My group can't connect to my Fantasy grounds

[Meethos]

I opened port 1802 on my router and forwarded it to this computer, and I also opened that port for fantasy grounds in my firewall, but people can't connect to me when i open fantasy grounds. I try to run the test and it fails as well. I'm not a computer genius but i managed to do the port things...but I do not know what else to do now; what is the next step if it still won't connect? the external IP address is always the same, is that the one that the players should be trying to connect to? they try that AND the alias phrase, but still cannot connect.

[Meethos]

PS. I can connect to a fantasy grounds being run by another person...so i know its possible to connect.

[Zacchaeus]

The fact that you can connect doesn't help since it's only the DM that needs to open the port.

There's many possible pitfalls but the one you haven't mentioned in your post is your antivirus software. You may well need to whitelist FG there too, to allow incoming traffic. Some further information and things to try here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/faq.php?faq=fantasy_grounds_faq#faq_networking).

[swbuza]

Your giving your players the external IP address on your router and not the internal private IP of your computer, correct?

[LordEntrails]

Also,
1) Do you have a modem and a router?
2) Where are you located and who is your ISP?
3) What does canyouseeme.org say when you input your IP etc?

[Meethos]

1) i have a modem and a router. the modem is connected directly to my router, and the only way to port forward with the modem is to do so wirelessly. per my isp, if i'm directly connected, the port forwarding happens within my router, not my modem.
2) i'm in Ohio and my ISP is Spectrum, previously Time Warner Cable.
3) no canyouseeme.org does not see me when i input my external IP and the port, even though i've opened it. it says operation timed out.

I am giving my players both the external IP address and the alias keywords. neither is working.

Thank you for the link. its alot of information, I am sorting through it again, as it was the first place I went.

So far, I have as far as I know, turned off UPnP because for whatever reason that was forwarding the necessary port to a different device. then I portforwarded 1802 from my router. Then i went to my macafee AVP and made sure 1802 was forwarded there, and I also went to windows firewall (which is under the control of macafee apparently anyway), and created a 1802 forward there as well. i still do not get any good result. is there anything else i can do?

[Bidmaron]

I think they are feeding you a line of doo too on #1, but I am sure a real network expert will be along to square this away. I believe you are going to need to place your 'modem,' which sounds like it is a router, in bridge mode if you want to use wireless.

[swbuza]

Your router will have two IP addresses. One on the WAN side of the router and one on the LAN side of the router.

The LAN side of the router will have an RFC1918 address like 192.168.1.1. Your hosting computer will likely be getting a DHCP address of something like 192.168.1.100.

The WAN side of the router will have a non-RFC1918 address (not in the 192.168.x.x, 172.16.x.x, or 10.x.x.x subnets). This should be the SAME address that your host computer displays when you click to retrieve the External IP address.

Does the external IP address you retrieve match the WAN address of your router?

[Meethos]

i don't want to use wireless. what i mean is, i am not using wireless to connect to this computer, it is connected physically to my router, which is connected physically to my modem. when i opened the modem, the only place where there was an option to forward ports was under the firewall section, and I did that. i also tried to do something else to allow things in, something about DNZ, which my ISP provider directed me to, but i wasn't able to get that to change or update.

I am looking at my router right now, i do not see a WAN address. however, when i go to WANIP.info or canyouseee.org, they both say my external address is the same as the one revealed by fantasy grounds.

i found the WAN IP in my modem, under the wireless options there. is my issue that the IP address i'm offering is a wireless ip address but i'm only connected to the internet physically?

[swbuza]

What make and model router do you have?

What we haven't figured out yet is where that external IP address is. Is is the outside address of your modem or the outside address of your router? We need to know that.

[Meethos]

my router is a netgear AC170 smart wifi router model number R6400.

i am not sure about that, but it appears it is the outside line to my modem, not to my router , since i saw it in my modem but not my router?

[swbuza]

It sounds like you can login to both your router and modem. Presumably you do this with a browser. What is the address you use to login to the router? What is the address you use to login to the modem?

[swbuza]

Ah, ok. So if you saw that address on your modem, that's the problem. This means you have double NAT going on. We need to solve for that.

[Meethos]

? i think they are the same as most modems or browsers. in fact, someone not from Spectrum gave me the info for my modem without even knowing what kind of modem it was. it was an ip address...192.168.100.1.

the routerlogin.net is how i access my router.

