Dedicated server issues

[Sparx1337]

Long story short, people can't seem to join my server through the server gamelist. It seems like it's trying to connect with a random port between 60000-65535. Port forwarding has been properly set up with 2302-2303, and people can join through direct IP, but not the gamelist.

Anyone have any idea what the problem might be? Been searching for a while now without any luck.

[tythespy]

Try different ports (something else could be using them)

[supersniper]

in your init.txt do you have a command that says sv_public 1 or sv_public "true"

[jcap]

It sounds like the server is being displayed for him, but when people try to connect, it doesn't work. Without sv_public set as true, the game would not show the server in the list at all.

[Sparx1337]

Try different ports (something else could be using them)
Hmm, I'll try this when I can.


in your init.txt do you have a command that says sv_public 1 or sv_public "true"
Yes, I do. It's visible in the gamelist, but game info and ping and all that stuff doesn't show up, so there's something about the ports, and not the sv_public 1/0 command.


It sounds like the server is being displayed for him, but when people try to connect, it doesn't work. Without sv_public set as true, the game would not show the server in the list at all.

Correct.

[supersniper]

Hmm...
that means there's another program blocking it aswell.
For dedi's 3 ports are required (default)
80 TCP - (Halo's update service)
2302 UDP
2303 UDP

maybe your other firewalls are blocking it as well?
if you use windows firewall then just allow ports through that.
Also if you have Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 then that also has a built in firewall and they will need to be allowed through there aswell.

If none of those apply to you then i do not know what is going on.

[Sparx1337]

Hmm...
that means there's another program blocking it aswell.
For dedi's 3 ports are required (default)
80 TCP - (Halo's update service)
2302 UDP
2303 UDP

maybe your other firewalls are blocking it as well?
if you use windows firewall then just allow ports through that.
Also if you have Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 then that also has a built in firewall and they will need to be allowed through there aswell.

If none of those apply to you then i do not know what is going on.

Might be the firewall I'm using yeah, but from what I remember I set it to allow incoming connections for those ports, but I can check again just to make sure.

[supersniper]

you also might need to allow the actual haloceded.exe through the firewall aswell.

[Vicky]

You only need to forward the actual UDP port the server runs on, not 80 (http) or wichever other port.

[supersniper]

meh it never hurts to have more than you need and in his case it might help.

[Vicky]

In his case i'd say, disable upnp on your router first (and try again), verify the windows firewall is off (and try again), then check your running firewall..

[jcap]

You could also try changing the port the server runs on and then forward that new one to start fresh.

I just don't understand how people can directly connect, but can't connect through the server browser. As far as I knew, there's no different ports.

[Vicky]

I think upnp may have something to do with that, ports can get rerouted by upnp so the gamespy server thinks it runs on 60000+ or something but incoming traffic, using the serverlist, may not be rerouted properly so they fail to connect.

[Sparx1337]

I've tried everything mentioned above and still people can't join through the gamelist. Editing the ports just made it worse, people couldn't even join through direct IP.

Disabled everything on the server named Firewall or anything that could prevent people connecting to the server.

Tried disabling UPnP, without any luck.

I don't understand what could possibly be wrong!

[Vicky]

Just to verify you might want to check if a person trying to join your server if he/she sees the right port when doing that. What OS are you trying this on btw?

[Sparx1337]

That's what I've been doing.

Windows XP Professional SP3

Edit: Ports my friend had was 55153 and 55171. He only checked them two times, but another friend of mine claims the ports are random for him as well, all the time. And they were above 60000 for him.

[Vicky]

Sounds like something is still routing ports dynamicly.. or the gamespy server after all :S

[supersniper]

Hey what's your xfire.
I'll Teamview you and see if I can do anything.
because this is just way to bizarre.

[Sparx1337]

xfire: sparx1337

[Cortexian]

I'll Teamview you and see if I can do anything.
You need to open CMD and type "format C:\" right?

[justin108]

Seems like a firewall issue to me. Make sure it allows both incoming AND outgoing connections, depending on router and/or firewall used. The easiest way to troubleshoot that problem is to set your computers IP to the Default DMZ server. If able to connect once that is done, then it is a forwarding problem on your routers end.

[supersniper]

... DMZPlus mode is not on all routers and it also provides less security because it allows ALL ports opened with the computer that has it enabled...
it makes it easier yes but less secure.

[Inferno]

I <3 DMZ.

Saves me so much trouble.

[Sparx1337]

You need to open CMD and type "format C:\" right?
Haha, right.


Seems like a firewall issue to me. Make sure it allows both incoming AND outgoing connections, depending on router and/or firewall used. The easiest way to troubleshoot that problem is to set your computers IP to the Default DMZ server. If able to connect once that is done, then it is a forwarding problem on your routers end.
I've already made sure it can connect through ports 2302 and 2303, hence people can join through direct IP. Like others have said, I would prefer not to use DMZ due to security issues. But then again if I really HAVE to then I will.


DMZPlus mode is not on all routers ...
It is on one of ours. Not sure about the routermodem.

[Vicky]

Wouldn't surprise me if something fishy is going on with the gamespy server as well, when i put up a server (PC) it always had a ping. I think about 3 weeks ago it no longer had a ping, usually a system restart fixed it but i've never seen it with ping since then. No hardware or settings changed at this end and running 1.09 now.

[supersniper]

Well i'm currently having an issue too...
I can set up a halo PC server just fine but for CE the server wont start...
i even manually type in sv_mapcycle_begin and it still doesnt start...

[Vicky]

It's worse, i can't update CE because it aint installed on that pc and others can't join my PC server anymore... great, just great...

[supersniper]

wait so where's your server stored?

[Vicky]

Forget what i said, i'm no longer sure which ports are needed or not. Never had trouble putting a server up but now i do :P

E: v1.08 seems to work, at least ppl can join.. one port forwarded. No clue why some ppl can put up a v1.09 server without trouble and some cannot.