The Port Forwarding thread: Minimizing multiplayer connection issues

[CMDR Sophie Joanne]

Hi there, presume you have followed steps similar to these? https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/broadband-and-landline/routers-help/set-up-portforwarding.

edit: see if this may be related: https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Broad...er-Port-Forwarding-is-not-working/td-p/952009

Thanks, Yes, that is the same steps i took to set up PF (static IP is something I've always done, so setting that up isn't a problem). It worked fine on the old "Brightbox", but since switching to the "Smarthub" (upgraded to fibre) it doesn't want to know, although todays search results are looking more promising than a few weeks ago!
Unfortunately, I can't test anything at the moment (looking after a mates house/dog while he's away, so I'm not home), but I'll have another dive into it when I get back and hopefully get it sorted!

P.S. Thanks for taking the time to reply and providing links!

 

[CMDR Darth Vater]

ok, I've tested something. I have full access to my router. I enabled the different ports for the computers and set them into Elite, too. We are both in the same network, never ever any problems to reach each other. Long story short: It doesn't work. Disconnects especially when using the same ship. When he's my copilot my son stucks in the blue tunnel. Quite often the jump to Supercruise or out of it or after the hyper jump he is caught into the tunnel view. Last time till I was already in the star port and we stopped the experiment. Game isn't reacting on any inputs, we have to task kill the game.

Interesting fact: On both computers we were listening e.g. the star port's ATC. So, his game realizes at least that we arrived at the star port.

From my perspective even Frontier's guys shouldn't be able to play together in one ship in a stable multicrew session. I have no clue if they have tested the game with at least a wing of four together trying to instance on the same station. Better even with two wings.

Another bug: He can't see quite often my SRV. I become invisible once I board the SRV, if I exit I become visible again. Once I dismiss the ship, the SRV finally is visible to him, too. And that happens with others not in my network, too.

 

[Drelthar]

ok, I've tested something. I have full access to my router. I enabled the different ports for the computers and set them into Elite, too. We are both in the same network, never ever any problems to reach each other. Long story short: It doesn't work. Disconnects especially when using the same ship. When he's my copilot my son stucks in the blue tunnel. Quite often the jump to Supercruise or out of it or after the hyper jump he is caught into the tunnel view. Last time till I was already in the star port and we stopped the experiment. Game isn't reacting on any inputs, we have to task kill the game.

Interesting fact: On both computers we were listening e.g. the star port's ATC. So, his game realizes at least that we arrived at the star port.

From my perspective even Frontier's guys shouldn't be able to play together in one ship in a stable multicrew session. I have no clue if they have tested the game with at least a wing of four together trying to instance on the same station. Better even with two wings.

Another bug: He can't see quite often my SRV. I become invisible once I board the SRV, if I exit I become visible again. Once I dismiss the ship, the SRV finally is visible to him, too. And that happens with others not in my network, too.

The frontier streams tried multicrew and even just wings, and had the same problems.

It was kinda funny to watch.

Gotta feel for em though.

 

[CMDR Darth Vater]

and that's the reason why I don't like to have that kind of solutions. They may work and solve the issues for some, in some cases, in most not, and especially for the devs who do not need to solve and test. But solving devs problems is utter nonsense for most of the people and problems! Nobody should manipulate his router in any case to make a broken game running "in some cases under certain circumstances".

 

[CMDR James Northstar]

The frontier streams tried multicrew and even just wings, and had the same problems.

It was kinda funny to watch.

Gotta feel for em though.

The problem, I think, is that because something like 80% of the players play in Solo, multiplayer issues will never be a high priority for FDev.

 

[Drelthar]

The problem, I think, is that because something like 80% of the players play in Solo, multiplayer issues will never be a high priority for FDev.

I dunno, I think the tech is very clever, and was pretty decent for when Elite released.

Seems like it's always been somewhat of a "hack" though, I'm not sure even if it was priority number one, they'd be able to "fix" it, in any way other than starting from scratch with a new solution, there's clearly some major flaw in the labyrinthine AWS turn/etc system that was seemingly designed by Dav Stott (now head of online) which didn't matter "too much" back in the day.

Dav is the kind of guy that you know if he could fix it tomorrow, he would. Seems like they have to just make incremental tweaks based on network log data they collect, but that can never keep up with the player rotation and internet infrastructure changes.

