled naturally. My pc's firewall, which I've turned off and did a port forward on port 1802 for the testing.

My router/modem was set to UPnP enabled previously but I can disable it aswell as open 1802. The router/modem is set for wireless, but my host pc is wired and I no longer have a wireless card installed in that pc since I reformatted over 6 months ago.

So everything seems to work on my end, at least as far as I can tell. I will try and get some more people to try an connect to my game tonight, see if I still have issues

Edit: I will say this, although I was able to connect to my game from another pc in the house by connecting to my 192.168 IP I wasnt able to connect by using the 4 word alias, though I may not have set it up for using an alias properly if there is more to it than just generating the alias.

[gmkieran]

Re: edit - machines on the same network usually connect using alias "local host" rather than the 4 word alias generated by that function; if that doesn't work, try it without the space. There shouldn't be any more to using the alias than generating it and letting your players know what it is.

Cheers!
GMK

[Mark of Stark]

Yeah, I can connect with no issue using the IP or localhost, but the alias didnt work for anyone, including me, but I havent had luck for anyone connecting to my games at all.

[damned]

the alias is for external access only.
localhost (no space) is for the host machine only
for other local users you must use IP address

send me a pm tonight when you are online and I will try and help you thru your config.

[joeru]

Have you logged into your router with a web browser and forwarded incoming traffic on port 1802 to your hosting computer's internal IP?

[Mark of Stark]

Indeed I have, maybe what I need is to test my connection with someone who has no issues. Someone who has hosted and played in games. If then I can connect then maybe its not on my side.

[damned]

if you are online and want some help troubleshooting let me know. im here for about 45mins.

[Mark of Stark]

Thanks, but I am at work until around 4 est

[damned]

ahah - well its 1119pm where i am - maybe tomorrow :)

[Mark of Stark]

that would be alot of help, thanks. This way I will know if its me and focus on that, or if its them and try and walk them through port forwarding.

[damned]

ok - its almost definitely at YOUR end. players need make no changes to their setup - only the dm/host needs to port forward.

[Mark of Stark]

ah, well then that will narrow down what I need to do, I will go over everything again when I get home.

[damned]

home yet..?

[Mark of Stark]

Yeah I just got home a couple hours ago.

[JohnD]

Have you had your dinner yet?

[Mark of Stark]

Oh yes, Damned was a ton of help and we went to work on my connection. In the end my setting where all right but he was unable to connect to my game on his Ultimate license but was able to connect to my game on a second computer with a demo version. I was able to connect to his game with my ultimate version however.

Its all very strange and I will email support about it as it might be a license conflict or something

[JohnD]

Hmm... that sounds... weird. Hope you get it straightened out.

[Moon Wizard]

Mark,

This is the first time I've heard of an issue like this, so please bear with me.


Which OS are you using?
Have you tried having someone connect with the external IP, instead of the alias? It seems like you have, but it wasn't completely clear to me from the earlier posts.
Are the users getting a connection error message, or just no connection at all?
If connection error message, which one?


Also, I will be responding via e-mail as well to get your license key from your Settings, and possibly try a different key.

Regards,
JPG

[Mark of Stark]

Mark,

This is the first time I've heard of an issue like this, so please bear with me.


Which OS are you using?
Have you tried having someone connect with the external IP, instead of the alias? It seems like you have, but it wasn't completely clear to me from the earlier posts.
Are the users getting a connection error message, or just no connection at all?
If connection error message, which one?


Also, I will be responding via e-mail as well to get your license key from your Settings, and possibly try a different key.

Regards,
JPG

Hi,

I am using windows 7
I have tried external, internal and alias all with the same issue
They are getting a message but for a specific one I couldnt say exactly but to the effect that they couldnt connect to my game. I am home for the day and as soon as I can get a hold of one of my friends I will be able to respond better.

Just to reiterate, this is the situation as it stands. I couldnt have my friends connect to my game at all, though I could connect to myself from both my host pc and another in the house. When Damned was helping me out we went over my settings, re-establishing some but for the most part it was all the same (for both my software firewall and my isp router settings) with no luck. I contacted my isp they said they do not block any incoming traffic on ports on their end. I disabled and re-enabled my NAT and UPNP as sometimes that will clear a port if it was blocked when it shouldnt have been. After that Damned was able to connect to my game on his secondary pc with a Demo version however his main Ultimate license couldnt. I could connect to his game however. From the Canyouseeme.org site it does say the port is open while FG2 is running.

Sending you the email aswell and once I get in contact with someone I will have them give it another go.

[Moon Wizard]

See if you can get the error message from the client side when the connection fails. It will help point me to which section of the product is being triggered causing the connection to fail.

Regards,
JPG

[Mark of Stark]

Alright I got ahold of one of my buddies with a demo license and he was able to connect without trouble. Once I can get the others to log on then I will update

[damned]

hey moon_wizard - i went thru all settings and tests with Mark. my ultimate (w8) could not connect to his. more than that i couldnt telnet to tcp 1802.
i tested all locally - no problem.
fg test says ok.
canyouseeme.org tested ok.
i couldnt connect.
i installed unregistered on another computer (w7) at the same location as w8/ultimate and connected up straight away.
going the other way mark had no issues connecting to me.

[Mark of Stark]

Tested it with a second friend last night, was able to connect from both the alias and the external ip. So maybe that works out, but doesnt solve the issue we had with Damned's ultimate not connecting to mine.

[damned]

ha - so long as your gamers can connect.

[Moon Wizard]

damned,

* What was the message you received in the launcher screen when the connection failed?
* Have you ever tried connecting to any other Ultimate licenses with your Ultimate license?
* Did you try connecting with your Ultimate license from your W7 machine?

I'm not sure what is happening at this point either, but I'm willing to keep looking at it if you guys have time to test a few things.

Regards,
JPG

[Mark of Stark]

Sure, on friday I got a game so I will know then, but then again I could connect to Damned so I figured it would work me connected to to another, but I havent had someone else try connecting to mine aside from Damned.

[damned]

JPG - I never actually get to *play* - only GM... if anyone else has time to launch a host session and I can try and connect.
JPG - I didnt apply the license to my Win7 machine - just left it unregistered.
There was definitely something wrong at Marks end initially as none of his players could connect. I dont know exactly when we fixed it though because of the issue my computer seems to have connecting to his.