[swbuza]

okay, let's map this out:

-- There's a public IP address on the WAN interface of your Modem. This is the address FG sees as external
-- There is a private IP address on the LAN interface of your Modem. This is 192.168.100.1.
-- So this means your router's outside/WAN address is probably being assigned by DHCP and is in the subnet 192.168.100.x. The status page of the R6400 should display your external and internal IP's.
-- This also means your router's inside/LAN address is probably something like 192.168.1.1, and it probably means your PC is gettting 192.168.1.100 or something like that.

What needs to happen:

In the modem: Port forward 1802 to 192.168.100.x, which is the, as yet, unidentified external address of your router.
In the router: Port forward 1802 to 192.168.x.x, which is the IP address of your FG PC.

[damned]

Please open a CMD prompt and do:

tracert 8.8.8.8

and post at least the first 4 hops in here.
Its quite likely you will forward TCP1802 on the modem to the Routers WAN IP.
The forward TCP1802 on the router to your Computers IP.

PM if you would like me to look at it with you.

[Meethos]

i feel like i've done that, but i'm not sure. here is what i did. i disconnected the direct connection and connected wirelessly to this computer.
on my modem there is no option to port forward, so i used port trigger, i am not sure if it is the same or not but it was the only thing available...i added 1802 , it doesn't let me direct it to an IP address of any sort in the fill in spaces.
on my router, i port forwarded 1802 to the internal IP address of the computer. 192.168.x.x as you said.

still no love :(.

[Meethos]

1 56 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
3 11 ms 10 ms 15 ms 142.254.145.193
4 30 ms 22 ms 30 ms 24.29.4.173

[swbuza]

Double NAT is definitely the issue. Although I'm confused about the discussion of 192.168.100.1 above as it seems to be 192.168.0.1 instead.

Do you have an option called "virtual server" or anything like that in the modem? What make/model of modem?

[Bidmaron]

Set your modem to bridge mode and let your router do the nat. There is almost certainly a way to make it work without that but everyone I can remember with a double nat problem got bridge mode rorking. This may also be done by disabling nat or dhcp. Depends on modem

[Beldak]

Also what brand and model is the modem? That might help us tell you what setting to change.

[damned]

He has a number of computers connecting via the modem(!!!)s wifi so bridge mode is out.
Port triggering is not Port Forwarding.


On the modem port forward TCP1802 to the WAN IP of the router which will be 192.168.0.something
On the router port forward TCP1802 to the IP of your computer which will be 192.168.1.something

the .somethings are important to get right.

[Meethos]

this is the hardware information from my modem. the isp is Spectrum. within every area I can access, there is no option to port forward. the only option is to port trigger. if there is a port forward option, i cannot find it, and the Spectrum tech i talked to yesterday couldn't direct me to it.

System: ARRIS DOCSIS 3.0 Touchstone Data Gateway
HW_REV: 1
VENDOR: Arris Interactive, L.L.C.
BOOTR: 1.2.1.62
SW_REV: 7.5.63C.TW
MODEL: DG860A
Serial Number: DA5BU865G140343

[Meethos]

nm.

[Meethos]

hello, using your information i opened the DMZ in the modem between the modem and the router...when i run the configuration test, it says success. i am not sure if opening the DMZ is safe, will my router still protect me even though my modem is open? I think what this DMZ does, is place the ip address i assign outside the NAT firewall of the modem. I just placed my router outside the NAT firewall.

[Trenloe]

Have you tried this?

https://portforward.com/arris/dg860a/

[Meethos]

no, but i just undid all my other stuff to try that, and that seems to work as well...thanks. i did not realize that virtual servers was port forwarding, thank you.

[damned]

hello, using your information i opened the DMZ in the modem between the modem and the router...when i run the configuration test, it says success. i am not sure if opening the DMZ is safe, will my router still protect me even though my modem is open? I think what this DMZ does, is place the ip address i assign outside the NAT firewall of the modem. I just placed my router outside the NAT firewall.

In this case yes - you should be still protected by the routers NAT.

[Meethos]

i think you guys all really helped , thank you all for your input. with fantasy grounds open, i seem to be able to see that port 1802 is open, and i got a success when i ran a test. just waiting on one of my players to log in to test it now.

[Beldak]

Awesome! I'm betting they will be able to connect now. If you want one of us to try, feel free to give us the alias to connect in.

[swbuza]

Fantastic news. And yes, "virtual servers" is port forwarding on a number of brands of modems and routers.

[swbuza]

As I asked last night :)


Double NAT is definitely the issue. Although I'm confused about the discussion of 192.168.100.1 above as it seems to be 192.168.0.1 instead.

Do you have an option called "virtual server" or anything like that in the modem? What make/model of modem?