Friend can't connect to any server

[Monsieur Toad]

Hi,

My friend just picked up the game and we wanted to setup a server for the two of us. I launched the server after putting the settings I wanted, forwarded my ports and connected to it. No problem. But my friend couldn't get in it ("Connection Failed" in game and "id_connection_attempt_failed" on his console) even though he had the good external IP (we are used to the process as we've done the same for Minecraft and Unturned).

After some troubleshooting we just tried to both connect to a public server. I could connect without any problem and, again, he couldn't (same messages).

He tried disabling his firewall, rebooting, restarting the game, to no avail.
What could prevent him from joining any multiplayer game ? (he can play solo though).

[Monsieur Toad]

If that helps finding out something, he also has/had other problems :
- when first launching the game, the console would open and then quickly close without anything else happening (this was solved by launching the projectzomboid32.bat in the steam install folder). Now he can start the game normally.
- he can't start a server apparently (with the projectzomboidserver.bat) as it will only open a console that tell him to "press any key to continue" (instead of asking a password for the server) and then nothing happens.

Could all those problem come from a single issue ? Java maybe ?

[Connall]

EG gave a suggestion (which I don't quite believe) however, he's right more than he's wrong so I'll humour him. Have the friend try and forward ports as if he was starting a server. Otherwise run the bat file as administrator, have him make sure the firewalls are disabled and that there is nothing that would be blocking streaming information at the router level, or between the computer and the router.

Would also not be a bad idea to add an exception port to Windows Firewall try 16261 TCP and UDP (ingoing and outgoing). That might help.

[Monsieur Toad]

We tried opening the ports, closing his personal firewall but that didn't change anything unfortunately.
We'll try the "run as admin" and maybe disable the Windows Firewall (if it's not already the case) and will keep you informed.

Thanks for the answer :)

[Connall]

Publicado originalmente por Epileptic Toad:

We tried opening the ports, closing his personal firewall but that didn't change anything unfortunately.
We'll try the "run as admin" and maybe disable the Windows Firewall (if it's not already the case) and will keep you informed.

Thanks for the answer :)

The Windows Firewall Ports can be a bit tricky to be disabled, so you might just have to do the ports exception.

Edit: It would also be worth knowing if you told us what anti-virus software your friend is using.

[Monsieur Toad]

Well, he could disable the Windows Firewall completely (it's not really useful anyway if you already have one).
He's using Avast as antivirus, like me (but I never got any issue with it blocking the game).

I'm still waiting for his feedback though ^^
(he doesn't speak english much so that's why I'm posting for him)

[Connall]

Publicado originalmente por Epileptic Toad:

Well, he could disable the Windows Firewall completely (it's not really useful anyway if you already have one).
He's using Avast as antivirus, like me (but I never got any issue with it blocking the game).

I'm still waiting for his feedback though ^^
(he doesn't speak english much so that's why I'm posting for him)

If you had said anything but Avast. Avast has known to be a right bugger with Project Zomboid it can just be random what happens. If you still have problems, you might have to look at uninstalling Avast on your friends computer.

While it works for you, it has been known to cause conflicts for some computer for unknown reasons. Some computers it's fine, others it's not.

[Monsieur Toad]

Oh ok, thanks for the answer.
The problem is that I guess he wouldn't be willing to dump the antivirus just for a game.
We'll try disabling features on it in order to see what could prevent the online connections to work. If we can come up with something, I'll post it there.

In any case, I hope this is something that is looked into and that will be fixed because you can't really ask people to change their antivirus because the game can't handle it well. Of course, at the moment, I get that beta is beta :)