Can't get into a lobby or are constantly kicked out? Read This!

One of the most frustrating aspects of Supercar Challenge's Lobby System (as opposed to a more conventional player matching system) is that connection problems often result in a player being ejected from a lobby and often before the race has even started. If it hasn't happened to you, you've probably seen it happen to somebody else.

This is particularly aggravating when running an organized event with a large private lobby where 2 or more players who specifically wanted to take part are simply 'incompatible' with one another. When one is in the lobby, the other can't join or vice versa. Ferrari Challenge also suffered from this problem but the results were much more dramatic with the entire lobby collapsing around everybody. In Supercar challenge, only the affected people are booted.

The most common complaint I hear when this happens is a quick retort on how fast their connection is. Unfortunately, this is rarely the issue. Having a quick connection is preferable to a slow connection. And having a fast ping speed with few packet losses is much better as it helps to have a lag free race.

The disconnection issues are largely a result of some PS3s not being able to make a successful pier to pier connection to each other. As a result, the person not able to make such a connection is dropped from the lobby. During organized events, I get around this myself by running a 15 meter CAT5 cable from my modem directly into my PS3, giving me a genuine NAT1 connection, free of any bottlenecks, firewalls, closed ports and the like. (I normally have my PS3 connected wirelessly).

I would like to suggest that for organized events, EVERYBODY hard wire their PS3 directly to their modems, if possible. I can almost guarantee you an event free of drops and disconnects directly related to this issue. Lag, getting signed out of the PSN, game freezes are another issue. Be warned, connecting your PS3 to the internet and bypassing your router is not the best idea and it may not be workable for some people.

As such, Eutechnyx posted a technical bulletin how to get around this issue.

The Original link is here: http://forums.eutechnyx.com/index.php/topic,1466.0.html

And the post in it's entirety is below. I would STRONGLY recommend that everybody try this for all future events.

If you have problems where you connect to certain lobbies but never make it in you may have a NAT negotiation failure due to your PS3 having a NAT type 3 according to your Network Settings dialog in the XMB (sometimes a NAT type 3 situation has been reported as NAT type 2 by this dialog). What has happened is somebody else in the lobby already has NAT type 3. It might be the host or one of the other clients and NAT type 3 PS3s can't successfully connect directly to each other. As our game uses peer to peer networking this means that as you can't connect to one of the existing members you aren't properly in the game and have to be disconnected.

The good news is this situation can be easily solved.

Make sure that your PS3 is connected to your router and this same router is directly connected to the internet. If you have a more complicated setup than this more work will be more involved and depend highly on the setup of your network.

There are three options for improving your NAT type on PS3:

• 1. Use DMZ - refer to the instructions in your routers manual
  
  2. Use port forwarding
  Follow the instructions in your routers manual for forwarding the following TCP and UDP ports to your PS3 make sure you are forwarding from external to the internal ip address of your PS3 and the same port number if there is an option
  • TCP
    3478
    3479
    5223
  
  
  • UDP
    3478
    3479
  
  Note that you may need other ports forwarded for other PS3 games these are only the ports needed by our games.
  
  3. Use UPnP - only possible if your router supports it. If you do use it you cannot do any port forwarding on your router as it needs to have full control over ports.

Only use one of these solutions for your PS3 at a time. If you use UPnP you shouldn't use portforwarding for any device connected to your router.

Finally these solutions will only help in the case you have joining problems they won't help reduce latency or lag and they won't improve the stability of an error prone connection. For these problems you may want to consider stopping anything else using your connection at the same time as you're playing online games. However bear in mind some network issues with a particular connection between 2 peers are not solvable.

Further information with regards to port forwarding can be found here:http://portforward.com

Click to expand...

I understand English, but all that is Chinese to me ... besides, I have no idea where my router's manual is


EDIT - Anyway, thanks, hope it helps Derek, Chili, arvore and all other guys that often suffer from this

Yes, but my point is Mario, it doesn't work unless EVERYBODY goes through these steps. You yourself may have a NAT3 connection (being erroneously displayed as a NAT 2 connection) and you yourself may be inadvertently causing other players to be kicked from the lobby without even knowing it. Remember, it always takes (at least) two people for this problem to manifest itself. Unless you have a need for your internet connection running while the event is taking place (a potential issue in and of itself) or like me, have gone through great pains to set up a secured WiFi network that masks the IP address of everything behind the router, the easiest step is go buy one of these:



and bypass your router. For the 2 hours we're on-line, it's a lot less hassle to go through and it's almost guaranteed to work.

