The Port Forwarding thread: Minimizing multiplayer connection issues

[Northpin]

Hopefully you had the game running while you tested to see if the port was properly forwarded/
Also check the ingame network settings and make sure your ED install is set to use ports in the range you setup

Not at last, although this might be only semantics - you dont open the ports on the router - you forward those ports to the internal ip address of your gaming system (which preferably should use a static ip address or have a dhcp reservation) which should also have those ports open in the windows firewall (or whatever other firewall you may use - some current generation antiviruses are using their own firewall and/or network inspection features)

 

[Jackz]

Hopefully you had the game running while you tested to see if the port was properly forwarded/
Also check the ingame network settings and make sure your ED install is set to use ports in the range you setup

Not at last, although this might be only semantics - you dont open the ports on the router - you forward those ports to the internal ip address of your gaming system (which preferably should use a static ip address or have a dhcp reservation) which should also have those ports open in the windows firewall (or whatever other firewall you may use - some current generation antiviruses are using their own firewall and/or network inspection features)

Yes i did all of that, i jumped on open play then exited and checked the network menu again (don't know if playing a while changes anything). Also yes, i opened the ports on the machine ip (not the whole router). And i also put windows firewall rules, but i also tried with the firewall off.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Question: Can anyone confirm the ED network settings to be working right now? I have the sneaking suspicion something might be broken. I tried to check/replicate @Jackz's issue (I noticed a bit more instancing and connection stability issues lately than in the past, where my PF setup was working brilliantly), here is what I did and what I found:

The setup, as it should be:

• I have defnder rule to allow incoming traffic to EliteDangerous64.exe on all ports with all protocols - so very broad
• I set ED to accept connections on port 5100, IPV6 is off, IPV4 is on
• ED shows my router as port restricted, which is correct - UPnP doesn't work correctly for me. It shows correct local and remote addresses
• My router forwards UDP and TCP from port 5100 on the WAN interface to port 5100 to my Desktop machine. PF on my router works reliably, I have a working linux server here in my study.

Now, I launched the game and logged into open, and on a remote linux machine, I tried to poke the ports on my desktop with netcat on the local IP - so this is without the additional layer of port forwarding. With Windows defender enabled, netcat times out. With Windows Defender disabled, the connection is refused.

I tried the same on my remote IP with the same result; now I realize this might be at the mercy of the loopback capabilities of my router, but it works for every other service I have listening on my network, just not ED.

I had netcat do a quick scan on the ports of my desktop machine with both Defender on an off, none of the ports in the 5100/5200 range are open when ED is running. Switching off Windows Defender definitely exposes the ports to the network, so this seems to work, too, and I also could not find any stray rules that might prohibit ED to connect. And that should not matter when I turn off Windows Defender. It does not with other applications (I did a quick check with the remote control port of Kodi).

There is always the possibility I missed something, but I think something is off.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Oh, I also enabled a netlog, whenever any of my IP adresses are mentioned in the netlog, it prints the correct ports. But from the outside of my Desktop machine, I can't even knock on those ports.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Oh, I also enabled a netlog, whenever any of my IP adresses are mentioned in the netlog, it prints the correct ports. But from the outside of my Desktop machine, I can't even knock on those ports.

How are you "knocking"? ED uses UDP so things like timeout errors shouldn't be possible (since there's no confirmation for received packets, only ICMP errors when the destination is unreachable). You need to run a sniffer like wireshark on the machine running the game to know what's going on.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

I am running netcat on a remote linux machine. Pretty much the same thing those port checker services do, but not over the internet, and I am taking port forwarding out of the equation.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Well this is frustrating to debug. Today, after booting my desktop, everything I did in my post above to check the connectivity works. I don't know what is different, but I can successfully connect to the port opened by Elite both on the local IP and the remote/WAN IP of the router. Only thing that still does not work are those port scan utilities on the interwebs, they report my set port as closed. Maybe those only check TCP and not UDP. Anyway, probing both my local and remote IP with netcat -zvu, I get

Connection to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 5100 port [udp/*] succeeded!

which I did not yesterday.

I hate windows.

