Server unavailable on connect

[CapeTownAndy]

Hi,

I'm using the Linux client and I always get a "server unavailable or unreachable" error when I try to login.  The Laanx server is showing in the server list with a percentage number that bounces around (which I assume is some sort of ping).

After I have tried once I am unable to try again (which is slightly annoying) and have to quit and restart if I want to try.  Perhaps this could be improved to allow people to reconnect if their client disconnects?

Anyway, I'm connecting via a wireless router.  Do I need to enable some sort of port forwarding? 

Any help would be appreciated,
 Andy

[bilbous]

you need to enable port 7777, that is the port the game uses. If that doesn't help then maybe it is something else.

[Gilrond]

I had a similar weird issue, which resolved itself (no idea really what caused it). And when I tried to use other temporary account - it worked.

You can check if you can reach the destination UDP port as follows: nmap -sU ip -p 7777 62.173.168.9

[LigH]

Fighting the old myths again...

You don't have to open port 7777 on your own PC. The PlaneShift client will use a random UDP port on your side, but send and listen to packets from port 7777 of the game server. So there should be no need to configure your firewall, as long as it will listen on the same port which was opened for sending (which is usually the default).

It requires UDP packet support, though (in contrast to TCP as used for the web); I know some proxy technologies (like for satellite connections where there is no DSL available) which don't support UDP well.

[CapeTownAndy]

Hi,

Thanks for the responses. This is the output from nmap:


Starting Nmap 5.21 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2012-02-21 12:37 SAST
Nmap scan report for 9.168.173.62.host.static.ip.kpnqwest.it (62.173.168.9)
Host is up (0.12s latency).
PORT     STATE         SERVICE
7777/udp open|filtered unknown

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 1.56 seconds


I am using a wireless broadband (not 3G) modem connected to a broadband router.

What does the "filtered" state mean in the nmap output?  Could this be an issue?

[Gilrond]

At least it shows that nmap doesn't know for sure that the port is opened or filtered: http://nmap.org/book/man-port-scanning-basics.html
But no idea what exactly is causing packets dropping if there is some.

[RlyDontKnow]

The Laanx server is showing in the server list with a percentage number that bounces around (which I assume is some sort of ping).

the percentage number isn't a ping, it's a percentage of packets that made it through and shows it the rate of dropped packets is high instead of the ping

You don't have to open port 7777 on your own PC. The PlaneShift client will use a random UDP port on your side, but send and listen to packets from port 7777 of the game server. So there should be no need to configure your firewall, as long as it will listen on the same port which was opened for sending (which is usually the default).

the "no need to configure your firewall" isn't necessarily true.
it should be configured to allow a udp connection to the planeshift server on port 7777 that should be tracked statefully at least (note that not all firewalls support stateful tracking, but if you're using iptables or something similiar it shouldn't be an issue).

anyway, as some packets get through, your firewall doesn't seem to be an issue (in that case it should be all or none blocked), but some other kind of issue with the network connection.

as a simple test you could start by just pinging the server and see whether you get packet loss there as well.

another issue could be your local wireless setup (check connection is actually stable and working fine there).

finally there could also be numerous other issues that may be causing packet drops (e.g. bandwidth limits and according dropping strategies), but I don't have a generic "check this" for such things :x