HELP Running 2 Versions on the same Network

Need some help had a friend from Ohio come down I introduced him to the game. I have 3 comps on my home network.

He filled out for his 7 day trial and we installed on my alt computer. I was in game when he connected when he connected I both clients locked up. Got the alt comp logged on (just restarted) and when I tried to log on with my main the client got hung up on "VERIFYING PROTOCOL VERSION..." it would then kick me out to a screen that says "UNABLE TO CONNECT TO SECOND LIFE. THE SYSTEM MAY BE DOWN. ......"

I am not a networking wizard but I have it set to find an automatic IP addy on each box.

WEIRD THING in order to get my main comp to work again I had to completley reinstall XP on my system (Tried clearing cache, deleting temp files, disk clean up, disk check, even tried to restoring to 3 different points) I kept getting the errors. I had no problems reinstalling on my main as I just reinstalled 2 weeks ago BUT now my alt sytem is doing the same thing and I really dont want to reinstall that OS.

someone PLEASE help.

The system is down for everyone. Lindens are doing yet another update to SL. Check http://secondlife.com/status/

No this started last night I was able to connect on one of the computers

Is it possible that there is a networking issue dealing with my router?

What kind of router? (Make and model.)

SMC Wireless Barricade

I have this EXACT same problem with my LinkSys router/switch (BEFSR41 Rev 1)

Prior to version 1.4, I had no problems getting two different avatars to login from different PCs from behind my router.

Since 1.4, if one PC was logged into Second Life, any other PC on my home network cannot login at all. It will hang on the message "checking protocol version" when the client is connecting and checking stuff, but eventually times out on that message. Also the first PC logged in wouldn't be effected from othe other PCs trying to login.

Even after logging the first PC out of Second Life, I still needed to wait about 30 minutes before any other PC could login to Second Life. However I could re-login with the 1st PC soon after I logged out. It's like it's some how locking down access to just one computer at a time, on a first come first serve basis. I didn't have to resort to reinstalling windows XP.

I was told from a friend that it was an issue with Linksys. Sounded more like anti-linksys propaganda, since he was telling me things that sounded more like urban legends rather than fact. Lol.

I also used my router on a different ISP (Cox cable) for the past month, with the same problem, and the problem still exists back home with Comcast. So it's not an issue with my ISP.

I also don't think it's an issue with my router (or to blame directly), since it worked fine prior to SL client version 1.4, and in this thread it was just mentioned an SMC router is having this problem.

So what's different in 1.4 that caused this? I've contected help twice about this in-game, and never got a reply back about this.

__ HUGSaLOT

Quick update:

After logging out from one of my PCs.. if I go into my routners setup page, and release and then renew the routers IP via DHCP, I'm able to login in to SL with my other PC, and dont have to wait so long.

However I still cannot have two machines logged at the same time.

It neither is a Linksys nor a SMC Barricade issue, it's a Second Life issue. Second Life uses UDP for communication; UDP is connectionless, your router has no way to tell where to relay incoming UDP packets. It can take an educated guess based on who sent out packets on related ports, but that won't work if two machines are using the same port range. If the router randomly sends incoming packets to the machine that sent out the last outgoing one, it will mess up both clients too.

Fortunately, Second Life will use an alternative port if the preferred one (12034) isn't available. All you need to do is lock this port on one of your PCs, causing SL to use 13000 instead (or something).

Attached is a small zipped Windows exectuable that just binds to UDP ports until you close it. It *might* work or it might not - it did for me. Just run the executable on one of your PCs - it should display "bound to udp port 12034" and "bound to udp port 12035". Enter additional ports if more are needed. Leave it running as long as you want Second Life to use the alternative port. Hit Ctrl-Z and Enter to close it.

(Disclaimer: I wrote this just now and it survived approximately 5 minutes of testing until I lost interest, so don't expect too much )

Um, I have yet to learn that previewing an article will remove the attachment Here it is again.

Ah it worked! I had to keeep trying it a few times but it eventually worked. This still dosen't explain why I was able to do this prior to versionj 1.4, and since 1.4 I can't do it.

