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FFXI / ISP Incompatibility Shuts Users Out

Posted by Zonk on from the jueno-is-so-far-away-and-my-chocobo-is-tired dept.

falcon5768 writes "Since Tuesday 9/28, an incompatibility between how Final Fantasy XI addresses a network connection with it's Playonline Viewer and Optimum Online's broadband service has blocked well over 1000 players out of the game. The only thing both companies do agree on is that the problem is a minor one. Numerous players have been told by Optimum Online that it is not a priority. Likewise Square Enix has no notice of the problem on their website, but an option on their call menu tells players they are aware of the problem and it is being worked on before hanging up.

42 comments

  1. At least it's only a minor problem . . . by Goobermunch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I mean, it's not like these folks are actually paying to use a service or anything like that. Besides, it's only 1000 people. Given that they've sold several hundred thousand units, with nice monthly subscriptions attached, they don't have to worry about a few hundred people.

    After all, it's not like it'll affect anything important. You know, like the bottom line.

    --AC

    1. Re:At least it's only a minor problem . . . by Neophytus · · Score: 0

      Yes, they are. Square gets $13 a month off each and every player in their universe.

    2. Re:At least it's only a minor problem . . . by Farmer+Jimbo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Note the careful use of sarcasm in the post you replied to. The company only cares about the bottom line, which wouldn't be hurt if they lost all 1000 people with this problem.

      Stated another way : corps of the size we're talking about here could not care less about this problem beacause it affects so few people.

    3. Re:At least it's only a minor problem . . . by bozoman42 · · Score: 1
      Several million, actually, for what it's worth.

      Definitely agree with your sarcasm, though.

  2. I've solved it, Watson by captnitro · · Score: 1, Informative

    ..It sounds the heads at Squeenix are at least aware of the situation, though they seem to be passing the buck, which is kinda messed up. Last I heard, PlayOnline uses Port 25 to connect to a network (the same one that mail clients use), and that Optimum closed it off, for some reason. In any case, I wish you luck, and I wish there was something I could do besides this.

    There is no chance that I could care less about this story. But it seems like a lot of people are clueless.

    1. PlayOnline is thoroughly stupid for using port 25 to connect to the network. Though shalt not retain ports under 1000, and well-known ones at that.

    2. Optimum Online is doing something mostly responsible, which is blocking port 25 to help stop the spread of spam using its broadband lines.

    3. Choo choo, it's the clue train, making stops at the following common sense conclusions.

    - Playonline, fix your stupid-ass software.
    - Optimum, do what you do.
    - FFXI players, use this time to reintroduce yourself to the great outdoors.

    1. Re:I've solved it, Watson by _xeno_ · · Score: 4, Insightful
      1. PlayOnline is thoroughly stupid for using port 25 to connect to the network. Though shalt not retain ports under 1000, and well-known ones at that.

      Ah, but it doesn't. I run on Comcast, so I was curious what might be causing the problem so I decided to run a packet sniffer and watch the game connect. It opened something on Port 5000 or so and did a bunch of miscellaneous stuff, including a bunch of HTTP transactions on non-standard ports. (I think - I need to recheck those logs and make sure it wasn't redirected to that port.) But it never touched Port 25.

      This misunderstanding comes because if you read the "required open ports" you'll see them list Ports 25, 80, 110, and 443. A quick overview will see those listed as SMTP, HTTP, POP3, and HTTPS.

      As it turns out, the PlayOnline client does include an e-mail client, to allow you to send and receive e-mail via an e-mail account that comes with the service. If you wish to send e-mail using that account, then port 25 comes into play.

      It turns out that PlayOnline uses a bunch of Internet standards to run, including HTTP for downloading the menu pages and XML to describe those pages. HTTPS appears to be used for when you sign up for your account and various other features.

      (You can actually view the SSL certificate when you enter a secured portion of the service. A "key" icon gets added to the Navigation mini-menu. Square-Enix also digitally signs all e-mail they send to their customers, and the e-mail client they use supports that, as well.)

      My personal guess is that OO created a transparent HTTP proxy, and that's what's messing things up. A lot of the basic functionality in PlayOnline is actually done of HTTP/HTTPS.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    2. Re:I've solved it, Watson by sinergy · · Score: 1

      OO is not using a transparent proxy.

      --
      ...
    3. Re:I've solved it, Watson by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, ignore the grandparent poster. He has no idea what he's talking about.

      Optimum Online has confirmed that this is indeed an issue with the way Play Online uses port 25 (which it shouldn't).

    4. Re:I've solved it, Watson by sinergy · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and when is the last time you've seen a transparent proxy for port 25 access?
      Don't you mean filtering? Proxying and firewalling are two different things.

