Connection Issues

[MoximillionPegasus]

I am trying to set up the connection for my players to connect to my game, but I keep running into problems with port forwarding. I am not experienced enough to know what's going on, so any help you can provide would be appreciated. For network, I have fiber with a company called Allo Communications. When I go to set up a port forward, I have 3 options: remote start port, remote end port, and local start port. As far as I can tell, you input 1802 for the remote start port only, set the protocol to tcp or udp, and then set up the IP address as the internal address that shows from the FG menu. After doing this and running a test, I still get a failure to connect. I have windows firewall and have opened the connection through the firewall (allowing both public and private networks access) so I don't think that's the problem, but I could be wrong. Am I missing something? Thanks for any help or advice!

[Zacchaeus]

Hi Mox, welcome to FG.

Make sure your network is set to private and that you have set a rule in your antivirus software for FG. For port forwarding you’ll need a start and end port (both 1802) and tcp protocol.

You might also want to open a command prompt (type cmd into the windows search bar) and type tracert 8.8.8.8 into the black box and screenshot the result. This will tell us if you have more than one box between you and the internet and also if your ISP is sharing your IP address.

[MoximillionPegasus]

24995

I've set it to private and double checked the antivirus, and it is still not working. The above is the tracert results. Thanks for the reply!

[Zacchaeus]

It looks like from hops 3,4and 5 of your tracert that your ISP are sharing IP addresses which means that you won't be able to port forward. You might well have to use a VPN solution. you can find some information on those here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?43607-Port-Forward-Alternatives).

[LordEntrails]

You can also call your ISP and tell them you are playing a peer to peer game and need port 1802 forwarded and they might be able/willing to configure that for you. It's worth a call and some time.

[MoximillionPegasus]

I contacted my ISP and that essentially got me nowhere. They were unable to set me up with a static IP and their port forwarding showed that everything should work, but just didn't for whatever reason. So I am going to try a VPN and see if I can't get my players to connect that way. I'll give an update when I finally get it working. Thanks for the suggestions though, the ISP call was worth the time to figure out that it wasn't just me missing something obvious or not knowing what was going on.

[Gwydion]

I contacted my ISP and that essentially got me nowhere. They were unable to set me up with a static IP and their port forwarding showed that everything should work, but just didn't for whatever reason. So I am going to try a VPN and see if I can't get my players to connect that way. I'll give an update when I finally get it working. Thanks for the suggestions though, the ISP call was worth the time to figure out that it wasn't just me missing something obvious or not knowing what was going on.

Like Zaccheus mentioned a couple posts above, you do have alternatives that are listed in the thread he linked. If you want to go the free route you can try Hamachi or Zerotier. Many people have had success with both.