Read Me Before You Post

[Dupre]

When you need customer support, please check that:
- You are using an up to date display driver
- You have downloaded and installed the latest patch from the downloads page
- Your firewall has the following ports open,
Host: Inbound port 1802, TCP
Clients: Outbound port 1802, TCP

Please include:
- Which version of the software you are running
- In case of display related problems or crashes; card type, amount of video memory, driver version number
- Any details of actions you might have taken that preceded the problem, even things you might consider unrelated
- If you are using a laptop, which laptop

If you're looking for old archived threads, there's a separate subforum for them.

Added on August 19, 2008 by Ged:

From the FAQ: My computer crashed and my license key was lost with it. How do I get it back?

You should make a (physical) copy of the license key in the first place, but should you only have the key on the said computer, send an e-mail to [email protected] containing the store you purchased the software from and your purchase order id. Preferably send it from the same e-mail address you use with the web-store or include the information as text. As license key retrieval includes several manual cross-checks, you should allow us a few days to process the case.

Thanks,
Ville

[msd]

- Both the server and clients have ports 1082 and 1083 open

How do we check this in the situation where we have the standard DSL router? I have never installed any software firewall or configured any hardware firewall, but the router sets itself up without any issue...

Is it fair to say that if I was able to connect as a player to someone's game, then all the required ports are open?

Thanks,
Matt

[Dupre]

How do we check this in the situation where we have the standard DSL router? I have never installed any software firewall or configured any hardware firewall, but the router sets itself up without any issue...

Please note that the original message had a typo. The ports are 1802 and 1803.

Is it fair to say that if I was able to connect as a player to someone's game, then all the required ports are open?

If you are able to connect as a player, you have the necessary outbound ports open. Rarely do ISPs or firewalls block outbound connections no matter what port they use.

The host, however, needs to have inbound ports 1802 and 1803 open, and this will require opening a port from a firewall if you have one. You need to check your firewall manual on how to do this.

[msd]

The host, however, needs to have inbound ports 1802 and 1803 open, and this will require opening a port from a firewall if you have one. You need to check your firewall manual on how to do this.

Right...I guess what I am saying is that to the best of my knowledge, I do not have a firewall.

Oh well.

Its kind of a shame that it requires this much monkeying with ports and firewalls and things. The average person who installs his DSL router and gets on the internet is not going to have any clue how to do this.

[Dupre]

Right...I guess what I am saying is that to the best of my knowledge, I do not have a firewall.

In that case you should be able to be the host without fiddling with any settings. If you are behind a router, you need to use the server alias feature.

[msd]

forget it...

[Yuan-Ti]

forget it...

Not to insert myself where I know so little, but I was wondering, MSD, if you mean you have a DSL modem and run the cable directly into the computer. If you have no firewall software on your computer, then you should not have a problem and should not need to fiddle with your ports.

In fact, even if you have a router (as I do) between your computer and your modem, you really should still not have to fiddle with anything unless your router has its own firewall (I doubt that it would), or you are connecting through a network, such as at a university, which may have a firewall between itself and the outside world. But even then, there normally is not a problem playing games online.

Does that help? Or just confuse the issue?

[Morgan]

forget it...

Not to insert myself where I know so little, but I was wondering, MSD, if you mean you have a DSL modem and run the cable directly into the computer. If you have no firewall software on your computer, then you should not have a problem and should not need to fiddle with your ports.

In fact, even if you have a router (as I do) between your computer and your modem, you really should still not have to fiddle with anything unless your router has its own firewall (I doubt that it would), or you are connecting through a network, such as at a university, which may have a firewall between itself and the outside world. But even then, there normally is not a problem playing games online.

Does that help? Or just confuse the issue?

A router is, by definition, a hardware firewall. Basically, a router acts as a bridge between your internal network and the internet. That being the case, most routers are configurable as to which ports can be opened for incoming connection requests, and to what computer on the network those requests are routed. Incoming connection requests are much less frequent on home systems than outgoing traffic. Things like web servers, FTP servers, email servers take incoming connection requests.

Note that incoming connections are different from incoming data on a connection. When you connect to your email server, you request the connection to it, it grants it, and then data flows both ways. When you're running an FG server, you're allowing others to connect to your computer. They request the connection, your system grants it (via FantasyGrounds) and then data can flow both ways.

What I'm finding out is that FG accepts connections on two ports, so both have to be open in my router, which is what we can try next.

Now add to that that many ISPs prohibit their users from running servers (such as web servers and such) on their home systems through their networks. I think that's what happened to msd and myself when I tried to connect to his system. His ISP may have refused to route the connection request to his system. I use Time Warner, and while they have the same policy, they use some common sense in enforcing it. They'll only come down on people that are abusing the system for the most part.

So let's keep trying

[Jupp]

Another thing is that XP brings its own firewall with SP2. So even if people claim they did not install any firewall software by intention they still have one in case they have Service Pack 2 installed. And depending on the settings in SP2 the user will not even get a notification if a port is blocked by the SP2 firewall...

[Goblin-King]

Excellent point, Jupp. I'll make sure we get that in the sticky as well.