      I know that OO does not use a transparent proxy server because they say so in the TOS. You could also verify that rather simply by looking at the traffic generated by a host (such as me.) This isn't happening.

      --
      ...
  3. Port 25?!? by Motherchucker · · Score: 0
    Acording to the article,
    "...PlayOnline uses Port 25 to connect to a network (the same one that mail clients use), and that Optimum closed it off, for some reason."
    Why would anyone pick port 25 to communicate with their game servers? For that matter, why would they pick anything under at least 1024? Am I missing something here? Is there some good reason to do it this way?
    1. Re:Port 25?!? by _xeno_ · · Score: 2, Informative
      Simple, it doesn't. The client includes an e-mail client, so if you read the required port list you'll see port 25 listed. A bunch of people then read that OO was blocking port 25 and decided this was the problem.

      As it turns out, the PlayOnline viewer actually runs over HTTP and HTTPS. The Final Fantasy XI portion of the game runs over ports 50000+.

      Bottom line, whatever the problem is, Port 25 isn't it.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    2. Re:Port 25?!? by Motherchucker · · Score: 0

      good point...and your explanation here is also helpful.

      Thanks!

    3. Re:Port 25?!? by falcon5768 · · Score: 1
      also both companies have said that isnt the problem, a lot of people who dont undstand networking though beleive it is

      port 25 has been blocked for a month no interuptions

      --

      "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

    4. Re:Port 25?!? by falcon5768 · · Score: 1

      nope you dont, they confirmed it didnt as did playonline

      --

      "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

    5. Re:Port 25?!? by MMaestro · · Score: 0, Troll
      Actually the problem is the closing of port 25. Chances are you've never played FFXI since its IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAY THE GAME WITHOUT GOING THROUGH THE PLAYONLINE VIEWER. Yes, thats right, just like how you can't use Windows without Internet Explorer, you can't play FFXI without PlayOnline Viewer. So when PlayOnline Viewer has a problem, FFXI has a problem.

      PlayOnline Viewer uses port 25 for its Friends List and won't let the user in until it fully connects. End result : PlayOnline Viewer cannot 100% connect and therefore won't let the user play FFXI. Its not just the e-mail client.

    6. Re:Port 25?!? by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Informative
      Ummm...

      I can't figure out what you're talking about, the Friends List is loaded over HTTP (or maybe HTTPS, I can't remember, I'll have to check when I get home).

      Pretty much all of the PlayOnline Viewer related stuff occurs over either HTTP or HTTPS. It then gets handed off to a DLL when it connects to FFXI. (The new delay when it loads the main menu is caused because it now loads the main menu as a kind of XML "screen" file off the POL servers.)

      I've watched it connect while running Ethereal, there's no port 25 stuff at all. As others have said, the Optimum Online port 25 block went into effect about a month ago.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    7. Re:Port 25?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *sigh*

      You're a fucking moron. You know this, right?

      I'll have to go post a screenshot showing it attempt to connect to something over port 25.

      You say you use Ethereal. Tip:
      tcp.dstport == 25

      Try it. Become enlightened. And stop posting crap on Slashdot.

    8. Re:Port 25?!? by _xeno_ · · Score: 1
      I tried it. There were no ports opened in that range. For that matter, the lowest port it ever connected on was in the 3000s.

      In fact, when I sent myself an e-mail, it connected on a port in the 3000 range. No port 25 in the mix anywhere.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    9. Re:Port 25?!? by mediagoddess · · Score: 1

      I am said girlfriend and have now talked to 4 support techs (as well as befriended one in the process) and have been told time and time again, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PORT 25. I've even specifically ASKED if it was related to port 25, and was told no, that port was closed back in August- if there were issues with port 25, it would have shown up then. Likewise, it may not be related to the friendlist update. If it were, EVERY OO customer would have the problem, but as it stands, there are QUITE A FEW PEOPLE who use OO and POL/FFXI who CAN log in. The tech I spoke with less than an hour ago said to me that the reason it is taking them so long to fix it, is because not every user of both services is experiencing the problem, and its making it very difficult for them to pinpoint the exact cause of the problem. Either way, I'm still annoyed- part of the reason I got Optimum Online was to play FFXI... and I'm now spending about $70/month for something I can't even do. Frustrating does not even begin to describe how I'm feeling.

  4. Stop the Hate by BigChigger · · Score: 1, Funny

    I've noticed all Sony articles lately are critical. Did One Slashdot Way just get a big shipment of Xboxen perhaps?

    BC

    1. Re:Stop the Hate by glowimperial · · Score: 1

      Have you played any of SOE's online games lately? Sony seems to excel at overpromising and underdelivering, and letting it's customers know that the don't give two shits about their priorities. Star Wars Galaxies is leaking players right now. When EQ2 and WoW come out it's going to be a sieve over there. Folks are already worried about merging servers and whatnot.

