Connection Issue after ISP change

[Mobbl]

Hey lovely people,

I recently changed my ISP (it's now 1&1, i live in Germany) and got a new Router with that (Fritzbox 7530 AX). Since then I have trouble to connect to my GM's game (FGU, Cloud, no other players have issues). At first I could kind of connect, i.e. I could join the game but didn't see anything (no characters in the selection, no rolls, no chat, etc.). I deleted the campaign on my mashine to download it all again but I got stuck at the "aquiring file list" loading screen, usually around the 80% mark. I reinstalled FGU (and deleted everything I could find after the uninstall), checked the Windows Defender if it's allowed (wich it was), I have no other Anti-Virus, no Parental Control, no VPN, no Ad-Blocker and checked the router settings. With the router though I was rather unsuccessfull (I'm not that internet savvy, I may have missed it). I couldn't find settings to allow certain programs to run uninterrupted, or settings regarding too many files coming in at once, or even peer to peer. I only found three filter settings that restrict NetBIOS, Teredo and WPAD...whatever that is. I also found out that the IPv4 connections run with DS-Lite. In an older thread this was found out as the culprit for connectivity issues, that was with FGC and the solution was to use a vpn or to wait for FGU. Is that still an issue with FGU? It seems i can turn off the DS-Lite-thingy...at least there is acheckbox next to it.

I attach the logs I compiled at the end of the last test with my gm, yesterday. In the network log two concerning notes appear over and over again "Ein Socketvorgang bezog sich auf ein nicht verfügbares Netzwerk." and "Die angeforderte Adresse ist in diesem Kontext ungültig." which using deepl translate to "A socket operation referred to an unavailable network" and "The requested address is invalid in this context."

I researched this for a couple hours now and what I found either boiled downed to "check your settings" (wich I did to my best but rather limited knowledge) or where older threads that covered the problem for FGC and recommended to use a VPN. So I'm sorry for posting this but I'm at the end of my abilities and getting a bit desperate.
So, what have I missed, what settings do I have to look for in my router? Or do I need to get a vpn? And if so, I'm thinking about PureVPN, would I need the Port-forwarding-Addon?

FGU: v4.4.3 FREE (2023-07-04)
OS: Windows 10 (10.0.19045) 64bit
Direct3D:
Version: Direct3D 11.0 [level 11.1]
Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU (ID=0x2560)
Vendor: NVIDIA
VRAM: 6009 MB
Driver: 31.0.15.2799

Thank you very much for reading, and thanks in advance for any help!

[Moon Wizard]

It sounds like some setting on your new ISP modem and/or router is blocking certain files from your GM's machine. You can check out our Network Troubleshooting wiki article for the most common settings that will cause issues.
https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1981349889/Network+Troubleshooting

Because the file list is stalling, my guess is that some network modem/router setting is intercepting certain files being passed from GM machine to your machine, and the connection stalls because it is waiting for the file to be sent/received and it keeps getting intercepted. The usual culprit for this behavior is files getting blocked due to filters/blocks or due to throttling. Check your router settings for any ad blocking or other file blocking settings; as well as any other filters that might be on (such as SPI filtering). Also, check for network throttling or quality of service settings that might stop transfers.

The other network message notes you saw in the network log are part of the standard networking negotiation that happens when attempting to find the shortest valid route from your machine to the GM's machine over the various network adapters in your machine and various network transitions over the Internet. These are expected messages.

Unfortunately, communications blocked by modems/routers on the network do not provide any information to the end machines; so the program doesn't have any information on why a file was not sent or received.

Regards,
JPG

[LordEntrails]

I'm not good in this area of troubleshooting FGU, but might be able to help a little before someone else comes along. First thing I found is that it takes FG trying a bunch of different protocols until it is successful (around [9/10/2023 6:27:11 PM]). That tells me that it takes at least 2 minutes for FG to find a way to connect you to the GM, and indicates there is a lot of security being negotiated. It then goes into several more minutes of sending refresh requests.

