Unable to Host (fixed)

[enakai]

Solution: Reducing the MTU to 1200 and using hamachi solved the following problem.

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Okay, pretty straightforward problem, I have a better computer, so my friend and I have decided that I should start hosting the games instead of him.

Here's what I've tried

Port forwarded my router the same way I have other games & programs (COD MW2&3/Black Ops, MagicJack software etc..)

I've disabled windows firewall and made sure that AI War has inbound rules allowing it

No other antivirus/firewall programs on my computer.

I've launched Steam and AI War as an admin

Tried different ports.

Connected my computer straight to my modem.

Not really sure what could be causing the problem. Looking for suggestions/ideas on what else might be preventing my friend from connecting to me. Whenever he tries to connect it freezes/doesn't transfer the game information.

[Hearteater]

Does he have Windows Firewall Enabled?  I had an issue like this when I started up my helper game about a week ago with a new player.  I can't definitively say it was a WFW issue on the other player's end, but we switched to him hosting and it worked.  Then the next day I hosted instead and he connected without problems.

[enakai]

I will check this possibility out.

Completely counter intuitive but I wouldn't be surprised.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I can't think of anything except some kind of issue on his end not liking the packets coming back from you, though that would be pretty strange.

[enakai]

Well I've tried with a few other people at this point and no one is able to connect to me when I've started hosting a new campaign.

So it's either something very obscure, or something painfully obvious.

Jury's still out and still looking for suggestions/ideas.

Thanks in advance and thanks to you two so far for the ideas.

[x4000]

So your friend is able to get to the point of actually transferring data, but then it just doesn't transfer the data?

In that case, your firewall is fine -- it's made a connection, it's just dying after that.  Possible issues:

1. One of you might have a network driver that is out of date, and which is dying under the transmission load.  In that sort of case, if making sure the NIC drivers are up to date doesn't help, you can also use a different Max Network Message Transmission Type (I think that's the wording) in AI War.  That can prevent the game from flooding your NIC too fast and causing a bugged NIC driver to fail delivery.

2. It's also possible that your MTU is too high for your ISP or router (well, probably not router if you connected to the modem already and that didn't fix it).  I think the default MTU is 1400, but downing that to 1200 or 1000 to see what happens could solve it.  If not, definitely go back to the default.

My guess would be on #1 if you're actually establishing the connection.  Only if the connection isn't actually being made at all, and it never gets to the point of transferring any data at all, is it a firewall thing.

Hope that helps!

[HellishFiend]

I havent done any serious IT work in years, but Chris' suggestions seem spot on. Of course, rather than delving into drivers and specialized settings and whatnot, most end users will just use Hamachi or something of the sort. TCP/IP is a wonderful thing (most of the time), but it can be fickle given all the different types of hardware and software that run it, so sometimes it is better easier just to use a virtual network like Hamachi if you run into problems.

[enakai]

I just wanted to say thanks, reducing the MTU has helped hand in hand with using hamachi.

I've updated the first post in case anyone else runs into this issue in the future.

[x4000]

Glad that did it!