There are a bunch of posts related to connection problems and the typical solution recommended is OS time synchronization and/or router time synchronization. I've never been able to have any degree of success with that fix, but there's no denying that it works in many cases given the positive feedback.

 

Anyway, I'm just opening this topic to have people sharing specific circumstances or details where the problem occurs that may be useful for the development team in troubleshooting this problem or at least narrow it.

 

1. I can connect to most servers, but...

2. There are some servers that I can never connect to, getting "Unable to connect to host" consistently;

3. Those servers which I can't connect to can be connected to by other players;

 

There is one thing that can be assumed from my experience with those servers (as related above):

It's not a problem restricted to any of the endpoints (me or the server).

 

In the next few days I may try to use a different router to test particular servers to which I can't connect with the current one. At best I may also try different OSes (have Win7 x64 Ultimate now).

Welcome to the world on "meo" Thomson TG series routers?

Your connection says so...

Welcome to the world on "meo" Thomson TG series routers?

Your connection says so...

Spot on

Yeah, TG784 and also TG784n to be precise. I've known about the poor NAT functionality on these shitty routers for some time, but as I stated this isn't a problem that can be attributed to any particular endpoint.

 

There are players that can connect to these servers but I never could.

It's not the typical "Connecting..." issue where it hangs there waiting for a handshake between endpoints, in this particular case I get the "Unable to connect to host" error about 5-10 seconds into the connection process.

 

One time I asked a close friend of mine (who owns a different router) to try to connect to the same server at the same time as me and he could connect while I still didn't, and I kept trying a few more times afterwards. I can't deny that the issue can partially be server-sided (machine/router) but at the same time the fact that others can connect while I can't also indicate that the problem is somewhat shared by endpoints. This has never happened to me in Tekno's but to be fair I can't say for sure that IW5M code or master server could be at fault. I'm just trying to share this in a way that could narrow down something in the framework in a useful fashion.

It's a packet loss issue. And packets get lost while getting retained on the router's firewall.

A friend of mine who also has that router also has that problem. And he had it at tekno also, so it isn't a problem with the game client.

He started having that problem at tekno but when IW5M was released, he could play. A few time later he couldn't play on IW5M either anymore. There are rare ocasions when he can play (he gets bored and won't try that often though). He once brought his computer to my place to test it, and it played flawlessly.

 

meo router's block your traffic and zon routers don't allow you to reserve IPs on the DHCP server (yeah, you can manually set an IP on your computer)

But it's a fact that router manufacturers make a good business here in Portugal. First they sell the cheap crap to the ISPs, then they sell us the decent routers for us to be able to use the internet decently

Well, I will still dig out if these routers have some logging of any kind and try to get to the bottom of it.

And yes, the ISPs mostly give us shit.

 

The only thing bothering me is that this is a consistent issue with specific servers,

It's not like I can't connect to servers, my sampling may be small but I always get connection to 98% of the servers I tried to connect to. If not, I would have to assume that some routers don't play well together (archenemies?), which I'm having a hard time swallowing. Anyhow, I am not ignoring the validity of the point you made.

Using a Thomson TG585 v7 here. I have a lot of issues with 4D1, already disabled firewall, i forwarded ports, did the time synch and still no success on these connection errors. aRev and Tekno works good tho.

Using a Thomson TG585 v7 here. I have a lot of issues with 4D1, already disabled firewall, i forwarded ports, did the time synch and still no success on these connection errors. aRev and Tekno works good tho.

Thanks for sharing that. It gives a bit of momentum to the point I was trying to make.

Nevertheless the Thomson TG routers are a huge piece of crap. You'll find tons of players with XBox and PS3 that always get NAT strict despite all port forwarding being correctly configured. Even the ISP technicians can't get them to work properly...

Using a Thomson TG585 v7 here. I have a lot of issues with 4D1, already disabled firewall, i forwarded ports, did the time synch and still no success on these connection errors. aRev and Tekno works good tho.

Thanks for sharing that. It gives a bit of momentum to the point I was trying to make.

Nevertheless the Thomson TG routers are a huge piece of crap. You'll find tons of players with XBox and PS3 that always get NAT strict despite all port forwarding being correctly configured. Even the ISP technicians can't get them to work properly...

 

I forwarded the ports for MW2 and it shows NAT: Open, but with MW3 is always Strict :\

but with IW5 is always Strict :\

Well, port forward them for IW5, UDP: 27000-27015, 27015-27030 and TCP: 27014-27050.

but with IW5 is always Strict :\

Well, port forward them for IW5, UDP: 27000-27015, 27015-27030 and TCP: 27014-27050.

Sorry for being redundant but, as I said before, even when properly forwarded these routers will always leave you hanging. And the ports you pointed out are in the range of the generic M.W.3 ports that most people are used to set. Also, as I pointed out, ISP technicians also have the ability to remotely add those rules themselves, even then, when they fear the user may be ignorant, they are not capable of making it work themselves. Sadly, the ISPs won't exchange the equipment for 2 particular reasons:

1. They have millions of those things in storage;

2. They argue that the equipment performs the basic and essential functions needed for the service you contracted;

 

Either way, I'm sticking to the point that the problem is not strictly a consequence of the client's equipment.

Thanks for your input anyway.

Hello ner0,

 

I'm not sure for this will fix your all connection problems but i'm pretty sure your connection will be better after you use this tool. I started to use this three - four years ago. (I don't remember exactly.) I suggested this tool more than... (I don't remember exactly, again.) But i can say a lot of people and no one regret. You can save your current settings for any case. You can use optimal settings or you can change settings manually. You can check your settings with this page: http://www.speedguide.net/analyzer.php

 

But before use, please read this pages. You will learn all you need.

TCP Optimizer Help: http://www.speedguide.net/tcpoptimizer.php

TCP Optimizer FAQ: http://www.speedguide.net/faq_in.php?category=100

 

TCP Optimizer Download: http://www.speedguide.net/files/TCPOptimizer.exe (644 Kb.)

Don't forget: Run as Administrator and restart your computer after used.

 

I wish it will be helpful for you too. Good bye...