 

[Kanonenkurt]

I have never bothered with port forwarding, but the connectivity issues in Elite and other games were instantly resolved by asking my internet provider to upgrade my connection from "DSlite" to "dual stack". The former seems to be the default and means sharing your public IPv4 with other customers while the latter will get you assigned an exclusive IPv4 address (in addition to the IPv6 one you always get). Depending on the service provider this may or may not be an option for anyone facing connectivity issues - unless an actual port forwarding is a hard requirement which it isn´t for Elite.

 

[Makroshlyta]

Oh, wait... we have diff ports for Steam client?

Got this on portforward.com...

 

[Northpin]

Oh, wait... we have diff ports for Steam client?
View attachment 384067
Got this on portforward.com...

Elite Dangerousr PS and XBox makes sense since they use the respective PS/XBox P2P networks which do use different ports.
For Steam - that's bullcrap - the Elite client on PC is using the same ports no matter if it's purchased on Frontier Store or Epic or Steam and you can find/customize the ports in the settings.

 

[Ettanin]

Oh, wait... we have diff ports for Steam client?
View attachment 384067
Got this on portforward.com...

ED on Steam does NOT use Steam Datagram Relay. The ports listed there are wrong.

 

[Makroshlyta]

OK... I give up. I always assumed to have a nice understanding about network and configs.
I asked to my ISP to disable CGNAT, and they done that without any drama... still got all ports closed, even port 80. But now everything works. Not a single glitch on almost a week, using IPV4. Nothing makes sense but works and I will not touch on anything now on!
Connection powered by Grayskull powers!

 

[styles784]

OK... I give up. I always assumed to have a nice understanding about network and configs.
I asked to my ISP to disable CGNAT, and they done that without any drama... still got all ports closed, even port 80. But now everything works. Not a single glitch on almost a week, using IPV4. Nothing makes sense but works and I will not touch on anything now on!
Connection powered by Grayskull powers!

This is because of what port forwarding actually does and does not do, which is frequently misunderstood (you're not alone by a long shot).

Port forwarding simply tells the router to accept unexpected incoming connections and forward them to a specific device within the LAN - this allows a server inside your private network to be reached from outside of your private network. Normally, connections from the outside are dropped in order to keep your private network secure.

 

[Morbad]

Oh, wait... we have diff ports for Steam client?
View attachment 384067
Got this on portforward.com...

5100 is the magic number for P2P client connections. Opening a few sequential ones beyond that is wise if multiple clients are connecting with the same WAN.

 

[ArkHive]

I did all the process of port forwarding and checked the port (it was all good) and I still just got a mauve adder connection error

I never got this error code before upgrading to odyssey two weeks ago (and I played horizon for a month before that without any errors)

 

[Wisho]

Hello all,

Does anybody know, is there any hope that some day we can configure a really custom port on the PC client side ? Has the suggestion ever been made to FDev, how was it heard/understood/answered ?
Current concern : my (major French) ISP splits each public IP into 4 port ranges (0-16383, 16384-32767, 32768-49151, 49152-65535) randomly assigned to 4 different subscribers. I was granted range #2 so MyIP:5100 points to someone else's endpoint and that makes me desperately sooooo loooonely even in Open mode... Mind ya, I shall not fear being ganked even with a shieldless Cutterload of LTDs. But I'd rather take my chances and... sometimes... see dead people... o7 anyone...

Although network-tech-famliar I've never found any workaround to this, and for the sake of already-DSL-poor ping, I'd rather not use a VPN.
Thanks folks !

 

[Ettanin]

Hello all,

Does anybody know, is there any hope that some day we can configure a really custom port on the PC client side ? Has the suggestion ever been made to FDev, how was it heard/understood/answered ?
Current concern : my (major French) ISP splits each public IP into 4 port ranges (0-16383, 16384-32767, 32768-49151, 49152-65535) randomly assigned to 4 different subscribers. I was granted range #2 so MyIP:5100 points to someone else's endpoint and that makes me desperately sooooo loooonely even in Open mode... Mind ya, I shall not fear being ganked even with a shieldless Cutterload of LTDs. But I'd rather take my chances and... sometimes... see dead people... o7 anyone...

