Its driving me nuts!

[colpolyp]

Now here's a little brain teaser:

I run a windows98 mohaa dedicated server on my LAN. When I put the server in the DMZ of my router, everything is fine. Of course, I don't want to use the DMZ. So I use port forwarding, following all the guides on mohadmin.com. Then the problems start.

SOME people cannot connect to the server and SOME can! I have tried everything: people with Win98, Mac OSX, Mac OS9, Win XP and basically half of them can get on the server and the other half get a timeout! For instance, person X can always get on the server, but person Y can never.

Why is this? If anyone can be of help... please!

[dano]

I know where your coming from; I'm on my 3rd Linksys Router.

I'm not sure if this will help but, you may try updating your routers firmware / software.

Good Luck, Dano

[TMM]

"person X can always get on the server, but person Y can never."

Can person Y get on the server when using DMZ? If yes, that rules out game version conflicts.

I would not worry about which operating systems is used. The only guess I could then make is that X is connecting from one method like the game browser or direct and Y is connecting from another, like gamespy.

This is a real stretch, but if Y can connect when the DMZ is used, I would have to point to the port settings. Gamespy uses a few ports where a direct connect does not (you may see the server on All-Seeing Eye but not on Gamespy). Make sure you have all of the ports forwarded preperly. I listed them on my "Router" page and there is also a screen shot of the setup (for the Linksys). http://www.tmmworld.com

If Y can never connect to the server at all, I would first go to the simpler check for matching game versions (patch) or possibly their ping is over the max ping setting.... guessing.

TMM

[colpolyp]

Yes, when DMZ is used everybody can connect with no problems. Also note that everyone is doing a direct connect by typing in the IP in their game. So you're right about game versions, that should all be ok.

The people that cannot get in will get a server timeout. When switching back to DMZ, they can immediately connect.

I think the port forwarding of my router is dodgy. I was a cheapo one (Edimax 4-port 39$) so I take the full blame!