Multiple players, single firewall

[Entr0p1cLqd]

Has anyone managed to get two people from behind the same firewall onto the came server in an Internet co-op game? I've been trying to play through the co-op campaign with my brother and sister-in-law but it's not happening.

A summary of my problem is as follows:

I create a co-op Internet server and wait on the server screen for players to join.

If my brother joins the game first, when my sister-in-law tries to join we both get a "Connection Problems" dialog displayed to us. If my sister-in-law joins first then my brother cannot connect and the same "Connection Problems" dialog is displayed.

Both my brother and sister-in-law are able to join different servers at the same time. Also, they can join my co-op server individually. Just never both together.

Is there a solution to this?

We've been using Hamachi to allow us to play on a "LAN", which is fine, until lots of enemies and troops get spawned. The bandwidth doesn't appear to be throttled on a LAN game so it's normal that one of the 3 players in the co-op game will get disconnecetd mid mission. This basically means that it is not a viable solution.

[ROCO*AFZ*]

Himachi seemed a little funny about some things. Why not set up a co-op internet server instead witha password?

[yttocs1966]

This kind of relates I think. My friends and I use Hamachi to play COOP. I have the fastest internet out of us, but can't host. When I make a room, no one can see me, another friend has this problem half the time. Yet my friend with the lowest speed can host and all of use can see him. I have a router,half the time doesn't, and the lowest also has one. I've made sure to allow GR:AW in the firewalls, and turn them off, but still doesn't help.If someone tells me how to fix this(open another port,ect) could you please tell me how or a link. Also some people are running dedicated servers out there how do you find and join them. Thanks from an idiot.

[stoked]

I'd host on the side that has 2 computers. Server and remote internet client use hamachi. The other computer don't use hamachi and just join via LAN. Worked fine for me.

[Entr0p1cLqd]

Thanks for the replies. Back off holiday.

Himachi seemed a little funny about some things. Why not set up a co-op internet server instead witha password?

As my original thread stated, the GRAW game client itself seems to be preventing the two players behind the same firewall from connecting to the same server.

My friends and I use Hamachi to play COOP. I have the fastest internet out of us, but can't host.

I can't help you with a dedicated server. But I might be able to help you out with the Hamachi co-op problem. If you start Hamachi and go to the "System ... Preferences" menu screen you will see a set of "trouble shooting" options.

Tick the "Magic Option" and specify a port you know isn't being used in the text field (I use 4000). Then, forward port 4000 on your router to your host PC. Thst should solve your hosting problem. You will probably need to restart Hamachi before it takes effect.

I'd host on the side that has 2 computers. Server and remote internet client use hamachi. The other computer don't use hamachi and just join via LAN. Worked fine for me.

I'll give that a go. I don't think we've tried that particular configuration.

Still a bit irritated that I've not had an official "yeah - the game prevents clients from behind the same firewall from joining the game" - or some form of better hint as to what the "Connection Problems" error message means.

Update

OK, after spending a bit of time messing around with firewalls, port forwards and connection order I've finally got this working. It's still a bit hit and miss - the dreaded "GameSpy Connection Problems" pop up occurs occasionally but not as often.

The confguration we have is as follows:

The host sits behind a router/firewall with ports 15250 and 13139 forwarded to the host machine for both TCP and UDP packets (there are a lot more ports forwarded but these should be the only ones used by GRAW).

The two clients sit behind a single router/firewall. This firewall has NO GRAW ports forwarded to either of the client machines.

The host starts the game and the two clients join. If they both get in, great. The game will play as normal - and is a heck of a lot more stable than running a LAN game over Hamachi. If the evil "Gamespy Connection Problems" pop up appears then all machines need to close and re-open GRAW.

We did have a situation during testing where the host and clients recovered from the "Connection Problems" pop up but we are not sure why, and it certainly didn't seem to reliably recover.

All GRAW games are running the 1.10 patch.

Edited June 4, 2006 by EntropicLqd

[Entr0p1cLqd]

Oh yeah,

Now that we got the three player co-op working we managed to crash it. Since I can't see any obvious "place your crash logs here" post I'll stick it here:

---

Crash in application version: grpcrc1.10

data\lib\units\ai\soldier\soldierai.dsf(-1): cant find member: force_logic in type <void>

SCRIPT STACK

data\lib\units\ai\soldier\soldierai.dsf(0)

data\lib\units\ai\soldier\soldierai.dsf(0)

data\lib\units\extensions\humandamage.dsf(0)

data\lib\units\extensions\humandamage.dsf(0)

data\lib\units\types\weapons\bulletweapon.dsf(0)

data\lib\units\types\weapons\bulletweapon.dsf(0)

data\lib\units\extensions\huskinventory.dsf(0)

[Entr0p1cLqd]

OK, you know my above post - the one that details how to make the co-op mode work when two of the players are behind the same firewall ... well, it's ######.