    2. Re:Stop the Hate by rabbot · · Score: 1

      Too bad SOE has nothing to do with FFXI.

    3. Re:Stop the Hate by suraklin · · Score: 1

      and I am sure SOE also does not mind people migrating from SWG to EQ2 when it comes out... they still get cash

  5. Of course it's a problem by hollismb · · Score: 1

    See, this is what you get when you don't standardize your online network. Ports getting opened all over the damn place. I'm not surprised at all that they've got these problems, given the total lack of structure in Sony's online service (or lack thereof). In comparison, Xbox Live uses three ports: UDP 88, UDP 3074, and TCP 3074. What happens, I wonder, to people playing Final Fantasy online through a router that are also running a webserver? If your standard port 80 is being forwarded to the webserver, then it'll be totally screwed up, and some people wouldn't know why without sniffing it out.

    1. Re:Of course it's a problem by betelgeuse68 · · Score: 2, Informative

      This has nothing to do with Sony. There is no notion of central servers with online gaming on the PS2. Square can open whatever ports it wants to on both sides, it squarely (pun intended) controls both ends.

      I might also add that PCs are part of this mix. That is, this isn't PS2 only network. FFXI allows PC and PS2 players to mingle.

      -M

  6. They've always had a buggy networking layer by Danny+Rathjens · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here was my post on 2003-11-03 to my local LUG on how to fix ffxi's buggy networking problems when playing behind a linux firewall:

    I started playing Final Fantasy XI online for PC this weekend.
    (Yep, had to boot into windows for first time in long time
    and had a couple crashes to remind me why I stopped using it)

    Anyway, I have a linux box as my firewall doing NAT and the game
    would not work with the error:
    FFXI:3100 Could not connect to lobby server

    Tech support just told me it's my fault for using a linux firewall
    and implied their system has no bugs and claimed it works with NAT.

    After some packet sniffing, I discovered that some bug in the game's
    network code was causing it to send packets to the external ip of
    my firewall(port 54001) instead of to square enix's lobby server.
    A web search of port 54001 came up with a japanese language page
    which had some iptables rules to use to let FF online work from
    a playstation through a firewall. Those did not work, but the page
    also had a list of Square's servers and which ports they use so
    I made some quick rules to forward any misdirected packets to those
    listed servers and voila it all worked.

    So, in case anyone happens to have problems with this bug in
    PlayOnline and Final Fantasy XI not working through NAT on
    an adsl connection, here is the solution.

    Here are the relevant parts of my firewall script:

    extint="eth0"
    extip=`ifconfig eth0|grep 'inet addr'|cut -f2 -d:|cut -f1 -d" "`
    intint="eth1"
    intnet="192.168.1.0/24"
    iptabl es -I PREROUTING -t nat -p tcp -s $intnet -d $extip --dport 51220 -j DNAT --to 61.195.48.234:51220
    iptables -I PREROUTING -t nat -p tcp -s $intnet -d $extip --dport 51240 -j DNAT --to 61.195.48.236:51240
    iptables -I PREROUTING -t nat -p tcp -s $intnet -d $extip --dport 51300 -j DNAT --to 61.195.48.238:51300
    iptables -I PREROUTING -t nat -p tcp -s $intnet -d $extip --dport 51301 -j DNAT --to 61.195.48.239:51301
    iptables -I PREROUTING -t nat -p tcp -s $intnet -d $extip --dport 54000 -j DNAT --to 61.195.48.239:54000
    iptables -I PREROUTING -t nat -p tcp -s $intnet -d $extip --dport 54001 -j DNAT --to 61.195.48.209:54001
    iptables -I PREROUTING -t nat -p tcp -s $intnet -d $extip --dport 54002 -j DNAT --to 61.195.62.141:54002
    iptables -I PREROUTING -t nat -p udp -s $intnet -d $extip --dport 54120 -j DNAT --to 61.195.62.144:54120
    iptables -I PREROUTING -t nat -p udp -s $intnet -d $extip --dport 54246 -j DNAT --to 61.195.62.158:54246

  7. Just some more info that got left out by falcon5768 · · Score: 4, Informative
    The port 25 rumor was just that OO has had it shut for over a month already, talking to both sides they BOTH agree it isnt that port. There are a lot of dumbass hax0r want to be's posting on Alla right now and none of them have a remote clue as to what its used for.

