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Posted: 14 Apr 2015, 05:49
jigebren
Yesterday I tried joining online session but couldn't get it working neither via RVHouse lobby nor via direct IP. I was sure though I had forwarded my ports exactly as recommended by RVHouse documentation, and I had also disabled my firewall network monitoring during the tests.

My ports forwarding setup was:
2301 TCP
47624 TCP
2300-2400 UDP
If I'm not mistaken this is exactly following RVHouse recommendations.

But today while trying in LAN at home I noticed in my firewall log than one computer was trying to reach 2300 TCP, and it occurred to me that this was not in the ports forwarding range (UDP would, but not TCP). That could explain why I couldn't get it working with remote players on Internet (while it works in LAN).

I checked Microsoft recommendation and noticed they mentioned both TCP Inbound 2300-2400 and UDP Inbound 2300-2400 (as well as TCP Connection 47624 Inbound of course). It means that range 2300-2400 has to be forwarded not only for UDP, but for TCP as well (and in that case the port 2300 TCP I noticed today is now properly included).

So today I updated my ports forwarding setup to:
2301 TCP <-- no longer needed
47624 TCP
2300-2400 UDP
2300-2400 TCP <-- new
and I could join (with mmudshark). B)

So the question is: are the RVHouse documentation wrong or outdated? (as it has to be noted it does not follow MS recommendations). Anyone has more info / knowledges about that topic?

Posted: 14 Apr 2015, 07:48
Abc
Yay!

Basically *all* port tables in the community are outdated/wrong, not 100% sure (RevoltRace, RVH, most)

Probably these recommendations are DX6 or simply wrong?

Posted: 14 Apr 2015, 08:32
Phantom
I ignore who exactly wrote the Router/Firewall Help in first place back in 2006 but it has always offered those incorrect ports for years and has never been updated. If you have access to edit it, please do. I doubt it would change anything though as it was written in such a way that it's not very clear or easy to comprehend.

New players usually get to play online only after they've found somebody with time and patience who is able to help them. Personal/Dedicated assistance has been more efficient than those help sites. PortForwarding requires technical knowledge that most children and teenagers do not possess and could not comprehend even by having the correct ports. Fortunately there has always been users who dedicate an afternoon to help/assist new players for free. This has always been like that.

From my experience in assisting new players, I've found it easier when I tell them to open 47624 and 2300-2400 in both TCP and UDP protocols. This way it doesn't get so complicated to understand even if 47624 UDP is not really needed. This is how I got hundreds of new players to join online racers in the last years. Also I must mention that sometimes the Port Forwarding is not enough if their Modem-Routers have an Internal Firewall and it's activated. In that case the open ports will start working only after the internal firewall is turned off. As I said, it always depends on each modem-router so everytime you do PortForwarding it's a different story but making it simple, the correct ports are 2300-2400 TCP+UDP and 47624 TCP plus Router's Internal Firewall off if the router has this feature.

Posted: 14 Apr 2015, 17:30
jigebren
Thanks for confirming the 2300-2400 TCP+UDP and 47624 TCP range (and the router internal firewall notice).

Well, the info are rather clear enough if you already know what port forwarding is about. But if they are misleading then it's actually worse than nothing, as even users who know what's they're doing will fail because of that...

I have no access to this website, I have sent an email to arto, hopefully he can take care of that.

Posted: 14 Apr 2015, 21:29
Abc
For Re-Volt Race, you need to contact Irck to fix help page btw.

some users have a mean isp, a temporal dmz helps too :)

Posted: 15 Apr 2015, 02:50
Kipy
Abc @ 14 Apr 2015, 04:59 PM wrote: For Re-Volt Race, you need to contact Irck to fix help page btw.
I'll contact to him if you guys want to, but everything depends on his free time.