I am not sure if this is the right place to post this but I am stuck and need help:
I recently got an internet connection through a provider that gives me internet over a WiFi network. They use Mikrotik routers to do so. They also use 2 different ADSL lines at the main office to provide this internet. They use a load balancing scheme that switches between these 2 lines. This results in my online game randomly disconnecting me. The game I play is called City of Heroes and the official website and others say that it needs ports 6994, 2104, 2106 (TCP) and 7000-7100 (UDP) open.
I asked my provider to open these ports for me onto one line only so that I do not get disconnected. They did this but instead the ports were blocked. They then tried forwarding the ports to a static IP which only uses one of the lines and again, the same thing happened, the ports were inaccessible by my game and port testing application.
I dont know if you can help me but what should they do? Is there any advice or tips you can give on how they can set this up so that I can play?
Port forwarding isn’t going to help in this situation. Port forwarding only opens the port if it needs to be-99% of games do not need them open to work.
Really, I don’t think that this is the problem. When you start the game and connect to a server it creates a connection, And uses this connection. It doesn’t open or close any other connections. This connection will stay open as long as you are playing online or untill you close the game. With the load balancing once the connection is established it is open and does not switch after that, So while playing you are only talking over one of there DSL lines and it does not switch mid connection, If you were to disconnect from the server and connect again, It could switch you to a different line, but never mid connection.
You are seeing a connection failure. Something from you to your ISP is failing.
Thanks for the reply! Just to add some more information:
One of the lines is a fibre line and the other is a sattellite line, the fibre has a much better ping and less packet loss while the sat line has a higher ping and a lot of packet loss.
In the game I can actually see the 2 lines switching, the ping will go from a steady stream of low ping to a steady stream of high ping and back again through time. The time it is on the high ping or low ping is never a constant, it could be 10 minutes, it could be 5. The game uses 3 TCP ports as well and I have noticed that when I “zone” from one instance in the game to another, that the ping also switches. I assume it is because the game uses different ports when you “zone”. It seems as if the load balancing forces a line switch when another port is opened.
The problem comes that the game will disconnect when the switch happens or close to after it, but, not ALL the time. That is the frustrating thing.
Sounds like you are in south afrika. Telkom lines, ish. Any how, what they should do is first in torch go and look at which ports and ip you use to access the game. Then in mangle rules go and set up a rule to mark each of these ports and usual just one ip, with a routing mark. After that go in the ip/routes and set up a routing rule that route the routing mark through the fiber line. Works perfect. They can do the same for the secure traffic like bank. Usual also have a problem if connecting from two different ip’s
Mmmm, got news from my provider that this is exactly what they try and do, the problem is that when they enable this I cant log in, the log in server tells me the port is blocked.
Here is their reply, hopefully someone can help me:
“Does your game try and access your computer directly? I’m asking, because
we do not limit any outgoing traffic, so we do not have to route anything
leaving our system. But, if the game tries to access your computer, like
every 10 minutes, it is this port which needs to be known. Also, we will
route this port in a particular ip, which is different from the general one
we all share on our system. Unless you can tell your game this particular
ip and port, I can’t see how you can make it work on our system”
U sure it is not your fire wall on computer? There is some sites that wants to verify the ip you are logging in from, usually chat sites. They do not work behind nat, for exactly the reasons your provider stated. We do all the steam games and War Craft without any problems, except for the Telkom pings every few days.
Telkom lines, ish. Any how, what they should do is first in torch go and look at which ports and ip you use to access the game. Then in mangle rules go and set up a rule to mark each of these ports and usual just one ip, with a routing mark. After that go in the ip/routes and set up a routing rule that route the routing mark through the fiber line. Works perfect. They can do the same for the secure traffic like bank. Usual also have a problem if connecting from two different ip’s