Topic: unable to join game in progress

[bob hallenbeck]

fe an a friend  are truying to play internet game directly (Via intenet play screen)
i can see his game. all correct ports are fowarded.  when i hit join
i get JOining game in progress please wait.
then nothing happens and im returned to the screen an errorr is reported but is scrolls to fast to read.
we have trided every way possible and the ame thing occurs. dmz both computers and killed both firewall
still nothing it just keeps timing out.
any ideas before thed disk goes flying

[Bonk]

Which game SFC1, EAW, OP or SFC3?

Which operating system(s)?

Which ISPs?

What type of modems? (please do not say USB)

Note that forwarding ports and using the dmz is not recommended. One or the other. For either to work properly the lan must be configured statically (and might possibly work with dhcp reservations but no guarantees)

Universal Plug and Play must be disabled at all possible points of interference. Disable it at the router. Stop and disable the windows service. Remove any other UPnP devices from the network. (at both ends)

You must also allow ICMP echo requests. (pings) They have made this difficult in Vista/7.

Um what else...? Bascially, you want a real network. (circa 1987) This is harder and harder to build these days. Eventually everything will end up tunnelled over encrypted http to avoid this kind of thing. Stupid, but that is the way it will go. The one port internet: 443. Coming soon.

Have you tried hosting?

edit: oh, and if not wired to your router, get some cat5-e and do it (better yet - coaxial - though the hardware is rare these days).

edit2: waiit a minute... "In progress"? Is your friend launching the game before you connect?

[bob hallenbeck]

this shows up on both
we used 2 xp computers a win 7 and xp computers.
pings are both enabled. on both routers. both networks are wired and the lans are set so the caming computers are reserved ip, ect.ect
we're both using netgear routers.
he is not launching the game (as far a i know) but that is the message i recive.  to troubleshoot the computers we could play on the same lan with no problems. so the computers  are configured correctly.
I'm thinking there is an 'undocumented' port(s) that need to foward. but i have benn battling this a week and finalyy gave up. seeking help now.
game SFC - OP patched to 2552 on all computers.
no mods no extras
(no use of complicating things until we can play)

[bob hallenbeck]

update:
upnp on/off no effet on problem
dmz  no effect on problem..
reinstall and enhancment pack: no effect
can see the game just cant join it to play.
game is not being launched
any other suggestions?

[Bonk]

Well Bob, I admire your determination.

I begin to wonder if you are setting up the direct game properly (max players?). Oh right, it's just the two of you, right... um...

The other thing that crosses my mind is the possibility that one or both of you do not have a proper public IP address. I see you are with Charter Communications on a public IP address. Are you using their cable or WiFi service? (your IP address looks like it might be WiFi?) What ISP is your buddy with? WiFi and satellite services tend to use proprietary packet compression which pretty much makes them both useless for any kind of real networking.

Can you ping each other's public IP addresses at the command prompt?

Let me also link the ports that are required...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240429
47624 TCP
2300-2400 TCP & UDP
That is all. Directx7 for SFC2(OP/EAW). I restate them just because I've mixed them up myself once in a while.

Ah netgear routers... do they support port range forwarding proper? IS there a built-in firewall? Are the firmwares up-to-date?

Good to see you've tested on the same LAN, so it is definitely the routers or the ISPs.

If you've the patience I'll stick with ya till we've been through everything.

Ah, have you tried with someone else? Jump on our teamspeak server and try to hook up with someone. That might help rule out which end the problem is on.

I'll be around for the next while. If I see ya on teamspeak I'll host a game and see if you can connect to it.  (teamspeak.dynaverse.net - server pw: sfcrulz)

[Age]

Did you delete the game folder before you reinstalled the enhancement pack this is a must.

[bob hallenbeck]

Yes i did. i even made shure all the registery entries were removed. if they didn't go i removed them myself

Did you delete the game folder before you reinstalled the enhancement pack this is a must.

[bob hallenbeck]

okay:
were both charter customers
both wired.
we can ping each other. round trip 32 msec.
i can ping him from my computer too. im not shure how to ping on  a specific port.
i do see his game listed.  in fact my routers logs show us as connected (2300)
his router is a netgear fvs 318  firmare is current
mine is a netgear WNDR 3700 firmware is current
both routhers do have prot triggering as well.

oth routers have firewalls and port fowarding is correctly set
Muy router has a SPI firewall (which can be turned off , its currently that way)
i do have sfc direct diownloded if we can meet there somehow.


im going to run some test in the morning with a different game x-wing vs tie fiighter
which also uses the same direct play ports SFC :OP does
you can drop me an e-mail at n2qhy@hotmail and we could set up a time with the 3 of us
and who knows nmabe play a game or 2 

*goes off to find the headset *

[Bonk]

Are you both wired to your routers?

I need to do a little work on sfcdirect, but all it does is connect direct tcp/ip games with command line parameters,  I don't expect that would make any difference.

Age of Empires II also uses directx7 directplay.

Weird... it almost sounds like ... aaahh waaaiiit...

