Bug?: client on windows 7 not finding local server **SOLVED**

[Fragmaster L]

I'm running a LAN server on ubuntu server (12.04.2 LTS) using the basic command "openarena-server +exec myconfig.cfg" to start.
This is a testing phase and the server will be replicated on a larger LAN for a networking class.

Problem:
   OpenArena client running on Windows 7 cannot see the server without using "specify" and supplying the local server IP address.
   This is unacceptable because I need to run it as a private server on the larger network and "specify" doesn't allow a password (does it?).

Additional info:
   Internet servers show up, can be connected to and played on with no trouble.
   Linux and Windows XP clients find and connect to the server fine.

What I've tried:
   Searching for a solution to the problem with many search terms to no avail.
   Turning off Windows Firewall and my antivirus.
   Running the client in compatibility mode for XP SP3.

System Specs of Win 7 machine:
   Compaq Presario CQ56 Laptop - specs in attached png image.
   I am using the wireless adapter in the specs to connect to the LAN.

[Gig]

Which port is your server using? "Local" search scans for 27960, 27961, 27962, 27963 UDP ports only.
OPS... re-reading your post, other clients do actually find the server.... thus, the problem is elsewhere...

So... I have no idea. Some IPv4-IPv6 problem, maybe? You could try to disable (uncheck) IPv6 in Windows 7, and try again...

This is unacceptable because I need to run it as a private server on the larger network and "specify" doesn't allow a password (does it?).

Uh? I'm not used to play on password protected servers, so I'm not sure... but IIRC, the client can use the /password variable to provide a password, then should be able to join the server also by using the /connect <ip:port> command (that should work, more or less, like the "specify" function)... isn't so?
Some infos here: (DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Servers#Password-protected_servers
The password requested by the GUI has been introduced in OA 0.8.5... maybe the programmer forgot to apply this enhancement to the "Specify" feature, too?

[Fragmaster L]

Thanks, will check out that link. Any way to be sure to connect to the server should be OK, I'd just prefer the in-game GUI if possible.

Got to thinking a bit after my last post... could it be a 64bit OS thing? I don't have a 32bit Win 7 machine to try.

[Fragmaster L]

The client can connect if the password is set in the console with ' \password "thepassword" ' before clicking the fight button on the specify server address screen.

Played at school last night and found that the same thing happened on a 64bit Windows 8 machine, but the user got on with this workaround. Also found that the Windows executable running on WINE in Ubuntu Desktop sees the server and connects properly by prompting for the password.

Networking class projects can be lots of fun!

[Gig]

I just did a quick test, connecting from a Windows 7 64 bit machine to a local server running Windows XP 32 bit. It saw the server (that did not have a password) without any problem.
Could you please do some more tests with your firewall settings? E.g. what happens if you completely disable Windows Firewall?

Are you sure you did not have the "hide private" option enabled in the server browser?

I must go now... I will not be able to do tests with password-protected servers for two or three days.

[Fragmaster L]

Turning off Windows firewall and my antivirus were things I already tried before the first post.

Positive that I'm not hiding private servers and even refresh after hiding is turned off.

Should have mentioned that the client machine in question didn't see the server even if it was made public. The local server scan just fails.

Maybe it's because the Ubuntu Server version of the dedicated server isn't up to date in the repositories. I did "sudo apt-get install openarena-server" to get the packages, and the ones that had a version number specified 081 and 085.

I'm trying the patch now. Will post results.

[GrosBedo]

Could you please post your .cfg file of your server? (be sure to strip out sensitive informations such as rconpassword)

I am regularly hosting servers on my Windows 7 box, so it should also work for you.

First, you should check that the following cvars are correctly set in your config:

Code:

seta net_ip "0.0.0.0" //This is a fix for people behind a router but wanting to host a server, setting to 0.0.0.0 or an empty string will bind the server to _all_ availble network interfaces
seta dedicated 2 // 1 - no heartbeat on master server, 2 - do it
seta sv_master1 "dpmaster.deathmask.net" // master listing server, which list all OA servers. You can specify your own if you want to open one.
seta sv_lanForceRate 1

Secondly, try to launch a game client on the same computer that hosts your game server, and try to see if it shows in the LAN listing.

