You said that you did disable the windows firewall in your first post.
Just for experimenting. Not as a solution...
You could try to disable your rooter firewall and whatever software firewall you have. And keep it in that way till you figure out what is happening.
Also try to calm down… this doesn’t help you or anyone who want to help.
You have enough theoretical knowledge and you will find the solution just stay focused that this is your operating system settings – rooter NAT – firewall – ISP problem.
There is nothing wrong with the LFS’s master server.

Quote from shorty943 :

This is getting ridiculous.
HELP ME PLEASE!

What happens if you do this in a command prompt?
Does it tell you that it cannot open the connection to the host on port 8080? Or do you get a blank window with a flashing cursor?

-NZ- yes mate, done that as well. There is not one genuine tip for help I have not tried, from victor's, on down, that has worked.

If there was something wrong with my inhouse configuration, I would not be posting here. I think.
All my network, IP, NAT, ISP DNS, IPTables firewall, router, all tally exactly with the addresses and ports given. I even have the secondary numbers set as my secondaries. Still to no avail.

kaynd. Calm down? I am a former front line fighter. I AM CALM.

I will admit to a certain elevated level of "what the?".
You will find most people like me use an urgent black humour to "break the ice". Something younger people may not understand and take wrongly, as aggression or anger.
Quite often, as it happens.

The one thing I point blank refuse to do however, is to drop my router IPTables firewall. Not ever gonna happen.

Just every so often this happens, whether to me, or the machine I custom built, I haven't quite figured out yet.
But, just every so often I find a program that just won't work, for anybody, on this machine.
Oh, how I would hate this to be one of those times.
Anything, at all, by Codemasters refuses to run properly on this machine.
Now there seems to be glue in this one somehow.
Tuesday, Wednesday, now most of today, I've had enough for today.
If you can come up with anything, thank you for your efforts.
I'll log in again tomorrow.

Thank you all for your help.

Shorty.

Quote from the_angry_angel :

What happens if you do this in a command prompt?

telnet master.liveforspeed.net. 8080

Does it tell you that it cannot open the connection to the host on port 8080? Or do you get a blank window with a flashing cursor?

Blank window flashing cursor.
I'll bet that is not good huh?

That means you have the facility to establish a connection with the master server, at least (so sort of good in that its not a general network issue). When you're running LFS and trying to unlock it are you running fullscreen? Have you tried running in Windowed mode (shift+f4 in LFS), and then trying to unlock? Does anything else happen on the PC when you do this? Any dialogs pop up that may have been missed?

Nope. That didn't work either.

U really should try a few things to help determine where it is going wrong. (please don't lock me up in a engine room with no airco at the operators desk if u already tried following suggestions. )

-install the latest firmware on your router, reset it to default settings (should be a button or procedure in the manual), put your Pc in the DMZ (don't care if u want to or not..u HAVE to try without your firewall settings for 5minutes) and try unlocking LFS.

-Install a linux build that can run LFS on your leisure laptop, hook it up to the net and try unlocking.

-connect to a free (local) dial-up ISP via a mobile on both your laptop and Pc and try unlocking ( to rule out your ISP)
If "ae-2.ebr4.NewYork1.Level3.net" really is the last hop in your trace somethings wrong as the LFS master server should be in the UK (or was it the Netherlands?)

-Haul your Pc and lfs-ready laptop to a friend or relative with internet and ...u got it... try unlocking. In case none live anywhere nearby, call the closest internet cafe and ask if u can hop by with your pc and laptop to test. (or find an open hotspot somewhere near flatbuildings or other high density housing if your laptop has a wireless NIC)

Can't think of much more, but trying those should give some clues to where the culprit resides.
Hope u can find a fix soon and start enjoying LFS ,with this whole unlocking saga being but a distant memory

Quote from shorty943 :

If there was something wrong with my inhouse configuration, I would not be posting here. I think.

