Has anybody else had problems connecting to LFS multiplayer? I am with TISCALI, well actually Pipex Homecall, who use TISCALI equipment.

Let me know, cheers :-)

We used to have tiscali like a couple of centuries ago, but switched because they block certain ports for filesharing. I guess thats the problem - try changing some ports, maybe it will work then.
Or are the blocking the master? (can you see the list of games?)

nice lfsw chatterbox flame spam btw... oO

Moved to Technical Assistance.

I think Pipex and Tiscali are both known for at least some bandwidth shaping on LFS-related ports. Have a look for similar threads in this section.

As I said before (in the other thread which evidently was deleted) I'm a Pipex customer and I've never had trouble with port throttling or blocking when using LFS.

I'm also with Tiscali & recently have started having issues connecting to LFS. Often can't get a list of races from the master server.

I'm with pipex, and I have never had any problems with port blocking. I read in a report on their website that they were going to restrict P2P bandwidth to 30 Kbps, but I would have said it was the other way, I feel like I have better download speeds

I've recently got rid of Tiscali as they were randomly without notice turning our internet off. The tech support you get from this is absolutely crap.

That said I never had any problems with playing games or downloading via P2P or torrents.

My advice is to get rid of Tiscali. They're cheap and cheerful for those who just like to browse the net and do emails.

I upgraded from Tiscali about 4 years ago and moved to Nildram (also a subsiduary of Pipex) and have no shaping or throttling issues whatsoever. Nildram tech support are really good their pipes are "fat" and the quality of the actual service high.

SD.

I have tiscali....no problems logging on to a host but i do loose sound, lfs crashes or the computer just hangs on a very regular basis.... my system is good enough to play Battlefield 2 with no problems......could it be tiscali?

if you go on the tiscali forums you will soon enough find ut that hardly anyone who has tiscali can play online in peak hours. if you can you are very lucky. i cant get a list of games, but i can connect if i click on join specific game. try that. just type the name of the server. if you dont know it look on lfs world.

i am moving from tiscali as soon as poss, its been 4 - 5 months since this problem first arose, and from what ive heard nothing has progressed. tiscali are rated at the bottom on many ISP rating sites. so i would not recommend staying wit them.

Check out Tiscali's reputation here
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php#

These things are never conclusive, but it certainly gives you a guide to who's a load of old pony in the BB world. Read the customer comments and make up you own mind.
I don't know anyone who has a good word to say about Tiscali.

I've been having a lot of problems getting into LFS games recently, sounds a bit like whats being described here. I'm with a company who uses Pipex to provide the actual connection and a lot of the time i get errors when i actually try to join a game, or it hangs for ages trying to connect and then fails. When i do get in the bars at the bottom left of the screen? my one gets that red bit every few mins, then eventually it just gets worse and worse until it just times out or something, and i get cut off.

Doesn't seem so bad away from peak times but it still happens, so can anyone diagnose this? i don't quite understand what you guys are talking about with the internet provider doing something to ports? any ideas as to what i can do anyway? really miss having a good blast on LFS.

Just as a note this only started happening for maybe the last few weeks to a month, before then i'd had pretty much no issues getting onto LFS with my PC/ Internet.

Same Problems Here - Tiscali - Unable to connect to master server this happens between 4pm and 11pm

Funny thing is though I can get around this to by using Join2Lfs to a certain extent - by using join2lfs I can connect to some servers such as USA City and some others that are not regularly in use but the STCC servers I still cannot connect to between 4pm and 11pm.

Seems to be a combination of Service Throttling and Port Blocking by Tiscali

I'll try and see if I can connect directly to the STCC servers by Connecting directly as mentioned above but if it's port blocking I doubt this will work.

PS. Any chance of hosts setting up servers with different ports or is there other issues I'm unaware of not being a techie - it's just if I can connect to a couple of servers with no problems then it must be possible to get around this problem.

Same Tiscali problems between 4 and 11.

Thing is I can't get on LimeWire at this time too.

Is there any way to change the ports used for LFS and P2P stuff to get around the throttling?

Quote from TiJay :

Is there any way to change the ports used for LFS and P2P stuff to get around the throttling?

Thats why there are these issues.

They started shaping common p2p ports, then people changed the ports their p2p software was using, now they shape a lot more aggressively.

For the best help in these situations, I would head over to ThinkBroadband.com and ask for help in the subforum for your ISP.

Quick reply's lads cheers but can the hosts stay one step ahead of the ISP's by changing to known ports that do not have issues ?

Tiscali say that gaming should not be affected as it is relatively low bandwidth with LFS using about 2 or 3GB / Month and thats hammering it, but they specifically deny port blocking ?

Quote from CELTIC100 :

Quick reply's lads cheers but can the hosts stay one step ahead of the ISP's by changing to known ports that do not have issues ?

Tiscali say that gaming should not be affected as it is relatively low bandwidth with LFS using about 2 or 3GB / Month and thats hammering it, but they specifically deny port blocking ?

They're not blocking ports, just shaping traffic.

Also, does Tiscali have 'peak' and 'off peak' hours ?

I ask because the soon as 'off peak' hits, everyone will fire up their BitTorrent and Newsgroup downloads at once. This floods the main pipes (centrals) and causes major packet loss, which will REALLY affect your gaming.

Quote from Bean0 :

They're not blocking ports, just shaping traffic.

Also, does Tiscali have 'peak' and 'off peak' hours ?

I ask because the soon as 'off peak' hits, everyone will fire up their BitTorrent and Newsgroup downloads at once. This floods the main pipes (centrals) and causes major packet loss, which will REALLY affect your gaming.

Tiscali have 'published' peak hours of 6pm - 11pm

Im on Tiscali and have no problems connecting too multiplayer at anytime of day or night all good here.

Quote from D N B :

Im on Tiscali and have no problems connecting too multiplayer at anytime of day or night all good here.

My god..we found the one happy customer I knew they had to have one somewhere
(hmm, you don't work for them do you? )

lol np, but better not speak too soon before i jinx myself and have problems with them too

I used to have some problems connecting to the master server a few months back, while with Virgin Media (NTL back then), but that was only very rarely, and since then its been great, its very cheap too, compared to the AOL package I had before NTL, which was just unreliable, poor customer service, expensive, so I switched to cable, and ill never regret it

Thats why you have connection problems. Because you have tiscili

BravaSX - Tiscali are an internet provider here in the UK, a lot of people who use them seem to be having problems.

I suggest you do the tests Victor posted in this thread - http://www.lfsforum.net/showth ... 0341&highlight=master

I wonder if a fellow Tiscali user could write a strong but polite letter persuading them to de-restrict the ports...