Murazor

Join Date 02/2008

Demigod crashing router

As I don't seem to have much luck in another thread (http://forums.demigodthegame.com/352141), I'll post my own in techincal support.

Since the first update of the 14th Demigod crashes my E-Tech ADSL Modem Router. Sometime during connecting to the lobby or while in the lobby, my router will just crash and take Demigod with it. I need to hard-reset it in order to have an internet connection again. Now, a router shoulnd't just crash, whatever the program is doing, but I suspect Stardock is doing something rather dodgy to make this happen. In the beforementioned thread, somebody suggested Demigod might be flooding my router because 'flow control' was disabled.

Is there anything I can do to start playing again, or is this game just not going to work for me anymore?

Edit: For reference, I have my ports forwarded, and I don't recall any other games having this problem. Supreme Commander seems to work fine.

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Read some recent posts here: http://forums.demigodthegame.com/347837

(edit: wrong link)

Basically, you would want to make your router as non-intrusive into traffic as possible. There's usually a "DMZ" option that'll let you do so.

It seems that ANY kind of packets routing (including, but not limited to, port forwarding) is acting up on SO many hardware with the latest Demigod patch.

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Quoting just_dont_do_it,

reply 1

Read some recent posts here: http://forums.demigodthegame.com/347837

(edit: wrong link)

Basically, you would want to make your router as non-intrusive into traffic as possible. There's usually a "DMZ" option that'll let you do so.

It seems that ANY kind of packets routing (including, but not limited to, port forwarding) is acting up on SO many hardware with the latest Demigod patch.

I just reset the router te default settings, only enabling port forwarding for the Demigod ports, and the problem still occurs. I'll simply time out to the host if I'm lucky enough to get as far as the lobby and need to reset the router manually. I don't have a DMZ-type setting for as far as I can see.

I wanted to try and play without any opened ports to see if that helped, were it not for the fact that the game has refused to log me in for the last half hour, telling me my username/password is invalid.

[edit] Ok, I can now log in again, and the game still crashes my router even if I don't have the Demigod ports forwarded.

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Quoting Murazor,

E-Tech ADSL Modem Router

Hmmm, a modem that could go in routing mode? Sorry, didn't read that in the first place.

If so, then reset settings and DON'T do any port-forwarding settings. Usually, factory settings for router modems just leave all the traffic alone, you probably don't need any manual port-forwarding at all.

PS: Also, if your modem have any built-in firewall - disable it (at least for the tesing session).

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It could be because of the massive amounts of UDP packets the Stardock server sents to you. My Router/ISP has a problem with that too, I simply lose the connection to the NAT facilitator after that though.

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You are not alone Murazor. I first noticed this the other night as well. I played a couple games and during an attempt to join a game my game froze. I had to force DG closed and my internet was shot. Hard reset my router and modem to get them wworking again.

Happened again last night while i had NetMeter running and it seems that I am getting a massive spike in UL and DL data which apparently my computer/network cannot handle.

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Ok, last time I edited I already had my ports for Supreme Commander set up, I removed those too, and now I connected to two lobbies without being able reproduce this problem. A bit of an awkward solution though, as I play Supreme Commander rather often, and it is a bit less forgiving when comes to forwarded ports.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one Mauxe. I'll try NetMeter to see what happens if this occurs again.

[edit] Well, it appears I cried victory too early, the next game crashed my router again; although it's curious I had a few succesful runs before.

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It could be because of the massive amounts of UDP packets the Stardock server sents to you.

I think that the problem isn't really in packets amount, but relatively short time-frame (ALL the connection data is sent in about 10-20 mseconds, 1 query per player + 1 per game, as seen from my log). SPI firewalls don't like it. Some hardware gets it messed up. The result is all the same though - you just can't connect.

PS: I've solved the problem for myself by actually REMOVING all port forwarding from modem settings. Now it clearly shows that ports are closed for incoming connections, and YET the game actually started to work properly. Weeeeeeird.

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I did a run with NetMeter, this is the result:

The timeout happens before/during the last upload burst indicated by the green bars at the end. I'm guessing this just indicates Demigod panicking and trying to send data as a result of the timeout. Otherwise, I don't see anything big happening during that period.

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And these HUGE short D/L spikes?

Let's see:

1st - check for updates/result;

2nd - login;

3rd - list of custom games (or pantheon stats?);

4th - joining a game.

And fourth spike is HUGE.

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Quoting just_dont_do_it,

reply 9

And these HUGE short D/L spikes?

I think that was from before joining a game.

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I think that was from before joining a game.

I can't see anything at x-bar - how many time passed since the last D/L spike until the last U/L traffic?

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The huge spike seems to occur when you press the join game button, it'll probably have to download game info from the stardock server or something.

After that, I don't know, 10, 20 seconds? I'm just sitting there waiting in the lobby until something goes wrong.

My last attempt wouldn't kill the router btw.

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Well, then the initial explanation by Spooky is correct.

There're not too many packets, but there are some very short timeframe - that's why they create such a huge spike. Also this could be the cause for "lag spikes" issue described in another topic - ping packets get delayed because of such traffic "bursts".

And it seems that some hardware can't handle such amount of UDP traffic - therefore all kinds of problems.

PS: Basically, you have three options -

1) play with modem settings, reducing any kind of packet inspection (preferably to zero) - remove all the port forwaring, disable built-in firewall, all such (and related) things;

2) Buy a new modem (hardly an option, I admit);

3) Wait for a patch.

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Well, the huge spike isn't *that* huge, I think something similar occurs when opening a web page. Firewall is already turned off. But I *do* see a DMZ option now I look more closely at the options. I might try that later, see if the problem remains if I turn it on.

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I think something similar occurs when opening a web page

Yeah, but http is TCP, and Demigod's traffic is all UDP. TCP is *way* more reliable (and slower and have much more overhead).

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