Perhaps the client needs a built-in abbility to automatically change ports if it sees them already being used. Perhaps the client prior to 1.4 did this already and it's just broke now.

Thanks for the help.

Hey, I just wanted to do a bit of clarification on what's going on, and point out an easier solution than running the Windows app - the Second Life client has a -port <number> command line option that will set what outbound port number that it uses, which should have the same effect.

As for what's going on with the Linksys routers, Cray's explanation is not QUITE correct:

How NAT is supposed to work is that each individual IP and outbound port combination inside the firewall is supposed to map to a different outbound port on the router. For example:

192.168.0.A port 12035 -> router port 1
192.168.0.B port 12035 -> router port 2

So to Linden Lab's servers, all the packets from computer A appear to be coming from port 1, and all the packets from computer B appear to be coming from NAT port 2.

Then, when we send packets back to the router, the router redirects all the packets going to port 1 to computer A, and all packets going to port 2 to computer B.

At least, that's how it's supposed to work. Some routers have limitations:

Some have address translation tables of limited size, so they can only manage a certain number of these mappings, and will drop mappings when there are too many, resulting in a connection being dropped. This is often the case with older routers (> 3 or 4 years old). This is especially true if you happen to be running any peer->peer file sharing software at the same time.

Some of the Linksys/SMC routers will apparently MISROUTE packets to the wrong computer if more than one computer is running SL - in other words, there are issues with their address translation lookup for UDP packets which causes them to make mistakes when determining which computer a packet should be forwarded to. Again, this could also be related to how many different outbound ports that you have currently active.

There's a decent explanation of how NAT works at this URL:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/nat1.htm

If there are people with this specific problem, EXACT make, model numbers and BIOS versions of the routers would be most appreciated. Linksys (and other home router manufacturers) have this annoying habit of having multiple major revisions of hardware with the same model number.

Of course, I'm not a real networking monkey, but I'm pretty certain that all of the information in this post is correct.

- Doug

This is the exact problem I am having.

Linsys Router
1.44.3, Feb 13 2003
BEFSR41 1.4

Mind you i was using this same router when I had DSL and had No problems at all.

Only when I went to cable did this issue arise.
alos Does Second Life use UDP or TCP for its connection?

I would assume TCP for securities reasons though that would be slower.

I kind afigured that what you said was the issue.
though why not just have the game use different Ip's to bgin with like say a game like Quake or others use. instead of locking it to a specific port?


Thanks for the help. Will try to map those address out once i know wich tcp or udp port to map.


Djnog
Http:///www.sittingduckradio.com
Station Manager
"We are Game"

SL uses UDP for most traffic.

The problem is with Linksys/SMC (and other routers sharing the same chipsets) and their UDP forwarding. Newer/better routers dont have this problem.

-Adam

OT
speaking of chipsets in routers; some routers share more then just chipsets. The home nat router market is a commodity market; so while the plastic box's may be different the insides are the same. The nat router i have which was made by SMC can be flashed with a competitors firmware (each ironically has different bugs). while the hardware may be the same different "manufacturers" have to design their own firmware. I think most out-source the driver development. It's kind of sad.

Not to sound Niave, but why use UDP in the first place?

using TCP would have solved this issue in the first place no?
and why does the issue aonly arrise when I have my cable and not with DSL.

UDP is faster and more effective for streaming large quantities of information. The fact that there isn't a simultaneous TCP connection for handling chat, IMs, object editing, etc. really annoys me, however.


The problem could be farther upstream from your router. Your ISP's hardware could be crappy.

I doubt it's a Linksys issue. I have a Linksys WCG200 and have no problems with simultaneous SL logins on multiple machines behind the Linksys NAT firewall.

https://secondlife.com/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Problems+with+multiple+computers+on+one+connection

Okay, this actually seems to solve the problem. But, this is the solution for PC. What is the solution for MAC? Now, we can get our three PCs to run together in the game, but the mac cannot log in until we have a similar solution.

thanks