FFXI / ISP Incompatibility Shuts Users Out

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.

Comments

I've solved it, Watson

[captnitro]

..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.

Re:Port 25?!?

[_xeno_]

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.

They've always had a buggy networking layer

[Danny Rathjens]

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

Just some more info that got left out

[falcon5768]

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?

Re:Port 25?!?

[_xeno_]

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.

Re:Of course it's a problem

[betelgeuse68]

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

Problem Solved

[falcon5768]

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