Troubleshooting Connectivity

[Pexicus]

I don't know if anyone else has experience with this, but I don't get why everyone is bashing gamespy because I had these problems with a LAN game -- a LAN game being completely independent of gamespy. I posted the following in December...

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Me and my cousins started up a LAN game over christmas and experienced MASSIVE "Connecting to Peer" problems. We even reverted back to 1.09 because of it. We also saved a game, and were unable to load it again since those joining would crash.

1. If person A started the game, person B could usually log in, but person C was left starting at "connecting to peer." If peson B logged out, then SOMETIME C could get in, but then B couldn´t join.

A nightmare and a long waste of time to say the least trying to get all 3 of us connected. Anyone else experiencing trouble with LAN games?

Yep, sounds quite familiar. In fact this is exactly what we were experiencing in our LAN-game last month. I believe the version used was 1.09.

Anyways, in ongoing 8-player direct-ip pitboss game (all except the host connecting from outside) we encountered again the same problem while trying to play few turns with all logged in. It just couldn't be done. There were always 2-3 players who remained stuck at "connecting/contacted to peer" - and somehow it seemed to be totally random. All had proper ports forwarded in their routers/firewalls.

Like someone mentioned, at least it seems to be clear that this is not just a GS problem. I don't even have GS installed on my machine.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Yep, sounds quite familiar. In fact this is exactly what we were experiencing in our LAN-game last month. I believe the version used was 1.09.

Anyways, in ongoing 8-player direct-ip pitboss game (all except the host connecting from outside) we encountered again the same problem while trying to play few turns with all logged in. It just couldn't be done. There were always 2-3 players who remained stuck at "connecting/contacted to peer" - and somehow it seemed to be totally random. All had proper ports forwarded in their routers/firewalls.

Like someone mentioned, at least it seems to be clear that this is not just a GS problem. I don't even have GS installed on my machine.

I suspect that your situation may have firewall/router issues involved, but if you are sure you do not, please have everyone enable all logging options in the ini and send me everyones logs from the failed connection attempts, a short description of your LAN setup would be good as well, and please identify the hosts logs.

You don't need to install GS Arcade to have Gamespy issues, the CIV lobby is "powered by GS" so games started in the lobby are effected by any problems that GS may induce.

CS

 

[Pexicus]

I suspect that your situation may have firewall/router issues involved, but if you are sure you do not, please have everyone enable all logging options in the ini and send me everyones logs from the failed connection attempts, a short description of your LAN setup would be good as well, and please identify the hosts logs.

Did not try the logging switch in the .ini yet, I'll put the word out.

You don't need to install GS Arcade to have Gamespy issues, the CIV lobby is "powered by GS" so games started in the lobby are effected by any problems that GS may induce.

Ah yes, I was aware of "powered by GS", but is GS involved even in LAN games, and Direct-IP?

 

[dob]

A further addendum - having (after a few troubles) gotten into a mid-stage game (I was in the lead), and one player having quit, the dreaded text appears
"xxx is joining the game". And it never goes away. Not after 3 minutes, not after 5, and so on. Game Over. (This just happened - I am here venting... )

Long story short, I am putting Civ on the shelf until they sort of all the damn bugs. (Which is a shame, because it is a very good game, but all these bugs are mighty annoying...)

 

[CanuckSoldier]

A further addendum - having (after a few troubles) gotten into a mid-stage game (I was in the lead), and one player having quit, the dreaded text appears
"xxx is joining the game". And it never goes away. Not after 3 minutes, not after 5, and so on. Game Over. (This just happened - I am here venting... )

Long story short, I am putting Civ on the shelf until they sort of all the damn bugs. (Which is a shame, because it is a very good game, but all these bugs are mighty annoying...)

A player quiting should not have produced that error. What this a lobby game? sound like someone was joining your game that wasn't pw protected but couldn't make it(likely for having a under strength computer). I have seen that text display stay in previous versions even after the player successfully joined, but it doesn't hinder the progress of the game.

CS

 

[dob]

A player quiting should not have produced that error. What this a lobby game? sound like someone was joining your game that wasn't pw protected but couldn't make it(likely for having a under strength computer). I have seen that text display stay in previous versions even after the player successfully joined, but it doesn't hinder the progress of the game.

CS

It wasn't the quitting that caused the error - it was someone else taking (well, trying to take) his place. And as the turn timer stopped, and the "joining" message never went away, well... You get the idea It's not the first time this happens, either.

Waiting eagerly for the next patch though - hopefully, these issues will have gotten better by then. What is really needed is a way to PW protect the game itself after starting it. (I.e. after all players join, but before launching) That would allow free joining, but limiting after-start game joining. Ideally, this should be able to be toggled on/off inside the game, either by vote or some other means. (consensus perhaps?)

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Well I understand your displeasure with that situation, but that is not really a bug. Firaxis already provided a way to fix that simply password protect your games. Or just use directIP which won't show up in the lobby for some unwelcome player to attempt to join. There certainly are other bugs though that are being worked on as we speak.