Although network-tech-famliar I've never found any workaround to this, and for the sake of already-DSL-poor ping, I'd rather not use a VPN.
Thanks folks !

This is even worse than CGNAT because it will affect outgoing connections as well (confusing STUN about sporadic port reachability). Try getting IPv6 connectivity instead.

 

[Wisho]

I almost replied "done that already", but your tip (thanks) got me into more thorough testing first, to detail what works and not and when. Starting with IPv4 :
Went to Shindez, met the usual ganker, escaped with raw speed. Check
Dropped at Jameson, saw all the pads clogged with sleeping CMDRs, scanned 'em all. Check
Several connections logged in the Network preferences tab, consistent with what I just did. Check
Went fliying around in a supposed AX hotspot (Thargoid controlled system with reactivated port), nobody in sight after 10+ alien interdictions. Well... Check
Dropped at said reactivated port... ~10 CMDRs present ! Good news, everything works fine, I had given up so long ago having anybody to help me with that Hydra

So I'll just put that on the list of things that started to work again the very moment I tried to seriously diagnose them. So much for understanding, maybe it got somehow fixed recently, ... everything working as intented now and that's what matters

Nonetheless it would be a decent feature to let users set their custom ports. What software does not do this in 2024 ?...

 

[Dormant account - pls delete]

Hello all,

Does anybody know, is there any hope that some day we can configure a really custom port on the PC client side ? Has the suggestion ever been made to FDev, how was it heard/understood/answered ?

I don't think FDev are in a position to support niche needs like that ...

Current concern : my (major French) ISP splits each public IP into 4 port ranges (0-16383, 16384-32767, 32768-49151, 49152-65535) randomly assigned to 4 different subscribers. I was granted range #2 so MyIP:5100 points to someone else's endpoint and that makes me desperately sooooo loooonely even in Open mode...

...especially when it's to mitigate a problem caused by an ISP who sound like they should lose their licence. Given the potential for accidentally mixing connections, and the privacy and integrity implications of that, your ISP is very likely in breach of GDPR, which expects ISPs to have at least a small clue what they are doing. Complain.

(Also, doesn't France have unbundling? Keep the copper, get a different ISP to present over it.)

Although network-tech-famliar I've never found any workaround to this, and for the sake of already-DSL-poor ping, I'd rather not use a VPN.
Thanks folks !

I used a VPN over an ADSL2+ line for a while and ED was fine with it. It literally doesn't get slower than ADSL2+ !

 

[Wisho]

In every serious network-aware software there is a box to type in your custom port#, and I was just wondering why E: D was stuck to a short definite list of 51xx/5200 ports and if it'd be hard work to replace that with said box. Seems peanuts to me in C# or Java, no idea in Cobra. Anyway, case closed, because...

I spend half the war finding open and AXI PG instances filled with mates, and one day suddenly empty space, hours long shooting flowers on my own. No change on my [user] side, only then I read and found about that IPv4 sharing mechanism. In the following weeks I slowly gave up "empty" Open/PG modes and kept flying in Solo mode. Only last week did I try every v4/v6/mode combination again after Ettanin's suggestion - only to find out that... everything's working fine. So whatever broke long ago... fixed itself in the meantime. Far God knows

Yes France does have unbundling, unfortunately we have "only" 4 copper+fiber main ISPs : the historic one, two others with sub-zero service and quality and intrusive forced sales practices, and... mine which I rate an overall A- . All others are those 4's brokers.
In fact they implemented that port range distribution intently to... protect their customers against P2P law enforcement - France has a state service dedicated to that, yes. Hadopi's the name. ISPs can be legally requested to surrender an IP owner's name in case of blatant copyright infringement, but the law writers forgot to include the protocol/port used. So here request are answered with a smile and a list of 4 names... not mentioning which one is to be charged. Case dropped.
It seems they offer to (one-way) revert to the "full range" connection, but aside from losing this ⬆, all I read about it is serious performance issues. So I'll stick to my 4-seater IP at least until things break again