Thirdly, you can also try to compile an experimental binary that includes the latest changes of the ioquake3 project:
https://github.com/undeadzy/openarena_engine

PS: you should also check that you are launching your game server with a random qport (virtual quake port), this may be helpful and can do no harm:

Code:

start oa_ded.x86.exe +set net_qport %random:~-4%

You can of course specify a specific qport, I just use the Windows random function to be completely random.

[Gig]

Grosbedo, maybe you should read again his messages...
He's running the server on a linux machine (Windows 7 are the clients that, for some reason, do not see that server). He seems interested in "local network" play only... not to a "dedicated 2" internet server.




Fragmaster, you may try to download OpenArena from the official site instead of from a third party Linux repository...

[GrosBedo]

Grosbedo, maybe you should read again his messages...
He's running the server on a linux machine (Windows 7 are the clients that, for some reason, do not see that server). He seems interested in "local network" play only... not to a "dedicated 2" internet server.

Ah yes, sorry, I knew that when I was writing the message, until it somehow mixed up in my mind.

But anyway, the advices I've given above are equally valid for Linux (and I've hosted a lot of Linux servers for production, so I can confirm that those settings are quite important).

With all the various servers I hosted or tried hosting, I've come across quite a lot of bugs, and particularly this one seems to be very common, but it's still very frustrating because there may be so many different causes. So if I can help here a bit, that'd be great.

About dedicated 2, he can change that afteward, but with this setting it should also work locally. And if he can't be seen locally, there's absolutely no chance he can be seen from internet.

However, he should first try to launch a client on the same computer if possible and check if he can see his server on the same computer. If not, it will help a lot to diagnose faster as he will be able to quickly see if his changes are working or not (most of the time, when other computers in a LAN don't see your server, it means that neither you can see your own server on the same client. This is not a general rule, but if that's the case, better to check that first).

[Fragmaster L]

I made my last post before I realized that patching wasn't really possible in that way with my Linux server.

Just to restate the problem:
LAN only server.
Server working fine.
Many clients working fine.
Some clients can't see server in multiplayer game browser.

Server:
Ubuntu Server 32bit with openarena-server package installed through apt. Cfg files are stored in /home/me/.openarena/baseoa.
It starts with "openarena-server +exec ffa.cfg" to load my free-for-all game or "openarena-server +exec ctf.cfg" to play capture the flag.
If starting with ssh through PuTTy, I use "nohup openarena-server +exec ffa.cfg > /dev/null &". It stops with "killall ioq3ded".

My ffa.cfg file:

Code:

sets sv_hostname "Network Systems Beatdown" 
sets sv_maxclients 16 // Total players slots enabled, for both bots and humans. How many human players you can support is related with your connection bandwidth (especially upload bandwidth) and your sv_maxrate value. 
sets sv_master1 "dpmaster.deathmask.net" 
seta sv_maxPing 400 // Clients with ping higher than this cannot connect. 
seta sv_minPing 0 // Clients with ping lower than this cannot connect. 
sv_pure 1 // If enabled, prevents clients from loading pk3 files that are not present on the server to guarantee compatibility. This should ALWAYS be 1. 

seta sv_maxRate 25000 

sets sv_fps 25 
sets sv_allowdownload 1 // allow clients to automatically download from your server additional files that they may need to play on it 

set g_password "adultsonly" // Set if you want a private server (everyone will need the password to be able to join) 

seta capturelimit 8 
seta timelimit 15 
seta fraglimit 15 
seta bot_minplayers 4 // If there are not enough human players, bots are automatically added or removed to have the specified number of players in the arena (or in each team). 
seta g_spskill 1.0 // Sets the skill level for the bots added by bot_minplayers. 1 = Hurt me plenty, 5 = Nightmare. 