CS

 

[dob]

Well I understand your displeasure with that situation, but that is not really a bug. Firaxis already provided a way to fix that simply password protect your games. Or just use directIP which won't show up in the lobby for some unwelcome player to attempt to join. There certainly are other bugs though that are being worked on as we speak.

CS

I would certainly consider a joining attempt killing a game off as a bug. The rest of my post were merely feature suggestions, not a bug report.

Today, "Merely" password protecting a game means that, well, actually getting players to play with gets a lot bulkier. The same goes for IP games. That's why being able to PW protect the game before launching, but after getting all the players inside the Lobby would be a GoodThing (TM).

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Well I'll pass your request to the powers that be, but with the ability to chat and private message directly from the staging room now, most people I know don't consider it very difficult to get players to join a pw protected game.

CS

 

[dob]

Well I'll pass your request to the powers that be, but with the ability to chat and private message directly from the staging room now, most people I know don't consider it very difficult to get players to join a pw protected game.

CS

True, true - it became a lot easier, but still. (Having to constantly spam a PW to chat is a bit of a bulky solution.)

What really would be great would be the aforementioned ability to change the PW status during an ongoing game. Most of the time, you really don't want joiners (the player who dropped was dead / almost dead, and the joiner will quit right away).
Still, if the No:1 player had an unexpected visit from the significant other, etc., getting a new player might be a good thing, and so on. Therefore, an ingame PW on / off feature would be optimal. (This would have the added benefit of making joining an ongoing game a far more attractive option, as you would most likely have a viable position in those games that were available for joining.)

This, of course, is icing - my top 3 priorities regarding Civ 4 multiplayer are, in order:

1. "Connecting to peer..."
2. Game starts, nothing happens bug. (Timer never starts even though all players are in the game)
3. Joiner kills the game bug. ("XXX is joining the game"... for eternity)

Thanks for all the work you are putting in, and I hope you have the situation sorted out ASAP so I can get back to my Civ Online addiction (Once you have tasted Civ 4 MP, going back to SP is hard, not to say impossible)

 

[dob]

Just a small status update: Just for fun, I spent 30 minutes in the Civ 4 Gamespy Lobby today, trying to get into games. Not only did I fail to launch a game - I never even managed to end up in a game with another player - I think that's a new record!

 

[Belaflek]

Still...this does not explain why, when I throw my system into the DMZ I still get a cannot connect to game browsing server on a multiplay internet game.

 

[knupp715]

Echoing what other people have said but I played a game yesterday at 11 AM and could get into any game except for a few no problem. I played again later that night at 8 pm and didnt get into any game, except for a 2vs2 match that had already started.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

Still...this does not explain why, when I throw my system into the DMZ I still get a cannot connect to game browsing server on a multiplay internet game.

Do you have any software firewalls as well? And what is the error that you get?

CS

 

[Belaflek]

nah..its a linksys router with NAT traversal. I hate the XP firewall and always turn it off. I think Ill just try a reinstall and see how that does cos I think its the only thing I havent done. Its the linksys with the phone port (a la vonnage) so one thing I havent done is to simply hook up live without the router...I think Ill go reinstall before I do that.
Ive tried both port forwarding and tossing myself in he DMZ with no love
o the error...(im at work right now but its basicaly
Start game
Multiplay
via internet
login
*cannot connect to game browsing server*
however If I create one it makes the account cos I can verify via the gamsyid website

 

[judge_knot]

why would anyone make something so screwd up as civ4 mp. and then put your name on it. i hope the mp designers feel as bad for selling us this crap as i do for buying it.

this line of BS about bad peers being a firewall or software problem is a bunch of crap and they know it. problem is that dont have anyone that does know whats wrong or else it wouldnt of been built the way it was in the first place.

 

[tals]

I must be imagining the games i've had no problem with - maybe even the one i'm playing at the moment.

Re the Peers it is not BS - hopefully that will become clear in the next release.

Tals

 

[Jotakami]

Alright, this has been posted several times in various places by various people, but no one has given a satisfactory response. I don't have any of the problems listed in this thread, because I can't even connect to the gamespy server in the first place. I click multiplayer->internet->log on and type in my valid username and password. Every time, without fail, I immediately get an error message stating "The connection to the game browsing server has failed." The only response I've gotten refers to http://www.gamespyarcade.com/support/firewalls.shtml which seemingly provides the solution. However, after opening all those ports in the firewall, I still get the same problem. I'm pretty sure most other people don't have this problem; I don't see hardly any posts asking about it. I just have windows XP, with the builtin firewall, nothing fancy, and I'm not going through a router either, I'm directly connected to my cable modem.

If any has had this exact problem and knows a solution I would love to hear it, I'm getting bored of playing single player

 

[Brailey]

hey there Jotakami, sorry if im insulting your intelligence with a very simple solution but i had a similar problem to what your describing until i tried logging in under a new username/pword. My problem was that the usernames i was trying were already taken but gamespy doesn't tell u that, it just says the connection failed.
Hope this helps bud

 

[Jotakami]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm pretty sure that's not the problem... I can go to www.gamespyid.com and log in to the username I created, without any problems. I can even create new usernames, through the Civ 4 interface, and they successfully get created, but it still won't log on to the game browsing server. I've got like 3 different usernames now But... still can't play online