I've just wasted 45 minutes of my life trying to get something that worked last night to work again tonight. No changes have been made to any firewalls or machines in between times.

I am now at a complete loss as to explain just what the ###### is going on. The only unknown in the whole thing is ######ty gamespy. I don't know whether they are changing their auth. rules on a daily basis or what - but whatever is going on is too bloody weird for words.

So, for tonights efforts, the two players behind the firewall tried to connect. Once one of them was connected, the other was prevented from joining by the "GameSpy Connection Problems" pop up.

The players VPN'd into the place they work and - for reasons I don't understand - were both able to connect to the server's "launch screen" even though it appeared (from an Ethereal trace) that both players were coming from the same IP address. In this case, once the "Launch" button was pressed the two players failed to reach the load-out screen (not suprising given the VPN tbh).

So, what the bloody hell is going on then? Is this something that only works on the evening of the first Sunday of every month or what?

The British public transport network is more reliable than the co-op networking in this game. And that's saying something.

[BarmyArmy]

I can report that I have run two machines behind the same server connecting to the same public server today; with 1.10 patch.

I did have some issues - ie. random disconnects - with 1.00 ( and poss. even 1.06 its hard to remember ).

Barmy

[Entr0p1cLqd]

I can report that I have run two machines behind the same server connecting to the same public server today; with 1.10 patch.

OK, but will you be able to do the same tomorrow? We have managed to get it working once using the steps I originally outlined above. But 24 hours later with not config. changes it doesn't work.

How have you got the two machines and firewall/server configured?

I'd have some confidence in my ability to sort the problem out if there was a log of the issue or a more meaningful error message. I mean "Connection Problems" means ###### all particularly when there are so many possible break points.

• Is it GaySpy that's generating the error, and if so, what does that error really mean?
  
• Is the issue on the creation of (presumably) the connected UDP socket from the client to the server?
  
• Is the client able to send but not receive data or is it the other way around?
  
• Is the connection droping packets causing some sort of handshaking issue?
  

I wouldn't mind if there was a command line option to turn some form of network logging on so I could see exactly where the problem was.

At least with Unreal Engine based games you normally get enough logging on both sides (server and client) to be able to figure out what the hell is going on. With GRAW there's nothing except a meaningless error message.

I'd submit an official bug report to Ubisoft but I've experienced their shoddy excuse for technical support before and I know I'd just be wasting my time.

[uhntis]

dunno if this helps: the same problem is with RavenShield - it's also using gamespy. what helped some time is that those two players that are behind the same firewall/router enter the server AT THE SAME TIME... both try to hit the connect button at the same time... maybe this works here as well?

[Entr0p1cLqd]

dunno if this helps: the same problem is with RavenShield - it's also using gamespy. what helped some time is that those two players that are behind the same firewall/router enter the server AT THE SAME TIME... both try to hit the connect button at the same time... maybe this works here as well?

Thanks for the thought. I'll give it a go. If that's the case then GameSpy is pretty fundamentally broken for anyone who shares a house.

[Entr0p1cLqd]

Didn't work.

We've managed to play a couple more times since last weekend, but we don't have a reliable way of making it work. Last night was a case in point. The evil "Connection Problems" popup was giving us pain so we all quit the game, waited 5 minutes, re-started and it was fine.

It's crap. I'm hoping the next patch will resolve things ..

[fishmonger]

has anyone ever found a solution for this? I have two copies of GRAW on my local subnet behind the cable router and want to join our dedicated server together with my son. The moment the first client connects to the server, gamespy doesn't even list the server for the second one any longer. It must all by IP based over on Gamespy and even though we have two serial numbers, it simply locks the connection to the server for our shared IP.

I suppose I could use VPN on one box to get an outside IP, but the tunneling and funky extra routing may just not be worth the hassle.

In other games such as NASCAR 2003 we were able to do this just fine, with 6 people at a LAN party connecting to an outside internet server to race with another batch of drivers who were all over the planet. Obviously, there was no gamespy involved...

[tristan73]

OK the problem here is routing.. Inside your LAN behind a firewall you NAT (Network Address Translate) to one internet IP.

So if you host on one machine inside your LAN and choose online game the server will register with gamespy on its "external" IP of 80.133.44.56 (etc) so when you try to connect to it on another machine behind the same router (router/firewall or whatever does your NAT) then it will try and connect to the External IP..

So the second client will try and connect its own IP, impossible..

The only way to do this is to host a LAN game, connect internally to it on 1,2, etc PC's behind same firewall then use a third party piece of software to connect on a sudo/virtual lan over the net..

I have not used LogMeIn Hamachi but just did a google on it and this will do the job all right..

The only other option would be to have two external IP's from your ISP and do not NAT on your router, so you give your internal PC's a real internet IP each..

Need any help give me a shout..

PS: Yes this boring nonsense is what I do for a living.. zzzzz