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.atlassia...roubleshooting

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.atlassia...roubleshooting

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