This last part makes me think that perhaps some sort of flood control is happening. i.e. your ISP or router is seeing the request for a bunch of information and after awhile it cuts it off because it thinks it is too much.

If this is the case, the first thing you do NOT want to do is uninstall or clear your cache, because anything downloaded will have to be resent.
Can you try connecting to your GM (or another GM) in a new campaign with nothing shared? Then have the GM share one small map. If that all works, then it is most likely some sort of flood control. If your GM is not available for such testing, try the Discord channel and see if anyone can help you test (when you are ready).

We can go from there.

[Laerun]

Hey lovely people,

I recently changed my ISP (it's now 1&1, i live in Germany) and got a new Router with that (Fritzbox 7530 AX). Since then I have trouble to connect to my GM's game (FGU, Cloud, no other players have issues). At first I could kind of connect, i.e. I could join the game but didn't see anything (no characters in the selection, no rolls, no chat, etc.). I deleted the campaign on my mashine to download it all again but I got stuck at the "aquiring file list" loading screen, usually around the 80% mark. I reinstalled FGU (and deleted everything I could find after the uninstall), checked the Windows Defender if it's allowed (wich it was), I have no other Anti-Virus, no Parental Control, no VPN, no Ad-Blocker and checked the router settings. With the router though I was rather unsuccessfull (I'm not that internet savvy, I may have missed it). I couldn't find settings to allow certain programs to run uninterrupted, or settings regarding too many files coming in at once, or even peer to peer. I only found three filter settings that restrict NetBIOS, Teredo and WPAD...whatever that is. I also found out that the IPv4 connections run with DS-Lite. In an older thread this was found out as the culprit for connectivity issues, that was with FGC and the solution was to use a vpn or to wait for FGU. Is that still an issue with FGU? It seems i can turn off the DS-Lite-thingy...at least there is acheckbox next to it.

I attach the logs I compiled at the end of the last test with my gm, yesterday. In the network log two concerning notes appear over and over again "Ein Socketvorgang bezog sich auf ein nicht verfügbares Netzwerk." and "Die angeforderte Adresse ist in diesem Kontext ungültig." which using deepl translate to "A socket operation referred to an unavailable network" and "The requested address is invalid in this context."

I researched this for a couple hours now and what I found either boiled downed to "check your settings" (wich I did to my best but rather limited knowledge) or where older threads that covered the problem for FGC and recommended to use a VPN. So I'm sorry for posting this but I'm at the end of my abilities and getting a bit desperate.
So, what have I missed, what settings do I have to look for in my router? Or do I need to get a vpn? And if so, I'm thinking about PureVPN, would I need the Port-forwarding-Addon?

FGU: v4.4.3 FREE (2023-07-04)
OS: Windows 10 (10.0.19045) 64bit
Direct3D:
Version: Direct3D 11.0 [level 11.1]
Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU (ID=0x2560)
Vendor: NVIDIA
VRAM: 6009 MB
Driver: 31.0.15.2799

Thank you very much for reading, and thanks in advance for any help!

Are you using the DSL or the newer Gigabit connection?
https://www.1und1.de/geschaeftskunden/glasfaser/

[Mobbl]

Thanks for the replies! I'm looking into flood protection at the moment.

@Laerun: I use DSL.

[Roach]

Hi,
this is the DM speaking. Since Mobbl had these issues, one other game has run into similar issues. Same players ISP, sameFRITZ!Box model.

In this case, the effects were even more pronounced: it all started when the player first logged in to my game. After loading everything, the "Character Selection" window remained empty, and he could not see any characters at all. Even if I added an unclaimed character to the game, nothing showed up. Restart, nothing. But, "Acquiring File List" didn't stall in his case. As this was in a very early stage of the game and we were mostly just RPing, one player shared his desktop on Discord, and we tried to make the best of it. After about an hour, the player suddenly exclaimed, "hey what's this?" And told us that the battlemap that had remained stubbornly empty and black suddenly showed to the map and a few tokens. Unfortunately, though, after a minute or three or four, that Battlemap froze as well, with two pointer I arrows I had drawn remaining in place, even though they were completely gone on all the others' computers. I did manage to open a "regular image" for the player, though it still took the player over 10 minutes to see it, further attempts to open images again went pear-shaped.

