Hi Michael,
I agree that the Media Sense should not have any effect on the
issue, while at the same time I wouldn't risk breaking that setup
after all the effort that was put into it. Thanks for posting this!
--
Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
Jimmy S.
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
Visit my MSN Zone.com and Gaming Help Site:
http://mvps.org/nibblesnbits
MS Games Help and Support Center:
http://support.microsoft.com/?pr=gms
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________
|I had obtained the latest firmware from Linksys before making this post. That
| did not solve the problem by itself. I did finally get hosting working
| properly. I will post here what I posted to the GPG site in the hope that it
| will be useful to someone. At one point I disabled Media Sense. That did
| solve the 4201 problem, however I doubt that is still necesary after
| configuring static IP addresses. But It's working and I didn't want to chance
| breaking it after all the trouble I had.
|
| ===================================================
|
| After making the following changes I am able to host successfully behind my
| router:
|
| 1) Disabled all port forwarding information on the router
| 2) Disabled Media Sense (used only as a last resort)
| 3) Configured static IP addresses
|
| Adding some technical info and a complete set of steps for those interested.
|
| Believe them when they say that UpNP is required to host Dungeon Siege
| games. With UpNP, port forwarding should not be set up on the router. The
| port information listed at Gamespy, GPG site, and the Microsoft Knowledge
| Base is for Firewall settings. Unfortunately, all three sites list different
| information. I excluded the ports from all three sets of information using my
| eTrust firewall and players were still unable to join my games. I am
| currently using the built-in Windows XP firewall.
|
| Using the XP firewall that comes with Windows XP creates its own problems
| behind a router. The problem is with Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). If
| you have DHCP set up for your router, and are using ICS, you have two
| entities on your network attempting to use Network Address Translation (NAT.)
| In other words, you have two different things assigning IP addresses to the
| computers behind the router. This is obviously problematic. To make matter
| worse, Microsoft bundled Windows Firewall and (ICS) together in XP Service
| Pack 2 with no way to turn off ICS. It is my suspicion that this issue is
| responsible for many of the problems people are having hosting games.
|
| Are you using ICS? Probably not. There are two cases when ICS is useful. 1)
| You have the following network configuration: One computer is configured as
| the ICS host. This computer can be identified as the one that has two network
| adapters. One adapter is connected to your Internet connection or router, the
| other adapter is connected to another computer. If you have this setup + a
| router you probably want to stop here and rethink your configuration. You are
| adding an additional layer of unnecessary complexity. 2) If your computer is
| connected directly to the internet, ICS provides NAT as an additional
| security feature. This is basically the same way in which a router protects
| you. The short answer is that if you have a router it is highly unlikely that
| you need/want ICS.
|
| If you have Windows XP without Service Pack 2, you can turn off ICS in the
| properties dialog for your network connection. If you are using the Service
| Pack 2 firewall, the best solution I am aware of is to configure static ip
| addresses for your computers. (Static IP addresses make sense behind a router
| anyway - that way your computer's ip address never changes.)
|
| Here is my best effort at all the steps for a hosting setup with a router
| and XP firewall:
|
| 1. Make sure that 'UpNP User Interface' and 'Internet Gateway Device
| Discovery and Control' network services are installed in your Windows XP
| setup.
| 2. Make sure that the UpNP and Internet Gateway Device Discovery and Control
| services are started on the system. Set the startup type to automatic.
| 3. Diable all Port Forwarding on the router.
| 4. Enable UpNP on the router. (You will want to restart your computer at
| about this point to let UpNP do its thing.)
| 5. Turn off ICS. If you have XP pre-service pack 2 turn off ICS in the
| network connection property dialog. If you have XP service pack 2 you won't
| be able to turn ICS off, so set up static ip addresses. 6. Make sure that
| "Dungeon Siege 2 Game Executable" is listed in the application exceptions in
| the XP firewall.