 

[Viajero]

ok, I've tested something. I have full access to my router. I enabled the different ports for the computers and set them into Elite, too. We are both in the same network, never ever any problems to reach each other. Long story short: It doesn't work. Disconnects especially when using the same ship. When he's my copilot my son stucks in the blue tunnel. Quite often the jump to Supercruise or out of it or after the hyper jump he is caught into the tunnel view. Last time till I was already in the star port and we stopped the experiment. Game isn't reacting on any inputs, we have to task kill the game.

Interesting fact: On both computers we were listening e.g. the star port's ATC. So, his game realizes at least that we arrived at the star port.

From my perspective even Frontier's guys shouldn't be able to play together in one ship in a stable multicrew session. I have no clue if they have tested the game with at least a wing of four together trying to instance on the same station. Better even with two wings.

Another bug: He can't see quite often my SRV. I become invisible once I board the SRV, if I exit I become visible again. Once I dismiss the ship, the SRV finally is visible to him, too. And that happens with others not in my network, too.

Port forwarding should work (or at least improve your experience significantly) if done properly though. Unless I am mistaken in principle it should also possible for several computers or devices under the same router (unless router or network limitation of some kind). For this case you need to use different static IPs and different forwarded ports (say 5100 and 5101) for each of the computers and create a separate port forwarding rule at your router for each.

For us to be able to help can you please post a screen capture of your router port forwarding rules for each of the two computers?

Do you have a VPN enabled while playing in any of the two computers?

 

[taniwha-qf]

The problem with both machines being on the same network is that the router might not like it. You have A sending to B's external IP/port and B sending to A's external IP/port, which are both on the same router (R), so you'd get A-R-R-B, but the router (by default, at least) probably does not want to do R-R (on its external IP, at least).

 

[CMDR James Northstar]

The question that remains is what is cause and what is effect here.

Oh, I can tell you the root cause right now. It's the game's approach to PvP. Frontier went with the full attack approach to it for their Open world, so 80% of the player base avoids it. Just like they have on every other online game for the last 25 years.

I really do not understand why game devs don't understand this. This is just the truth: In online games where death has consequences, most people (about 80% of them) really, really don't like PvP very much, precisely because other players will go out of their way to visit those consequences upon them, for no other reason than that they can.

At its peak, World of Warcraft needed about 20 PvE servers for every PvP server, and that trend holds for every other MMO out there.

Give the players a PvE server and they'll use it. We don't have that here, we have Solo and Private Group sessions, so guess where everyone is?

(I'M LOOKING AT YOU STAR CITIZEN, you with the harshest death penalty ever planned combined with your no-holds-barred PvP universe. How many times does history need to teach that this just doesn't work?)

Anyway the players playing in Solo are there because they don't want to get ganked. This has led FDev to the mistaken impression that people want to play the game alone, and that's why people who enjoy multiplayer must suffer without bug fixes.

 

[taniwha-qf]

Anyone curious enough for a silly field test? I've always wondered what would happen if 2 commanders tried to get into an instance without port forwarding. Theoretically, and as I understand it, that should never be possible. But who knows what secret voodoo Dav might have cooked up in the background...

No need, my friend and I used to do that quite a bit. It's how we found that you could not jump to SC or hyperspace without port forwardning (and keep the teammate in the instance). Even without PF, instancing worked quite well in Odyssey (very hit-and-miss in Horizons) so long as we were in our own ships and didn't have separate missions to the same settlement (instancing just would not happen in that situation). However, with PF, everything, including SC and hyperspace, works very nicely, though we haven't tried the separate missions thing.

 

[Viajero]

Anyone curious enough for a silly field test? I've always wondered what would happen if 2 commanders tried to get into an instance without port forwarding. Theoretically, and as I understand it, that should never be possible. But who knows what secret voodoo Dav might have cooked up in the background...

I usually refuse friend requests. But if you're interested, you can send me a PM or make a temporary friend request ingame (I will cancel it after the test, though). It is only important that the person is absolutely sure that he or she does not have some kind of port forwarding active, like UpNP.

It is indeed possible for instancing to work without port forwarding thanks to UPnP. That is actually the default situation for most Elite players. The issue with UPnP is that is quite unreliable, and hence all the issues and complaints we see. With port forwarding you minimize a lot of that issue.

Port forwarding is not a complete guarantee either since most of the networking infrastructure for multi player is away from our PCs or routers anyways, but it should improve the experience quite a bit.

 

[Ettanin]

I think you misunderstand. I wanted to do a test without any form of port forwarding, UPnP included (which is a form of port forwarding). So I would expect that this test would not lead to instancing. In the back of my brain I seem to recall Dav talking about such a case and what sound to me like some trickery using a special client-server structure for it. But since as you say, even UPnP isn't reliable, such a test doesn't make much sense then, IMO.

