Topic: Save Me! same dyna trouble as always... getting closer to a solution...

[F9th0mega]

in the net debug file, every time a mission fails, i get a "Windows API Call Failed" added to the text file. EVERY TIME this occurs. so we know what the problem is. any one have any ideas how to go about fixing it?

ive had ONE mission work, and now none do... i changed nothing the test server seemed to work fine as well for SG07...

not on a router, i share my internet connection with my siblings through my second network card, but disabling that gains nothing

disabling UPnP allows me to connect while still sharing the connection, but nothing else seems to help

[Dizzy]

Never heard of this before. Too bad Bonk is busy working the Gulag in the northern tundra.

[Julin Eurthyr]

you are playing with pure evil there, you know that...

Your issue is with ICS (internet connection sharing), that has a built-in-firewall that, to my knowledge, is not disablable, configurable, editable, touchable short of removing the entire ICS service (which, coincidentally, drops your siblings from the connection)...

I experimented with it back on 98, and theoretically there are registry edits to open the appropriate ports, but they never seemed to work for me...

Scrounge up $40-$50 for a router, I know my Wally-Flower*Mart sells a decent Belkin one in that pricerange...

[FPF-DieHard]

One BIG difference, the production server is being hosted on THOR (Dynaverse.net's ubber gaming PC).   The test server was hosted on my POS Athlon connected to my cable modem.

[F9th0mega]

i seem to be good for about ONE game before i have to reboot to gain playability back even with the ICS service DISABLED

[Julin Eurthyr]

i seem to be good for about ONE game before i have to reboot to gain playability back even with the ICS service DISABLED

And here's the evil I'm talking about...

Seems to be one of the first instances of MS's "We can protect you better than anyone else, and we'll prove it, over your dead connection" philoshophy... 

From my experience, the "ICS firewall" is a semi-independant routine, not tied into the master ICS control.  Therefore, even though ICS, and it's NAT / Port forwarding powers may be disabled (via services window), the firewall's still chugging along doing it's own thing to protect you from the evil internet.  To top it off, the only white paper I found on ICS and opening it up concerned some esoteric registry edits that were designed to open up the appropriate ports.  When I followed those instructions to the letter, attempting to open up the SFC ports on the machine hosting ICS, the over-protective firewall still blocked all SFC requests.

To my knowledge, the only way to stop the ICS firewall is to never have it even load into memory.  To never have it load to RAM means you need to fully deactivate ICS (not disable, deactivate), so that no ICS component even loads and reboot with it shut off (since ICS activated when you booted up to shut ICS off...)

[F9th0mega]

i seem to be good for about ONE game before i have to reboot to gain playability back even with the ICS service DISABLED

And here's the evil I'm talking about...

Seems to be one of the first instances of MS's "We can protect you better than anyone else, and we'll prove it, over your dead connection" philoshophy... 

From my experience, the "ICS firewall" is a semi-independant routine, not tied into the master ICS control.  Therefore, even though ICS, and it's NAT / Port forwarding powers may be disabled (via services window), the firewall's still chugging along doing it's own thing to protect you from the evil internet.  To top it off, the only white paper I found on ICS and opening it up concerned some esoteric registry edits that were designed to open up the appropriate ports.  When I followed those instructions to the letter, attempting to open up the SFC ports on the machine hosting ICS, the over-protective firewall still blocked all SFC requests.

To my knowledge, the only way to stop the ICS firewall is to never have it even load into memory.  To never have it load to RAM means you need to fully deactivate ICS (not disable, deactivate), so that no ICS component even loads and reboot with it shut off (since ICS activated when you booted up to shut ICS off...)

ive completely disabled the service and restarted, and no dice. (not just stopped. ) what other services are tied in to ICS that you know of?

[Julin Eurthyr]

Gosh, it's been so long, all I remember is the stupid firewall and the never-working port forwarding.  Not what services are required by ICS...   Though I vaguely remember that either I didn't have to add any other services that I wasn't already using to make ISC work, or that the firewall wasn't tied to one of them services...

Still the same error sequences even with ICS completely gone?

Just making sure, you checked services and ICS was already blank / disabled / not working before your tests, right???

[FPF-DieHard]

Frey has the same issue, maybe you guys can bang heads together and figure this out.

[F9th0mega]

Frey has the same issue, maybe you guys can bang heads together and figure this out.

are you serious? Frey has the same issue? everything works, but after mission, my info doesnt update? the chat works for me after the mission

i read something that said, that the firewall will automatically drop the packets if they arent a direct response to a request sent by my computer... any way to make my computer request the update, rather than the server force the update upon me?

[Braxton_RIP]

The only way your going to get around query/response issues is to directly go in and hardcode it into the firewall itself.  A lame trick that might work for you is to boot up in safe mode with network support and see if you can get in that way.  Generally Windoze (Yes, I meant to spell it that way...) will only load the card driver and assumes that you won't be doing anything on the internet but getting a shiny new driver or some such.  I don't know if you will be able to run the game though if you do boot up that way   

[FPF-DieHard]

Frey has the same issue, maybe you guys can bang heads together and figure this out.

are you serious? Frey has the same issue? everything works, but after mission, my info doesnt update? the chat works for me after the mission

i read something that said, that the firewall will automatically drop the packets if they arent a direct response to a request sent by my computer... any way to make my computer request the update, rather than the server force the update upon me?

Do you have  Firewall running?

[F9th0mega]

i had ICS running, and the firewall and ICS are tied together...

[FPF-DieHard]

i had ICS running, and the firewall and ICS are tied together...

I appoligize if this was asked before, but have you completely disabled ICS and the WIndows firewall?

[F9th0mega]

i had ICS running, and the firewall and ICS are tied together...

I appoligize if this was asked before, but have you completely disabled ICS and the WIndows firewall?

yep, no dice

[F9th0mega]

me and frey have almost the EXACT same computers. SAME motherboard, SAME memory, SAME type of processor (albeit mine is a bit slower ) SAME graphics card (mine is modded to meet his ) and dear god, probably something else i have forgotten.

weve pretty much narrowed it down to our luck being worse than someone who gets struck by lightning.

[FPF-DieHard]

me and frey have almost the EXACT same computers. SAME motherboard, SAME memory, SAME type of processor (albeit mine is a bit slower ) SAME graphics card (mine is modded to meet his ) and dear god, probably something else i have forgotten.

weve pretty much narrowed it down to our luck being worse than someone who gets struck by lightning.

Did Swapping NICs work?

[F9th0mega]

nah, had to go to sleep. i shall check tonight though.

im at school right now, so i cant really check

[Lieutenant_Q]

Due to some computer issues that I cannot understand.  I am unable to continue to fly this D2 campaign.

I opened all the required ports on the router, Turned off Windows Firewall, even placed myself in the DMZ, but I cannot draft or be drafted.  Which is really baffling because except for a couple of Windows Updates the computer is in the same configuration as it was for ED's Testing server, and it worked just fine. (Well after we blasted that damn Windows Firewall anyways)

About the only thing that did change was I installed C&C 3, which came with some new GameSpy software called GameSpy Comrade...Sounds like a communist plot to me... 

[F9th0mega]

if you have an MSI K8N Neo2, use the realtek LAN not the nV one.

IT WORKS FREY! SECOND NIC FTW!