MP: NAT Negotiation Failure (With a twist)

[YourStepDad]

Okay so I have bought Medieval II a year ago or so, haven't been much interested in MP until now so I didn't not even bother trying it. But yesterday I have watched a couple of videos of it and was absolutely euphoric about trying it out.

So here's the deal. I join the lobby with no problems thinking - all good. However when I try to join a game it says "NAT negotiation Failure"

So I have tried the mandatory - restarting the game, restarting the pc, restarting my router, disabling antivirus, checking/fiddling around with firewall settings - nada.

When that failed I googled the problem and it seems to be fairly common among people, however temporary or fixable for most. The thing that was mentioned in several responses was disabling hamachi.

As I regularly play Myth and Red Alert over hamachi, it is turned on by default everytime I start up my PC. Despite that I rushed to uninstall it with great hope.

Now here's the problem. When I did that, I was unable to join the servers at all. It says "unable to log in" or something like that, both for LAN and for gamespy online.

I have then reinstalled hamachi and realized that it allowed me to enter lan and the gamespy lobby again, but of course, I was still unable to join a game.

It is funny because the culprit is somehow the only thing enabling me to play. I mean WTF?

I am dying to play this so any help would be immensely appreciated, since I really don't know what to do right now.

Thanks in advance

[irishron]

To use Gamespy, Hamachi has to be uninstalled.

Fr everything else chek your permissions through your antivirus, fireall, and/or router, and check which ports to forward.

[YourStepDad]

Thanks for the info and the advice.

As I said, I have checked the firewall and the antivirus, as well as the router. I do not have any experience with port forwarding though, what should I do?

And one more thing, firewall related. Private networks are allowed, while public ones are blocked(This is normal and has worked with every game so far) Could enabling public networks be of any effect?

[irishron]

These questions I don't have answers. I don't play MP for personal reasons. Possibly someone who does can chime in here and help.

Edit: Have you read this? http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=280522

[YourStepDad]

Yes I have, and now I have posted a message there.

I am really torn here. :/

[YourStepDad]

Bump.

[YourStepDad]

Bump.

[PoleCat]

Alright. As this thread hasn't been answered by our more technically adept users I'll give it a shot. I'll warn you in advance that I know what you're talking about only in theory but it looks like this is the best chance you're going to get on this old forum.

First off let's look at Hamachi. As the advice seems to be to remove Hamachi it is odd that Hamachi is the only program that is allowing you to view the lobby. Could you give me a screengrab of an Options screen? I'm primarily looking for network settings - I think your install of Hamachi might be interfering with the normal settings on your router.

Next - what router/modem do you have? Is it a combo provided by your ISP? If so please give us a brand. Hopefully this leads to something more.

Lastly - it looks like the Gamespy UDP port is 27500. Now this is not my usual but I'll try to help you forward that port. But again I'll need to know what you're using to connect to the Internet.

In any case good luck! Hopefully someone will come along and give us both a reprieve....

[YourStepDad]

Here are the preferences. I hope this is what you are looking for:



And yes, my router is from my internet provider. The model is thomson tg782i.

Thanks again

[PoleCat]

I'll give the benefit of the doubt here. Please uninstall any instances of Demonoid.me on that system and try joining the lobby again. Let us know if this resolves the problem.

If you could tell us where you bought the game from it might help us to figure out if it's a disc issue or a download issue regarding DRM. Good luck!

[YourStepDad]

Rest assured, it is an original copy, and I have an original CD key. If there is a way for some higher site authority(mod, admin) to confirm it, I'll gladly give them the CD key to test it out. After all, I don't have much use of it now. :/

The shop I bought the game from is Algoritam(Might be Sophos Lab, not sure) Zagreb, Croatia, roughly a year ago.

[irishron]

Not necessary. I'll take your word for it.

Have you checked your permissions through your antivirus, firewall and router? Some free antiviruses are notorious for throwing false positives for no reason.

It's a fact as old as Rome being released with MP that Gamespy and Hamachi are not compatible.

[YourStepDad]

Yep, checked my firewall already and shut down the antivirus. Same results.

[irishron]

Can Croatia get through to Gamespy or does the governemt have it blocked?

[PoleCat]

Since he can see the lobby with Hamachi installed I'd say it's safe to say it's not blocked on the ISP end. It must be something local then.

Looking at that modem/router you use it seems to port forward using computer names instead of IP addresses. That may be the source of your problem. Could you look in your [medieval2.preferences.cfg] under the [Network] header and tell me what follows the line "use_ip="?

[irishron]

This is an anomaly that I cannot explain.

Your link may prove very useful for him.

[YourStepDad]

Well I'll be damned. It works now. Let's just hope it stays that way.

It was my old IP that I entered to play with my friend via hamachi, but that happened only after I concluded there was no other way for me to play. I remember the line being blank in the first place. So after deleting the IP address that was there and leaving the line blank, I can join game rooms now and play!

So it's fixed for now, and I can play online. You have no idea how happy and thankful I am, just hoping this is a permanent solution.


Thanks again, you guys rock

[irishron]

You're welcome and hoping it holds for you.