Need Networking Help

[BlackArrow]

The problem I am having is that I have two PC's playing BF Bad Company 2 at the same time. Most of the time both can play with no problem...but frequently when one joins the other loses the server connection to Cain's Lair server but not to EA. Upon reconnecting the other connection drops....

Error Message says "Connection to the server has been lost"

Any clue why this would happen? Obviously each game has it's own license and key so that is not the issue....

I have Comcast Xfinity supposedly with lot's of bandwidth, Linksys new E3000 router and both PC's are Win 7 64 with gigabyte Ethernet...

Help

[mapes]

Hmmm weird. I know BC2 works flawlessly behind a natting router. About a month ago a buddy of mine came over and we played for hours. my setup is like

private192net-----<routerwithstaticIP>------internet

I have a static IP on the outside and a private net on the inside. All traffic looks like it's coming from the static external router IP. My ISP is Comcast Business. I'm using some type of SMC cable modem.


If I were to take a guess I would point the blame at your router or cable modem. When you NAT (network address translation) your router takes the packet (it's listed as the default router on your system) and builds a table. That says sending IP/port destination IP/port. It then rewrites the packet to make it look like it came from itself and sends it. When it receives a packet from the outside it does a table lookup. Again rewrites it and sends it to your PC. My guess is that theres a bug in the router natting code. It either reuses the same port somewhere or it writes the table wrong.

[mapes]

A quick google shows I'm right. It looks like you can configure the nat port range for computer on your net and that might solve your problem

[Wireless] Linksys E3000 - Open NAT for two Xboxes - dslreports.com

Look for newer firmware

[DougBob]

I use to have problem like this on old games and changing the client side port would resolve it.

You said it usually doesn't present a problem. Why would it start causing a problem now, has anything changed in your configuration, a setting on the router been tweaked, etc. ?

[{CLR}geneSW]

I've had this problem on several games. There is a way to change the port that one of the computers uses for that specific game but I don't recall exactly how off the top of my head.

[MRDEATH[GoD]Gen]

I have comcast too,latley been having some connection issues too.Then I started looking at my moden....My moden is about five years old or so....Ive been reading,it maybe time to upgrade it to a DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem .I have one coming,we'll see what happens when it gets here.

[Apache Warrior]

I have AT&T DSL. A couple of years ago, I started having trouble with my connection. AT&T sent me a new and better modem free. It has a built in wired and wireless router.
Apache

[BlackArrow]

I found a fix on EA's forums...

"Okay we figured it out. No need to screw with your router. Here's the fix:

On both your steam clients:
1. Go to Steam's My games menu
2. Right-click on the BFBC2 and select Properties
3. From the General tab, click the Set launch options button
4. Add a different client port number on each machine between 27005 and 27032 in the following format:
+clientport 270XX
(Do not use 27020). I used 27013 and he used 27018.
5. Click OK

That solved our problems...for the moment

[ch33s3r]

That must have been irritating... glad you found a fix!

[{CLR}geneSW]

I found a fix on EA's forums...

"Okay we figured it out. No need to screw with your router. Here's the fix:

On both your steam clients:
1. Go to Steam's My games menu
2. Right-click on the BFBC2 and select Properties
3. From the General tab, click the Set launch options button
4. Add a different client port number on each machine between 27005 and 27032 in the following format:
+clientport 270XX
(Do not use 27020). I used 27013 and he used 27018.
5. Click OK

That solved our problems...for the moment

That should fix it until you have to re-install the game for some reason.

[DougBob]

I found a fix on EA's forums...

"Okay we figured it out. No need to screw with your router. Here's the fix:

On both your steam clients:
1. Go to Steam's My games menu
2. Right-click on the BFBC2 and select Properties
3. From the General tab, click the Set launch options button
4. Add a different client port number on each machine between 27005 and 27032 in the following format:
+clientport 270XX
(Do not use 27020). I used 27013 and he used 27018.
5. Click OK

That solved our problems...for the moment

Yep that's the setting. Kinda kewl it's thru steam now and it's only for you local network, so any of us could use the same port number as long as we weren't off the same router in the same subnet.

[mapes]

I'm glad theres an easy fix. However this is because of a defect in your router. I'd be pissed at my router manufacturer. I understand bugs happen but, Damn NAT is not rocket science it's been around for ever I'd be thinking WTF else did they not test

[BlackArrow]

really....Cisco of all people...how can they get that wrong?

[mapes]

really....Cisco of all people...how can they get that wrong?

cough cough (Linksys) owned by cisco cough cough not cisco

[{CLR}geneSW]

I've always understood it that this shouldn't be the NAT's fault but rather the games' network software engineers. If the NAT was at fault, wouldn't it be causing this with almost all games that he plays when 2 computers in his house are playing the same game on the same server?