seta g_warmup 20 // Sets the time of the warmup at the beginning of the match. 
seta g_dowarmup 1 // Enables (1) or disables (0) the warmup time at the beginning of the match. Default is 0. 

seta g_inactivity 0 
seta g_allowvote 0 
 
seta g_voteMaxTimelimit 1000 
seta g_voteMinTimelimit 0 
seta g_voteMaxFraglimit 0 
seta g_voteMinFraglimit 0 

seta g_delagHitscan 1 
 
seta g_awardPushing 1  

seta g_gametype 0 

set d1 "map sleekgrinder; set nextmap vstr d2" 
set d2 "map oa_dm1; set nextmap vstr d3" 
set d3 "map wrackdm17; set nextmap vstr d4" 
set d4 "map oa_dm3; set nextmap vstr d5" 
set d5 "map aggressor; set nextmap vstr d6" 
set d6 "map kaos2; set nextmap vstr d7" 
set d7 "map oa_dm5; set nextmap vstr d8" 
set d8 "map oa_rpg3dm2; set nextmap vstr d9" 
set d9 "map slimefac; set nextmap vstr d1"
vstr d1 // start loop at d1 

100% working clients:
Linux Mint Maya 13 running OpenArena installed through the software manager.
Linux Ubuntu Desktop 12.04 LTS running OpenArena installed through software manager.
Window XP SP3 running Windows executable from shortcut to c:/programs/openarena/openarena.exe (where it was unzipped).

Working clients that don't see the server in the game browser and need to have IP specified:
Windows 7 Home Premium running Windows executable same as XP machine above.
A laptop belonging to a classmate at school running Windows 8 and the Windows executable.

[Gig]

After scanning for local servers, do you notice something strange in those clients' console output?

[Fragmaster L]

That did it, Gig. I saw a weird IP in the network initialization section: 192.168.56.1 as well as the proper 192.168.1.102 that I should have.

Turns out that it was the VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter virtual NIC that is installed with VirtualBox and is evidently always enabled - even when not in use. I disabled it in Network Connections, started the game and voila! - the server was seen in the gui server browser and I was properly prompted for the password when connecting.

The game must have been scanning the wrong subnet because of that adapter's static IP.

Since we have been using VirtualBox to play with different OS's in my Networking classes, I'm assuming that was the problem with my classmate's laptop also.

Thanks Gig, for pointing me in the right direction. This is a great community!

[Gig]

I'm happy you fixed your problem.  

If you do not want to disable the VirtualBox network card, you may give another try: tell the client which IP address to use when launching OpenArena, using a shortcut like openarena.exe +set net_ip x.x.x.x (I suppose this should work also after you started OpenArena, typing /net_ip x.x.x.x in console and then /net_restart).

If you can tell if this works with that virtualbox network card enabled, I'm curious...  

[Fragmaster L]

I enabled the virtual NIC and used "/net_ip 192.168.1.102" then "/net_restart" at the console as you suggested. It worked just the same as if the card were disabled.

Just to make sure, I exited and restarted the game without any console changes and it could not see the server. It is definitely scanning the wrong subnet when the VirtualBox NIC is enabled.

Disabling the NIC is just fine for my purposes, because I always run VirtualBox with the guest virtual NIC in bridged mode with my active host NIC anyway.

Thanks again! 

[GrosBedo]

Nice trick with the console log.

Fragmaster L, you can also try to +set net_ip 0.0.0.0, as I wrote in a post above, this should bind your game server to all network interfaces, thus saving you the hassle of defining everytime the right interface (useful if your server can change ip too).

[Gig]

Net_ip 0.0.0.0 is the default value, I think... and his problem is not with the game server, but with the game client. From his infos, I can guess that binding to all interfaces allows to use any connection, but the local servers scan (from client) uses only a single network interface anyway, and in his case, it was the wrong one.

[Fragmaster L]

I was right in my assumption that my classmate had the same problem. He did have VirtualBox installed. When we fired up the server and disabled his virtual NIC, he saw the server in the in-game browser also. 

[GrosBedo]

Virtualization is always a tricky matter.