Any Norton or McAfee Products involved?  (Particularly the net-shield type crap) They may treat LAN and Internet IPs differently...

Which reminds me, you have the appropriate firewall rule scope set in the windows firewall for the vista/7 and XP boxes? (lan vs public) Or just disable the windows firewall fully?

I once lost over $20000 of work to McAfee interfering with serial comms. Never again.  (It was ongoing serious stuff for the FDA on J&J products too - very embarrassing)

Are there any Zonealarm installs involved? I once lost a job to Zonelarm. Never again.

Easiest to contact me right on the forums here. I check the forums more than my e-mail!  Maybe we can give it a try after you test X-Wing (awesome game) or AOE today. Just shoot me a PM or bump this thread.

[bob hallenbeck]

ok no mcaffe on eatrher end
or notron (you could not pay me enough to use them)
zonealarm is my software firewall.
the on lan network game has to still go through this.
we havea client/server package called errent venture (fo Xwing Vs Tie fighter)
i run one of those servers is inside my house. on an other computer sitting in the corner
my friend can sucessfuly connect to that server. and we can chat fom now to doomesday
he is seeing my ping time of 25 msec and his is the same.
im going to assume at this point, the path is ok and we can  connect to each other.
next step?

[Bonk]

zonealarm is my software firewall.
the on lan network game has to still go through this.

Right, but the scope see... is different.

Next step? Turn off ZoneAlarm.  I assume the Windows firewall is already off?

I ran a Quiz hosting webserver behind Zonealarm once. It was completely random as to whether or not clients could connect. I figured out that Zonealarm was the problem just before I lost the job.

You are already behind a router with a firewall, if you keep your OS up to date there is absolutely no need for Zonealarm. (unless you browse a lot of porn and download a lot of movies and crap that may have trojans in it - do that on a different computer if so)

Ten years no software firewall here - ten years virus and trojan free. It is all in how you browse.

Actually, come to think of it The first year OP was out I was using Zonealarm (Only a year or two old iself). I kept getting dropped from missions. My paranoia assumed I was being hacked. I berated poor MaxTorps or MaxWhoever was hosting the server. I uninstalled Zonealarm and magically stopped losing connection.

Software firewalls cause more problems than they solve. Here's why: They are software. See, if your CPU is already busy at over 80% running a game, then it does not have much time to run two virtual ethernet adapters to filter traffic from the hardware ethernet adapter. That is a job to be handled by outboard hardware before it get to your lan card. There is the same problem with just about any USB device.

Let's say someone drops a smackload of high-poly fighters. While my cheap vid card and cpu lags for 500ms drawng pretty pictures, that could be enough to put a comms timeout over... especially if a software fireweall is waiting for cpu time to filter packets before delivering them.

Again, are you wired to the router?

SFC networking is highly allergic to both Zonealarm and Wireless. I would not even try to play over either.

Disable Zonealarm fully (stop all if its services it it has any now). Ensure you are wired to the router. Try again.

I have to run to the store in a bit but can try hosting a game for ya when I get back. ('bout two hours - or at some point over the weekend here)

[marstone]

Bonk, when you ended up leaving that job (released from duty you could say), did you remember to turn zonealarm back on, at a strict level?

[Bonk]

Nope, fdisk followed by format. 

[marstone]

Nope, fdisk followed by format. 

Yeah, there is a reason that when you fire an IT guy you do it when they are on lunch, after you lock out their passwords and remove them from the system.  Just bring them the cardboard box with their stuff and say, thanks, good-bye.

*** we now return you to your regularly scheduled thread ***

[Bonk]

It wasn't an IT job and it was more complicated than that. They asked for it. I have never done that to anyone else. Normally wouldn't dream of it. (particularly here, or on the largest LIMS in the world)

It was work over and above my regular duties. The data on the $500K research instrument was left intact.

And you know what? It was as much a loss to me as to them. I took the best of the php web quizzes out there (which are all pretty bad) and made it frigging awesome. I could have sold that thing about five times by now.

[bob hallenbeck]

problem solved.
got online with a xvt friend downloaded the app teamviewer.
chhecked out his rouder and then used another utility called
pf port checker and verified the the ports were correctly opened. using your advies
this wasmuch easier than working on the phone.
so now we can play

apeerently one of the interinal ip adresses was mis-set
oh well live and learn thanks for the help

[Bonk]

Cool! 

Sometimes you just have to work your way through everything to find where the issue is.

[bob hallenbeck]

got the game going now we get Shiplist differs from hawk.
and i was over there on easter and overwrote his shiplist(s) with mine seeing if that fixes the error. were all runing the shiplist that comes with 2552
and that verson of software.

unrelated note: dxport does do what it says but my brother will drop from my screen after i go select a ship however he is still in thegame sesson i just dont see him. the host does

my brother is on the same network as i am. we can fly agenst eath other with no errors. iss there a tweak i need o make?

[marstone]

there is about three places that the shplist is kept depending on the game you play.  I think you have one for local, one for dyna, and one for network.  Do a search and replace them all with the same.