ED does have TURN servers. Those work similarly to VPNs (in that they mask the peer's IP address, not encryption) but span a relayed connection between you and the other peer. Not entirely certain though under which in-game conditions those would be used.

 

[CMDR Sophie Joanne]

Hi there, presume you have followed steps similar to these? https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/broadband-and-landline/routers-help/set-up-portforwarding.

edit: see if this may be related: https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Broad...er-Port-Forwarding-is-not-working/td-p/952009

I'm after a bit more help please, if possible?
It seems to be Windows blocking my port forwarding, not the router, as port-forwarding to my linux machine (and Raspberry Pi) works fine. Would you have any ideas as to what could be causing this? I'm usually pretty good at things like this, but this one has me stumped - a few pointers in the right direction would be a massive help (if you have any ideas, of course)!

 

[Viajero]

I'm after a bit more help please, if possible?
It seems to be Windows blocking my port forwarding, not the router, as port-forwarding to my linux machine (and Raspberry Pi) works fine. Would you have any ideas as to what could be causing this? I'm usually pretty good at things like this, but this one has me stumped - a few pointers in the right direction would be a massive help (if you have any ideas, of course)!

Not an expert either but we ll try! Did you check step 1 in the OP, make sure the executable files there are the right ones for your game installation.

Also, do you run a third party antivirus? Or just Windows Defender?

 

[CMDR Sophie Joanne]

Not an expert either but we ll try! Did you check step 1 in the OP, make sure the executable files there are the right ones for your game installation.

Also, do you run a third party antivirus? Or just Windows Defender?

Oh yeah, sorry, should have said just Windows Defender. I have deleted all the rules for Elite and re-added them, but still no change.
I also read something about switching Network Discovery off, tried that, but no difference. Even an SSH into my Windows machine won't connect... (but I can SSH from my Windows machine to another pc.... I'm confused
Thanks for being nice and helping, though! I really do appreciate it!

 

[Esteban]

I'm after a bit more help please, if possible?
It seems to be Windows blocking my port forwarding, not the router, as port-forwarding to my linux machine (and Raspberry Pi) works fine. Would you have any ideas as to what could be causing this? I'm usually pretty good at things like this, but this one has me stumped - a few pointers in the right direction would be a massive help (if you have any ideas, of course)!

That could be a useful tip, if you figure it out. Please let us know if that happens.

 

[CMDR Sophie Joanne]

That could be a useful tip, if you figure it out. Please let us know if that happens.

will do!

 

[Viajero]

Oh yeah, sorry, should have said just Windows Defender. I have deleted all the rules for Elite and re-added them, but still no change.
I also read something about switching Network Discovery off, tried that, but no difference. Even an SSH into my Windows machine won't connect... (but I can SSH from my Windows machine to another pc.... I'm confused
Thanks for being nice and helping, though! I really do appreciate it!

Something you can also do to confirm or rule out the firewall as an issue, is to deactivate it just temporarily, and test your port forwarding as mentioned in step 4 in the OP. It has a bit of risk for the short time you dont have it active but it can help you diagnose.

If the port forward test with the firewall deactivated is still negative then we can move to the next step. Did you ensure a static IP address at your gaming PC (see step 2 in the OP)?

If you get a good test with the firewall off then you know the issue is with the Defender exceptions.

PS: By the way, do you use a VPN?

 

[CMDR Sophie Joanne]

Something you can also do to confirm or rule out the firewall as an issue, is to deactivate it just temporarily, and test your port forwarding as mentioned in step 4 in the OP. It has a bit of risk for the short time you dont have it active but it can help you diagnose.

Just tried that, still no joy with it deactivated

If the port forward test with the firewall deactivated is still negative then we can move to the next step. Did you ensure a static IP address at your gaming PC (see step 2 in the OP)?

Both my pc and router are reporting a static IP for my pc

If you get a good test with the firewall off then you know the issue is with the Defender exceptions.

Unfortunately, still "port closed" I'm sure it must be a newtowrk setting I've ticked somewhere to make my PC 'invisible' to the network, I just haven't got a clue where, or why

PS: By the way, do you use a VPN?

I'm not going through a VPN, no, but someone else is (for work stuff) - It shouldn't affect it afaik...

 

[Viajero]

Unfortunately, still "port closed" I'm sure it must be a newtowrk setting I've ticked somewhere to make my PC 'invisible' to the network, I just haven't got a clue where, or why

You can still browse the internet correct?

This of any use?: https://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/hide-computer-from-network-windows-10/