From what I can see, this seems to be directly 1&1–related, has no other players in my tables have this problem, not even the other players on those tables. Considering the behavior, I also think there is some kind of flood protection interfering, though both players have checked their modems' settings and found no setting they could change. It does remind me of the old Comcast issues when it was still FGC.

I'll attach the second player's log (the one ending in *915.2.zip) and my own log (*0915.zip) from that second session; unfortunately I don't have a log for the events in the original post.

[Roach]

Update: we did some information collecting and some additional troubleshootng.

1) blank, empty campaign, no extensions, DM loaded only one me molecule. Imported one character from another campaign and made the character available for the test. The player could see the character in the "Character Selection", but not even the portrait. Opening the character also was completely impossible, the program acted as if nothing had happened at all.
2) loaded one module and tried to share one image (the cover). In the console, there were four lines appearing about sending/receiving that cover file, though
that usually contains the site information showed none. On the player side, only one of those pairs showed up in the console. The window opened, the fire title was shown, but no image. Creating pointer arrows by the DM was not mirrored on the player side.
3) had another member of the player's household login himself(using the same Internet connection), essentially the same happened, but weirdly the drawn arrows showed up on the new computer. Images still were not transferred. No transfer messages for the image were generated.
4) clear cache and campaigns folder on the player's computer and restarted FG. Trying to login, "Acquiring File List" went through unnaturally fast, after which the whole "select characte window remained empty. Also, trying to open an image and sharing it was met with as much success regarding transfer messages as in step three.

Additionally, we had to conclude that whatever happened, has to have happened sometime in the last two weeks: on 31 August, we had the campaign's Session 0, and no one had any trouble connecting back then.


The only thing that we found in the router settings that I personally think may be involved is the fact that 1&1 uses DS Lite, which sometimes messes with IPv6 connections. If there is any way to test this without running to the provider, we would be very appreciative – as we would before any our solution as well

[Nylanfs]

Could they use a temp VPN to try and bypass their possible network issues?

[Roach]

I'd have to check how to setup with zerotier, but I remember how complicated that was in FGC times, and would prefer the cloud broker system

[Moon Wizard]

Something in their Internet connection (modem/router/security software/etc.) is fully or selectively blocking content delivery. We don't have any way to troubleshoot these network issues directly as they occur outside of the scope of the program completely (i.e. network files/packets just never arrive with no notice); so that's why we put together the troubleshooting wiki page for possible settings to check.
https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1981349889/Network+Troubleshooting

They may need to reach out to their ISP to tell them that they are trying to run a game, and that content is being blocked; then ask the ISP how to disable those features. (As noted above, some possibilities are: ad/parental blocking, filtering (such as SPI filtering), throttling (such as QoS or other speed throttling))

Regards,
JPG

[Cptn]

Could you resolve the issue?

I also have connection issues for some weeks now and assume they're related to my ISP 1&1. I'm the only player in my group having issues. I still can connect to the game, but no files are loaded. So the game is completly empty. The GM started another campaign and everything loaded just fine. If I don't use my ISP but connect via a personal hotspot using my phone, the files in the original campaign are loaded as well. This leads to the assumption that there is a problem with a specific combination of something (a file?) contained in the campaign and my ISP.

[Moon Wizard]

It sounds like something is blocking file downloads. I would start with reviewing all of the settings on your router to make sure that any "filters" or "throttling" or "QoS" (quality of service) is off. You can always turn stuff back on, once you figure out what is blocking data transfers between the GM's machine and your machine.

https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1981349889/Network+Troubleshooting

Regards,
JPG

[Cptn]

Hi JPG,

thanks for the reply. I can't seem to find any set filters in my FRITZ!Box 7590 AX. I played for years without problems and there haven't been any changes to the settings in the router.
I'll execute some tests together with my GM and write if we find anything of interest.