    There is some idea floating around it could be modem related, specifically there is a running trend going that its older motorola and non-motorola modems not able to connect, surfboard modems after a certain model number (or people who used the buisness connect option which is 100 dollars a month) havent had a problem and can get and stay in

    as for some other facts, Optimum online is not completely a ISP provider, they send some of their stuff out to other ISP's, They are also a small cable provider, providing for the NE tri-state Area, but only parts of it (Comcast is the other provider and no one has had problems with them or any others and conectivity) There where no software updates to FFXI recently to have changed anything square was using, but I dont know on the OO end if they did any server/firmware updating between monday and tuesday night.

    and yes I know its quite funny how much people are bugging out. I dont use OO but my girlfriend does and shes more pissed that shes paying 30 dollars a month of ISP and 13 dollars a month on the game +2 characters and no one is giving her info,

    Still the question must be asked, when companies get into a fight like this, what options do customers really have?

    --

    "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

  8. Squeenix == Evil by KtHM · · Score: 1

    The main problem with this, or rather, one of the major problems (as I found out trying to cancel my subscription)....you can't pay unless you've got their crap installed. I tried telling the idiot on the phone that I was cancelling *because* their crap game screwed up my computer, and they basically said, "Well, too bad, now you can't play our games EVER AGAIN." Big loss......*rolls eyes*

  9. It's For Your Own Good...Really. by roderick · · Score: 1

    I hate it for the folks who are paying two bills to be unable to play a game, and the very least that should happen is getting credit on their FFXI accounts for the days they're locked out.

    On the other hand, I'm forced to consider that the spin on this particular "feature" might be that it's not an outage, it's a one-step recovery program for MMORPG addicts. Were I on their tech support staff, I'd be tempted to try it at least once. ;)

  10. Using ports 53 (DNS), 443 (SSL), and 4000-52000 by rfunches · · Score: 1

    I monitored my network this morning (working Comcast connection) to see what ports and servers POL is using when it first loads up (this is captured Ethereal data from startup of POL to about thirty seconds after I successfully logged in): TCP 34707 to 51240 TCP 443 (https) to 4072 TCP 51220 to 4068 TCP 51220 to 4067 TCP 51220 to 4065 TCP 51220 to 4064 TCP 51220 to 4063 TCP 51240 to 34707 TCP 51304 to 4071 UDP 1036 to 53 (dns query, pt008.pol.com) TCP 4060 to 54000 UDP 1036 to 53 (dns query, ci000.pol.com) TCP 36022 to 51240 TCP 4060 to 54000 TCP 34707 to 51240 TCP 36022 to 51240 UDP 1036 to 53 (dns query, pp000.pol.com) TCP 4061 to 51220 UDP 1036 to 53 (dns query, ma000.pol.com) UDP 1036 to 53 (dns query, pp000.pol.com) TCP 4062 to 51260 UDP 1036 to 53 (dns query, po000.pol.com) TCP 4062 to 51220 TCP 4063 to 51220 TCP 4064 to 51220 TCP 4065 to 51220 UDP 1036 to 53 (dns query, wh000.pol.com) As you can see, other than the high-range nonspecific ports (4000-52000), POL is using 53 for DNS queries and 443 for SSL. The suggestion was made that it could be that OO's network is confusing the TCP 443 to 4072 connection for a web server, but it could also be DNS problems, since some people can get far into the login process while others cannot (and there are a lot of DNS queries made).

    1. Re:Using ports 53 (DNS), 443 (SSL), and 4000-52000 by _xeno_ · · Score: 1
      There's absolutely no point to this, but...

      If you look at the your packet dump, you'll note that most of the POL stuff occurs over HTTP. (Find the random port it used, and tell Ethereal to decode it as HTTP.)

      The HTTP server on the other end identifies it as Apache, version 1.3.26.

      Apparently PlayOnline uses open source software. :)

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
  11. Whats with Squenix? by radio.cgt · · Score: 0
    Why do all the fanboys insist on calling Square-Enix 'Squenix'?

    Did I miss when they changed their name after the merger? I had a quick scout on google but couldn't see anything official to that note.

    I only really want to know because 'Squenix' sounds bloody stupid if you ask me.

    1. Re:Whats with Squenix? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that's how the japanese chick voice pronounces it when the game boots, i think

  12. Derp by XellDx · · Score: 1

    Sony didn't make FF:XI. Besides, the article doesn't mention if this is a PC/PS2 only issue.

    --
    X
    1. Re:Derp by mediagoddess · · Score: 1

      Its not exclusive to either system- users with the issue use both PC and PS2. ---p'ed off FFXI player

  13. Problem Solved by falcon5768 · · Score: 2, Informative

    4 days later, the problem was finally solved... seems it was a routing issue with how Optimum Online routed the Playonline signal the entire time.... Bonus to the fix, they now fixed the download speed for the network as well which was a crawl for most people before

    --

    "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."