I've never played RoL over LAN but remember I had a lot of problems get it to pass through Windows Firewall just so I could get it auto-patched.

Have you tried if using a VPN like Hamachi or Tunngle works?

Hey! Thanks for your reply!

I've looked and tunngle and downloaded the executable, but have not tried it yet. Seems sorta strange to use something like that when I'm 6 feet away from the other computer.

I've done a lot of development on Linux, but not on the windows side. This issues seems to point to one of Microsoft's updates killing the ability to play across the LAN. As a test, I've completely *disabled* the firewall on both machines and I still get the exact same error message. So I do not think that the firewall is the actual issue.

Both machines are running XP SP3, so it isn't a new vista or 7 issue. I wish I were better on windows at looking at what ports are requested by ROL when it starts. It might still be looking for some gamespy response even in LAN mode and failing. On Linux, you have the tools tcpdump to look at network communications and port requests, but I'm not familiar with anything similar on windows. I'll look around.

If you can think of anything else to try, let me know. The copy of ROL I have was purchased New this month, so I would think that the LAN portion would still be working. To their credit, the copy does come with *all* patches already installed. Thanks again for still having this site up!

I also did a bit of poking around on why I can't connect to the patch servers. Looking at the network traffic, I contact both patch.bighugegames.com and patch2.bighugegames.com, but no response is ever received. Here are the packets:

18:16:32.870646 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 128, id 59058, offset 0, flags [none], proto UDP (17), length 68)
192.168.6.121.63683 > 192.168.6.17.53: [udp sum ok] 18197+ A? patch.bighugegames.com. (40)
0x0000: 4500 0044 e6b2 0000 8011 c61b c0a8 0679 E..D...........y
0x0010: c0a8 0611 f8c3 0035 0030 0877 4715 0100 .......5.0.wG...
0x0020: 0001 0000 0000 0000 0570 6174 6368 0c62 .........patch.b
0x0030: 6967 6875 6765 6761 6d65 7303 636f 6d00 ighugegames.com.
0x0040: 0001 0001 ....
18:16:53.850753 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 128, id 59064, offset 0, flags [none], proto UDP (17), length 69)
192.168.6.121.58645 > 192.168.6.17.53: [udp sum ok] 49791+ A? patch2.bighugegames.com. (41)
0x0000: 4500 0045 e6b8 0000 8011 c614 c0a8 0679 E..E...........y
0x0010: c0a8 0611 e515 0035 0031 eb3a c27f 0100 .......5.1.:....
0x0020: 0001 0000 0000 0000 0670 6174 6368 320c .........patch2.
0x0030: 6269 6768 7567 6567 616d 6573 0363 6f6d bighugegames.com
0x0040: 0000 0100 01 .....

Also, when either box creates a LAN game, the following is broadcast, but the other box cannot connect. The other box *can* see the created game, but attempting to 'join' fails with the original error I posted. Here is the broadcast packet:

18:09:04.977733 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 128, id 58922, offset 0, flags [none], proto UDP (17), length 460)
192.168.6.121.1909 > 255.255.255.255.10247: [udp sum ok] UDP, length 432
0x0000: 4500 01cc e62a 0000 8011 8bd5 c0a8 0679 E....*.........y
0x0010: ffff ffff 0775 2807 01b8 f506 4400 6100 .....u(.....D.a.
0x0020: 6400 2700 7300 2000 4700 6100 6d00 6500 d.'.s...G.a.m.e.
0x0030: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0040: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0050: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0060: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0070: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0080: 0000 4400 6100 6400 0000 0000 0000 0000 ..D.a.d.........
0x0090: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x00a0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 2e00 5c00 ..............\.
0x00b0: 6d00 6100 7000 7300 5c00 2800 3200 2900 m.a.p.s.\.(.2.).
0x00c0: 4100 7300 6800 6600 6100 6c00 6c00 2e00 A.s.h.f.a.l.l...
0x00d0: 6d00 6100 7000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 m.a.p...........
0x00e0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x00f0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0100: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0110: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0120: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0130: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0140: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0150: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0160: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0170: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0180: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x0190: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................
0x01a0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 027c ...............|
0x01b0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 c0a8 0679 0000 0000 ...........y....
0x01c0: 0000 0000 e017 e017 0000 0000 ............