If I recall correctly, yesterday was the first time ever I felt this problem, so I'm guessing it was probably cause by incompability with someone who I usually don't race with.

I always connect directly to the modem when I am using the PS3 online.

For any of the Irish guys, I posed a thread specifically for the Eircom ISP in Ireland. So Derek, if you are still on NAT 3, would be worth having a look at that (presuming you're on Eircom).

My system stays with a NAT Type 3 whether it's connected wirelessly (router) or hard wired directly to the modem. I tried the direct connection months ago trying to cure the Prologue "Fail to Connect to Host" issue. It didn't help at all

If you have your PS3 hard wired directly into the modem and it's still giving you a NAT type 3, than there must be some sort of switch/router/firewall between the modem and your connection. Or perhaps your modem has some sort of built in firewall?

jjaisli

If you have your PS3 hard wired directly into the modem and it's still giving you a NAT type 3, than there must be some sort of switch/router/firewall between the modem and your connection. Or perhaps your modem has some sort of built in firewall?

Click to expand...

Checked the modem and there is absolutely no firewall enabled in the modem.

*EDIT* If there is absolutely no firewall enabled in the modem, I presume you mean just while you were experimenting to change the NAT type. Otherwise, make sure the modem has firewall protection always on!!

In my experience, whether or not the PS3 is physically connected to the modem probably won't change the NAT type.

If the NAT type is 3, then there is something blocking full data transmission between the PS3 and the PSN. Just as the opening post states, you either need to:

- Put the PS3 in the DMZ. How to do this depends on the modem software. For my Cisco modem, you have to add the specific PS3 IP address to the DMZ (this IP address is one assigned to your PS3 by your modem. It may change as you switch on/off the ps3, so watch out for that if you use a similar method). When your PS3 is connected to your modem, you can find out your IP address from the PS menu in the network settings/status (or something...you'll find it). It will look like 192.168.1.xxx (where the "xxx" will be between 1 and 253).

- Forward the ports required for the PSN. How to do this, again, depends on your modem software. Just need to have a look around for some help specific to your modem.

- Or, if you are on a DSL line (possibly can do it over Cable, although I couldn't), you could try PPPoE (have a google about it). I did with with my old DSL ISP. Your modem should have a username/password to connect to the internet. So in the PS3 menu you can set up a network connection with PPPoE, and somewhere along there you can enter your username/password. This should get you a NAT 1 (which is not necessarily bad. If this was a Microsoft machine, then yes it's bad. Very bad. Don't use Microsoft humans!)

It's a good idea to have a look at your modem software, get used to it, and see what you can do with it (without messing around and braking it!). From an internet browser, in the address bar, enter: (should be one of these...) 192.168.1.1 (my Cisco is this), or 192.168.1.254 (my old Netopia was this).

First of all, thanks so much for trying to help

The two things that confuse me and also lead me to think that the Sony servers have something to do with my problem are:

1) I had no problems connecting whatsoever (100% success) for about 1 1/2 years and then suddenly, one day, without any changes at my end, I just started geting the Failed to Connect error ?

2) I have 5 other racing games in which I can race online without any difficulty whatsoever ..... 100% success in getting into every room and no disconnects whatsoever ?

I also have never had a problem connecting to the PSN, signing in and/or downloading content ?

ANFD

First of all, thanks so much for trying to help

The two things that confuse me and also lead me to think that the Sony servers have something to do with my problem are:

1) I had no problems connecting whatsoever (100% success) for about 1 1/2 years and then suddenly, one day, without any changes at my end, I just started geting the Failed to Connect error ?

2) I have 5 other racing games in which I can race online without any difficulty whatsoever ..... 100% success in getting into every room and no disconnects whatsoever ?

I also have never had a problem connecting to the PSN, signing in and/or downloading content ?

Click to expand...

This game bares specific issues due to pier-to-pier system that sometimes generates incompatibilitys between two or more players,the only around this seems to be assuring NAT I connections(t.i. both directly wired to the modem) from both ends...👎