connection attempts
Moderators: jelco, bert_the_turtle
connection attempts
I have no problem people joining me when I host, but still lot of the time I fail to connect. I think I have forwarded the ports becase I can host now and I couldn't before, but what else can I do to fix this?
It's possible that a lot of hosts aren't set up properly to allow others to connect, hopefully once single player games stop appearing on the server list it will become more obvious which servers can't be connected to.
Otherwise, you could try putting your PC in a DMZ for a while to see if it makes any difference.
Otherwise, you could try putting your PC in a DMZ for a while to see if it makes any difference.
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bert_the_turtle
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DeMilitarized Zone.
The actual idea is this:
You have a LAN with a lot of computers in it that should be protected from the dangers internet. You place them behind a firewalled router. You also have a server that needs to be accessible from both your LAN and the internet, but no connection from the server to the LAN should be possible in case someone manages to break into the server. That's what a DMZ is for; you place the server in it, and you get what you want.
Cheap routers subvert this idea. With a cheap router, all you get by placing a computer into the DMZ is that ALL incoming internet traffic is just forwarded to that computer. It's basically a "forward all ports and protocols to this computer" setting.
The actual idea is this:
You have a LAN with a lot of computers in it that should be protected from the dangers internet. You place them behind a firewalled router. You also have a server that needs to be accessible from both your LAN and the internet, but no connection from the server to the LAN should be possible in case someone manages to break into the server. That's what a DMZ is for; you place the server in it, and you get what you want.
Cheap routers subvert this idea. With a cheap router, all you get by placing a computer into the DMZ is that ALL incoming internet traffic is just forwarded to that computer. It's basically a "forward all ports and protocols to this computer" setting.
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bert_the_turtle
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You go to your router's configuration and tell it to put your gaming PC into the DMZ.
A warning: this effectively opens it to all of the internet. You should not do this unless you have a good personal firewall installed, or a system setup that can handle it (like, for example, no unprotected network shares.) Mind that I'm not an expert of bad things that may happen to Windows systems open to the internet, though.
A warning: this effectively opens it to all of the internet. You should not do this unless you have a good personal firewall installed, or a system setup that can handle it (like, for example, no unprotected network shares.) Mind that I'm not an expert of bad things that may happen to Windows systems open to the internet, though.
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TwelveBaud
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Hi Cyan, I saw your earlier posts. Mind if I break things down a bit for you?
The Internet is like Royal Mail, with billions of envelopes zipping along it every minute, and BT is like your local post office, managing your postcode.
BT gives you a single IP address, "Cyan's House, British Telecom, England, World." This address has 65536 little mailboxes ("ports") at it. However you have a NAT router, the box you found in the last thread. This box's job is pretty simple: Each computer you have gets its own smaller address: "The Gaming Computer, My House". Which also has 65536 little mailboxes. The router's job is to check it's mailboxes, and go, "Hmm, this message is made out to 'Port 4000, Cyan's House, blah blah blah. OH! I know where this goes! 'Port 4000, The Gaming Computer!' This one is for 'Port 236, Cyan's House.' Hmm, nobody's using that mailbox, so I'll just throw this away."
The router keeps you safe that way by throwing away anything that's sent to it when it doesn't know where it goes. However, this sometimes creates a problem. First, if you want other computers to send you messages without you sending any first, you have to tell your router which ports (mailboxes) to forward, and where. Second, and this is only a problem with certain routers like yours, they sometimes miss the obvious.
Every message computers send, besides having a regular address, has a return address, so that messages can be sent back and forth. After contacting the metaserver, Multiwinia begins checking for information on port 4000. Then, when you go to connect to a game, it sends messages to the other computer's port 4000. It has to write a return address, and it can't use 4000 since it's using that for something else. So it uses some other number, say 13294. (It's a different number every time, which is why you're in for a lot of trouble.) This would work fine...