OK - and finally, I see source port traffic on port (1734) going to dest port (10247) announcing the game when created on one box, and likewise if the game is created on the other box I see the source port as (1946) with the same dest port. Again - both boxes can see the games created on the other.

The finally there will be about 12-15 packets on port (6112) of communication between the boxes with each 'join' attempt, but obviously the join fails. So there looks to either be an update from MS that is killing the 'join' or possibly a change to the tcp/udp communication that prevents joining (I have no IPV6 so that isn't the issue)

Again, any thoughts you have are welcomed!

[This message has been edited by drankinatty (edited 07-12-2012 @ 10:52 PM).]

Have you tried removing any special characters from the setup? It looks like you call the game dad's game, try call it dads game instead. It could be the game doesn't like special characters.

PCDania,

We tried removing the ' from the name of the games we created for play over the LAN hoping that would help, but it didn't. We received the same error. I did find another strange network packet that gets sent by ROL to some server in Atlanta Georgia. I don't know if this is some account/validation check that is attempted, but it looks like another rabbit trail to chase in trying to figure out why a simply LAN game cannot connect.

The remote IP that is being contacted by ROL is: 198.177.254.113 which has the following registration:

OrgName: Allerion, Inc.
OrgId: ALLERI
Address: PO BOX 450242
City: Atlanta
StateProv: GA
PostalCode: 31145
Country: US
RegDate: 1993-10-05
Updated: 2011-09-24
Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/ALLERI

OrgAbuseHandle: ML433-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Lucking, Michael
OrgAbusePhone: +1-678-560-8076
OrgAbuseEmail: milt@net2atlanta.com
OrgAbuseRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/ML433-ARIN

Why would ROL attempt to contact a remote IP for a LAN game? Wonder if there is a way to stop it. Ever hear of something like this causing LAN connect issues?

I did find another strange network packet that gets sent by ROL to some server in Atlanta Georgia.

The first thing RoL does when starting is automatically checking online if there are any new updates. I have never heard of this interfering with LAN play. Only thing I know is there were lots of problems getting the game to update back in the day. Some problems were related to Windows Firewall (WF)* and some I believe was caused by problems related to the implementation of TCP/IP in the game.

* My personal experience with RoL and WF was that RoL didn't cope well with WF, it was like the game thought: Hey, there's a firewall on this computer, sorry, I'm against firewalls. When I fought the problems I started out disabling WF which didn't help. Then I manually added RoL to WF making sure everying was setup correctly, which also didn't work. Then I got stubborn and started fiddling around with manually adding RoL to WF, check if it would update, remove it from WF again, restart the computer and so on. Just as I were about to start running in circles myself the game started updating itself. Even then it was difficult to update the game as patches would be damaged, or problems starting the download. I believe this part was problems on the Server end of things.

[This message has been edited by PCDania (edited 07-16-2012 @ 04:27 AM).]

Well, obviously, at some point in time, the LAN game used to work. It looks like either (1) a MS update broke the LAN/Net game play or (2) like you say, the server end of it doesn't work anymore. I'm sure some smart windows developer could further diagnose what the precise issue is, but that is a bit beyond my diagnosing experience where no source code is available.

ROL is a really great game and I expected to find many links explaining the problem and providing solutions. However, this forum is the best reference I found with a good bit of searching. Hopefully, somebody will find the thread and help out. It would be fun to see ROL regain the ability to play across the LAN again. Until then, BOS Wars will have to do.

Thanks for you help! I'll keep tinkering with it and I'll drop a note here if I come up with more information.