|
| At the beginning of this post I mentioned disabling Media Sense. Media Sense
| is what displays the little "Network Connection" icon on the task bar (among
| other things.) I would not disable this feature unless you can successfully
| host, but have frequent disconnetions coupled with a 4201 error in the event
| log that coincides with each disconnection.
|
| The how to information on doing any of this can be found in the XP help
| file, the Microsoft Knowledge Base, or in a general internet search. For me
| the tricky part was setting up static ip address. I can offer two small
| helpers for doing this.
|
| Helpers for Configuring a Static IP Address
| First, open a command window (cmd.exe) and type in "ipconfig /all" (omit the
| quotation marks.) Write down or print out the information the command
| provides. You will need the information about such things as Default Gateway,
| DNS servers, DNS suffix, etc. when setting up a static ip address.
|
| Second, you must determine what ip addresses to assign. The "secret" for
| doing this successfully lies in your router's DHCP configuration. I will use
| Linksys numbers but the principal is the same and all routers should have
| similar settings and names.
|
| There are two things you need to look for in your router's DHCP setup. The
| first is the "Starting IP Address." This will be something like
| 192.168.1.100. The second important thing is the "Number of Addresses." A
| common default for this number is 50. What these two things tell us is that
| the router will assign 50 addresses starting with the address 192.168.1.100.
| Therefore, the addresses 192.168.1.100 through 192.168.1.149 are in use by
| the router and cannot be used as static addresses. You want to pick something
| outside that range. Given the above scenario, an example of two valid static
| addresses would be: 192.168.1.10 and 192.168.1.11. These two addresses fall
| before the routers staring range. (Don't use 192.168.1.1 - that is probably
| the default gateway address for the router.)
|
| Getting Dungeon Siege hosting to work caused me a lot of grief. I hope this
| information is of help to someone else. It is accurate to the best of my
| knowledge. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: always create a Windows XP restore point
| before making significant changes to your computer. Computers are cranky
| units and what worked for one person may not work for the next. Creating a
| restore point can get you back to where you were before if things don't work
| out.
|
| "Jimmy S." wrote:
|
| > Hi,
| >
| > |I finally got through the absurd configuration requirements (UPNP in
| > | particular) for hosting Dungeon Siege II games. I am able to host Internet
| > | and Gamespy games behinds a Linksys BEFSR41 v4 router on XP SP2. The fact
| > | that I am able to host and accept connections to the game would indicate that
| > | I have everything setup properly.
| > |
| > | HOWEVER
| > |
| > | When hosting an Internet or Gamespy game with UPNP enabled, I am
| > | disconnected constantly. The disconnects are erratic, sometimes it is 5
| > | minutes, sometimes it is 20 minutes. But it always disconnects. Here is the
| > | event log entry that appears each time I get a disconnect:
| > |
| > | Error 4201:
| > | The system detected that network adapter Intel(r) PRO/100 VM Network
| > | Connection was connected to the network, and has initiated normal operation
| > | over the network adapter.
| > |
| > | It appears that UPNP is randomly reinitializing my nic for no apparent reason.
| > | Guess what? If i disable UPNP the disconnection problem goes away entirely.
| > | I can still host games - but the only person who can join them is me on my
| > | other computer behind the same router.
| > |
| > | It is my opinion that this UPNP thing just does not work. If you know how to
| > | fix this problem please post the information. I can host without problems by
| > | going directly to my cable modem - but my cable system is hackers heaven. I
| > | need to be able to host games in a reasonably safe manner.
| >
| > I believe Linksys fixed the UPNP issue in a firmware upgrade.
| > Call Linksys Tech Support for more info: 1-800-326-7114
| >
| > --
| > Cheers, Windows XP MVP Shell / User
| > Jimmy S.
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
| >
| > Visit my MSN Zone.com and Gaming Help Site:
http://mvps.org/nibblesnbits
| > MS Games Help and Support Center:
http://support.microsoft.com/?pr=gms
| > My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
| > _________________________________________________________
| >
| >
| >