... Except you have a router in the way. Routers scratch out that return address and put a different one, the one that works on the global internet rather than the one in their little world. Most routers, when they do this, go "oh hey, I'd better remember to forward stuff in that box to that computer." Yours, apparently, does not, so when it gets a reply back it throws it away, going "I don't know who this is for." And when Multiwinia keeps yelling out "Hello!?" and getting silence back, it kinda... yeah... makes it hard to join games.
The solution Mr. Bunsy recommended I would avoid like the plague. Basically, your router goes, "Yo, BT! I have this guy here who wants his own address!" BT responds one of two ways: "No," in which case that computer can no longer get on the internet at all until DMZ is turned off, or "Pay me." Then whenever your router sees "Cyan's Gaming Computer" it blindly passes the messages on. Which is a problem because people send dangerous postal mail, and people hack into computers. With your router protecting you, it goes "I don't know where this huge big bomb goes, so I'm just going to throw it away." With the DMZ, "This big huge bomb is addressed to Cyan's Gaming Computer, so here. <BOOM!>"
What you really need to do is to get a new router. Look for ones that say that they work with XBOX Live; all that means is that computers can explicitly ask for certain ports to be forwarded rather than you having to muck around in settings.
The Internet is like Royal Mail, with billions of envelopes zipping along it every minute, and BT is like your local post office, managing your postcode.
BT gives you a single IP address, "Cyan's House, British Telecom, England, World." This address has 65536 little mailboxes ("ports") at it. However you have a NAT router, the box you found in the last thread. This box's job is pretty simple: Each computer you have gets its own smaller address: "The Gaming Computer, My House". Which also has 65536 little mailboxes. The router's job is to check it's mailboxes, and go, "Hmm, this message is made out to 'Port 4000, Cyan's House, blah blah blah. OH! I know where this goes! 'Port 4000, The Gaming Computer!' This one is for 'Port 236, Cyan's House.' Hmm, nobody's using that mailbox, so I'll just throw this away."
The router keeps you safe that way by throwing away anything that's sent to it when it doesn't know where it goes. However, this sometimes creates a problem. First, if you want other computers to send you messages without you sending any first, you have to tell your router which ports (mailboxes) to forward, and where. Second, and this is only a problem with certain routers like yours, they sometimes miss the obvious.
Every message computers send, besides having a regular address, has a return address, so that messages can be sent back and forth. After contacting the metaserver, Multiwinia begins checking for information on port 4000. Then, when you go to connect to a game, it sends messages to the other computer's port 4000. It has to write a return address, and it can't use 4000 since it's using that for something else. So it uses some other number, say 13294. (It's a different number every time, which is why you're in for a lot of trouble.) This would work fine...
... Except you have a router in the way. Routers scratch out that return address and put a different one, the one that works on the global internet rather than the one in their little world. Most routers, when they do this, go "oh hey, I'd better remember to forward stuff in that box to that computer." Yours, apparently, does not, so when it gets a reply back it throws it away, going "I don't know who this is for." And when Multiwinia keeps yelling out "Hello!?" and getting silence back, it kinda... yeah... makes it hard to join games.
The solution Mr. Bunsy recommended I would avoid like the plague. Basically, your router goes, "Yo, BT! I have this guy here who wants his own address!" BT responds one of two ways: "No," in which case that computer can no longer get on the internet at all until DMZ is turned off, or "Pay me." Then whenever your router sees "Cyan's Gaming Computer" it blindly passes the messages on. Which is a problem because people send dangerous postal mail, and people hack into computers. With your router protecting you, it goes "I don't know where this huge big bomb goes, so I'm just going to throw it away." With the DMZ, "This big huge bomb is addressed to Cyan's Gaming Computer, so here. <BOOM!>"
What you really need to do is to get a new router. Look for ones that say that they work with XBOX Live; all that means is that computers can explicitly ask for certain ports to be forwarded rather than you having to muck around in settings.
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