Network challenges preventing me from playing

[dwhitty]

I've spent the entire evening working with a friend trying to fix a problem that just started happening for me around 3:00pm this afternoon.

I've been playing FAF for several months, usually in private games, but recently (past week) in public games. This morning (1/1/2013) I installed the latest update I played several games with no problems.

Then, around 3:00pm I joined a game but was kicked by the host in the lobby because my network connection was causing issues. I could chat with the host, and had a green ping with the host, but all other non-host players were red "nil" for ping. Also, I could not chat with the non-host players. I tried several times to connect to other games but they all exhibited the exact same behavior.

If I try to host a game, the game doesn't show up to other people in the available games tab on FAF.

The only game I am able to successfully start is a 1v1 where I connect to a single player who is hosting and no one else joins the match. This seems to work just fine.

I did not make any Windows system (firewall, antivirus, updates, reboots) our network changes (router, modem) between games when this behavior started happening. This literally, from my vantage point, just started happening in between games with no config changes.

From that point on I performed the following steps to rectify the issue with no success:

- Rebooted router
- Rebooted modem
- Rebooted computer
- Researched UDP 6112 issues on forums
- Created port forwarding for 6112 on my router (special forwarding did not exist previously when things worked)
- Tried using alternative ports
- Tried using uPnP setting in FAF (uPnP was already enabled on my router)
- Tried using catV cable connection instead of wireless connection from my router
- Tried using alternative internet connection (Verizon wireless hotspot on my phone) - this suggests to me that the problem is with my machine or my FAF account
- Called Charter Communications to see if they had made any changes to my account/modem dealing with port blocking (they said they hadn't)
- Reinstalled FAF
- Reset FAF password

In spite of all this knob twiddling, FAF is exhibiting the same behavior when I try to connect to a game:

- I can see the host, green ping
- I can chat with the host
- I can see the other connected players, with red nil
- I can't chat to or see chats from the other non-host players
- The host cannot start the game if I am in the game with other players besides me and the host
- I can connect and play a game with only one opponent who is hosting
- I can start a game, but it does not show up in the available game list in FAF

I poked around in the forever.log and the only thing that stood out a bit was an upnp error:

ERROR faf.fa.upnp Couldn't get StaticPortMappingCollection

but my friend's working system also recorded that log event.


My environment details:

- Windows 7 Home Premium (windows firewall disabled when gaming, avast in silent/gaming mode)
- Charter Cable internet connection
- Linksys WRT45G v3.0 wireless router
- I have no other FAF computers on my network

I really appreciate your help diagnosing or fixing my problem. Could this be a problem with my account on the FAF servers? Do I need to try reinstalling SC:FA? Do you need to see my logs?

Thanks so much for your help.

[dwhitty]

Here is my forever.log dump:

http://pastebin.com/SZuyYz20

[discoverer2k4]

I have exactly the same problem since some hours!

http://pastebin.com/rwX9wrsD

http://pastebin.com/SCkkuz4e

I restarted everything, reinstalled FAF ... nothing changed.

[dwhitty]

discoverer2k4, when did your issue start happening?

[dwhitty]

Update 1/2/2012: tried the following, still not resolved:

- Updated to Service Pack 1 on Windows 7 on my machine.

- Logged onto my account (dwhitty) from a fresh installation of FAF on a different computer on my home network. Game is exhibiting the same behavior. This leads me to believe it is either a problem with my network, or my dwhitty FAF account.

[discoverer2k4]

I think its something related with our network or ISP ... or it is because of pilots spamprotection tool he is testing at the moment

can't say when exactly - I played a lot of 1on1s today and didnt realized the issue

[dwhitty]

> I think its something related with our network or ISP

Which ISP? I'm with Charter Cable (Texas).

> pilots spamprotection tool

What is that? Any details you can share?

[Ze_PilOt]

The protection is only when you logging. If you are logged, nothing else changed.

[dwhitty]

Ze_PilOt, do you think this could be related to my "dwhitty" FAF account? Would you mind having a look at it and seeing if everything looks ok?

[Ze_PilOt]

No.

I need the logs from you and the persons you are trying to connect to.

the game.log AND the faforever.log.