Anyway if Mobbl or Roach managed to solve the problem, I'd love to know how :D

KR Jan

[Trenloe]

Try a test with just you connecting to the GM (no other players). If the issue occurs, compile the logs from both the GM FG instance and the Player instance immediately after the issue happens. Look in the console.log file of each - the GM side will show a number of "NETWORK SEND FILE" entries - cross reference those with receive data on the player side. See where the player stops receiving and check if there are any filenames (or portions of filenames) being sent from the GM side that might cause a filter to kick in on your ISP.

[Cptn]

Hi Trenloe,

Here are the logs of our recent test. We compiled the logs at three stages:

1. He started the campaign in cloud and I joined. The "Aquire file list" progress bar got stuck at about 15-20%. After some time we both compiled the logs at this stage.
2. I cancelled and rejoined. This time the "Aquire file list" screen fully loaded and the blank game opened. No characters, assets, modules whatsoever. Dice rolls are executed but the results are only displayed in GMs chat, not in mine. At this stage we compiled the second time.
3. I started clicking things like crazy, e.g. throw more dice, clicked on "add new personal note" 10 times, "add new character" and openen the modules window and so on. While doing so eventually the list of notes suddenly got loaded and with this all dice rolls where added to my chat as well. Then the other character portraits got displayed although the images were missing. After some time the modules where displayed in the "Activate" window. I was able to load all of them except three. At this point we compiled the third and final time.

While all of this the ethernet performance in the task manager was very low. Only from time to time after clicking wildly there was a spike in the diagram.

After that I disconnected and reconnected. The game opened and again everything was missing/empty.
Over the last weeks I tried connecting to the campaign and let it load for 3 hours without anything popping up. So the actively random clicking seems to retrigger requests or something?

But it doesn't look like something particular gets blocked all the time, because it seems like everything will show up when interacting with the respective window enough.

Hopefully you can see something enlightening in the logs, as I#m not able to read them.

Many thanks and the kindest of reagards,
Jan

[Moon Wizard]

It really sounds like something is mostly throttling the files (or occasionally blocking), if they eventually come through but really slow. There is nothing that will "trigger" a request; but the system will attempt resends when possible. You should check any security software settings on your machine too, if you are running any (McAfee, Avast, etc.).

When I did a Google search for "fritzbox preventing game from connecting", the AI summary at the top gave half a dozen promising ideas (parental controls, firewall settings, Teredo filter, NAT settings, etc.)
https://www.google.com/search?q=fritzbox+preventing+game+from+connecting&oq=fritzbox+preventing+game+from+connecting

Regards,
JPG

[Cptn]

Update:

1. We tried using Hamachi to join via IP instead of cloud. That worked perfectly fine. But if I connect via GM name (cloud) the service does nothing but initially resolving addresses and "linking" the PCs together, right? So once this initial matching is done, the communication should be the same as when connecting via ip. Am I correct?

2. I asked the previous GM to open our last campaign (TOA) which contains a ton of shared assets and modules. I could connect via GM name and the client loaded everything just fine.

3. The recent GM gave the campaign files to the previous GM, who started the server in cloud mode. I could connect without any issues and everything loaded within a few seconds.

Further info: Both GMs ISP is the german Telekom. So no differences there.

[Cptn]

Hello again,

3 weeks and multiple approaches and tests later we were able to finally resolve the issue. This is my understanding of what caused the trouble: The provider uses multiple algorithms to maintain the network traffic and throughput and so on. One of those includes/enables DSLite, which means that IPv4 connections are simulated by IPv6 connections (or vice versa). This often causes problems in e.g. vpn scenarios. Once the provider disabled this "feature", i worked as it always did.

So thanks for all the input.

Cheers

[LordEntrails]

Glad you got this resolved and appreciate you letting us know the solution in case it happens to someone else.