Zacchaeus
December 6th, 2014, 13:45
Since I'm new to FG and since I had some considerable difficulty in connecting up my group I thought I might share what we eventually had to do. This may simply be unique to me but possibly not.
First off I'm all wireless here so my problems might have been related to that in some way. However I don't think it can simply be that. Anyway once I had FG installed (via Steam btw although this should make no difference), I used the "Test" button on the start up screen and it failed. I think I then did a Google search which led me to the need for port 1802 to be open. This further led me to a site which explained how I could do this for my router (although the instructions on that site were not particularly extensive I have to say). At any rate I eventually figured out what I had to do and managed to set up a couple of rules to open port 1802 for both incoming and outgoing traffic. When I then used the test button I got a green light. All was joy - for a while.
I assumed at this point that this was all I had to do but unfortunately it wasn't. When one of my players tried to join they could not find my server. So we then spent a while figuring out how to open ports on his router firewall. Naturally his was different from mine and it took us some time to figure it out. Eventually we did and he, too, got a green light when he used his test server button. Great, we thought, result. Unfortunately, no, he still couldn't connect. We then tried connection with our virus protection disabled (we are both using ESET), but to no avail.
At this point I began browsing the forums here and came upon the first Sticky up above relating to Hamachi. This turned out to be super frustrating and after a couple of hours of further trials we gave up for the night. The following day I came back to these forums and (did what I probably should have done in the first place) read the FAQ. There it told me that I should use the site https://canyouseeme.org to check whether port 1802 was open and visible to the internet. This test failed. So this puzzled me somewhat since the test button on the FG load screen was coming back green. I concluded therefore that the test button is not enough to confirm that all is well.
I tried various things like disabling ESET and firewalls but to no avail. Finally I discovered that I could set firewall rules within ESET. I'm not going to go into that process here but suffice to say that after some experimenting and further research I managed to let ESET know that FG was a program that I trusted sufficiently to allow two way communication. Once I had set up the relevant rules canyouseeme finally confirmed that port 1802 was actually open. Again I thought that this was it but, no, it wasn't; my players still couldn't connect. Long story short they, too, had to set up a rule within their firewall through ESET. Finally after all that, and a couple of very frustrating days my players could connect.
So the lessons from all of this are;
1. A green light from the 'Test' button is not the end of the story. I suspect that this only tests outgoing traffic.
2. If, like me, you are behind more than 1 firewall you have to make sure ports are open in all of them. (Obvious, you might say, and in hindsight it is. In my defence however, I had tried to connect with my Firewall disabled without success - so I had dismissed this as a problem. Clearly even though I had disable ESET it was still, somehow, blocking traffic). Most of the advice I read concentrated on the Firewall built into the router. However all of the advice applies equally to the Firewall within Windows or that comes with your Anti-virus software.
3. The best thread on this topic is in the FAQ; and the canyouseeme utility is an excellent place to start.
4. Despite what I have read elsewhere both DM and players need to configure everything.
5. My experience with Hamachi was not good; it didn't work for us at all, and to be perfectly frank I didn't like what it seemed to be doing to my computer.
Now, I have to say that it is possible that my problem stemmed mainly from ESET or some other peculiarity of my set up, so the above may not be a universal solution. Hopefully, however, this may be of some use to someone out there.
Happy Gaming.
First off I'm all wireless here so my problems might have been related to that in some way. However I don't think it can simply be that. Anyway once I had FG installed (via Steam btw although this should make no difference), I used the "Test" button on the start up screen and it failed. I think I then did a Google search which led me to the need for port 1802 to be open. This further led me to a site which explained how I could do this for my router (although the instructions on that site were not particularly extensive I have to say). At any rate I eventually figured out what I had to do and managed to set up a couple of rules to open port 1802 for both incoming and outgoing traffic. When I then used the test button I got a green light. All was joy - for a while.
I assumed at this point that this was all I had to do but unfortunately it wasn't. When one of my players tried to join they could not find my server. So we then spent a while figuring out how to open ports on his router firewall. Naturally his was different from mine and it took us some time to figure it out. Eventually we did and he, too, got a green light when he used his test server button. Great, we thought, result. Unfortunately, no, he still couldn't connect. We then tried connection with our virus protection disabled (we are both using ESET), but to no avail.
At this point I began browsing the forums here and came upon the first Sticky up above relating to Hamachi. This turned out to be super frustrating and after a couple of hours of further trials we gave up for the night. The following day I came back to these forums and (did what I probably should have done in the first place) read the FAQ. There it told me that I should use the site https://canyouseeme.org to check whether port 1802 was open and visible to the internet. This test failed. So this puzzled me somewhat since the test button on the FG load screen was coming back green. I concluded therefore that the test button is not enough to confirm that all is well.
I tried various things like disabling ESET and firewalls but to no avail. Finally I discovered that I could set firewall rules within ESET. I'm not going to go into that process here but suffice to say that after some experimenting and further research I managed to let ESET know that FG was a program that I trusted sufficiently to allow two way communication. Once I had set up the relevant rules canyouseeme finally confirmed that port 1802 was actually open. Again I thought that this was it but, no, it wasn't; my players still couldn't connect. Long story short they, too, had to set up a rule within their firewall through ESET. Finally after all that, and a couple of very frustrating days my players could connect.
So the lessons from all of this are;
1. A green light from the 'Test' button is not the end of the story. I suspect that this only tests outgoing traffic.
2. If, like me, you are behind more than 1 firewall you have to make sure ports are open in all of them. (Obvious, you might say, and in hindsight it is. In my defence however, I had tried to connect with my Firewall disabled without success - so I had dismissed this as a problem. Clearly even though I had disable ESET it was still, somehow, blocking traffic). Most of the advice I read concentrated on the Firewall built into the router. However all of the advice applies equally to the Firewall within Windows or that comes with your Anti-virus software.
3. The best thread on this topic is in the FAQ; and the canyouseeme utility is an excellent place to start.
4. Despite what I have read elsewhere both DM and players need to configure everything.
5. My experience with Hamachi was not good; it didn't work for us at all, and to be perfectly frank I didn't like what it seemed to be doing to my computer.
Now, I have to say that it is possible that my problem stemmed mainly from ESET or some other peculiarity of my set up, so the above may not be a universal solution. Hopefully, however, this may be of some use to someone out there.
Happy Gaming.