Actually when I said about ISP problems I didn’t mean no connection at all…
I have seen cases where temporary the user’s ISP for some reason wasn’t able to connect with the servers on another ISP.
But anyway I guess that lfs forum is at the same master server so that’s not the case now
Especially after you did the last check that angry said.


can you check if LFS tries to send packets o it just does nothing?
Or anyway if these packets are blocked?

Since no one has asked the obvious (its only just occured to me tbh) -
* Have you tried resetting your GAMEpassword in the LFS.net control panel - this is the password you should be using, not your WEBpassword (which is for LFSW, and the forums) - they may be different
* Are you able to get a list of games up for the DEMO?

tbh I'm with Noccy on this one. There's a hell of a lot of possibilities of what it could be and without sitting in front of the computer and having a good play we might never come up with the solution (sometimes it just takes one tiny thing to trigger a whole thought process - or at least that's how I work tbh).

Quote from Noccy :

U really should try a few things to help determine where it is going wrong. (please don't lock me up in a engine room with no airco at the operators desk if u already tried following suggestions. )

-install the latest firmware on your router, reset it to default settings (should be a button or procedure in the manual), put your Pc in the DMZ (don't care if u want to or not..u HAVE to try without your firewall settings for 5minutes) and try unlocking LFS.

-Install a linux build that can run LFS on your leisure laptop, hook it up to the net and try unlocking.

-connect to a free (local) dial-up ISP via a mobile on both your laptop and Pc and try unlocking ( to rule out your ISP)
If "ae-2.ebr4.NewYork1.Level3.net" really is the last hop in your trace somethings wrong as the LFS master server should be in the UK (or was it the Netherlands?)

-Haul your Pc and lfs-ready laptop to a friend or relative with internet and ...u got it... try unlocking. In case none live anywhere nearby, call the closest internet cafe and ask if u can hop by with your pc and laptop to test. (or find an open hotspot somewhere near flatbuildings or other high density housing if your laptop has a wireless NIC)

Can't think of much more, but trying those should give some clues to where the culprit resides.
Hope u can find a fix soon and start enjoying LFS ,with this whole unlocking saga being but a distant memory

No worries mate. It's when the Chief Engineer goes quiet, everybody scarpers. I'm venting steam at my own thick headed blindness as well don't you worry.

Router was updated very recently. log in reset to default, save config, restart. Again. I'll leave the rest of that bit as a last resort if you don't mind. (See Shorty fret and frown).


Read many, many threads on LFS and Linux, install the most reccomended flavour to the Acer Veriton P4 Desktop that is my Linux Playpen. Laptop sacred banana.


Connect to free local what?
ROFL. Mate, I live outside of a tiny country town, on the edge of a bloody great big desert.

Oooh, it's hard to type when I'm ROL RLO oh, you know what I mean.


The last one is even better. Mental picture.

Scruffy old sailor\farmer, roars into town in the old Land Rover.
Set up the portable generator, in the main street, sets up the computer, and PIRATES the local council wireless ADSL.

Or.

The friend across the river, on a different provider, and lushious 1 Gig satellite connection is going to get to like LFS.

I'll work my way through them.



kaynd, exactly. This one's a ripper of a snag.



Angry, Okay. I'll try doing that. It may be a fragged memory cell in my grey matter. I do have a few you know.

And, the usual thanks.
Oh, no it just came up with "Can't connect to the master server" again.
Right now, as I type this, it is closing in one 1 hour till mid-night here.
Almost 2300 Thursday night.
I have been wrestling with this thing since lunch-time Tuesday.
Maybe tomorrow, I'll be awake enough to think straight.

Thank you all for putting in this endurance effort for a complete stranger.
I'm going for a nap.

I tried a ping and tracert test on my ISP. This is the result.

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\shorty>ping lfs.games.internode.on.net

Pinging lfs.games.internode.on.net [208.67.219.130] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 208.67.219.130: bytes=32 time=243ms TTL=243
Reply from 208.67.219.130: bytes=32 time=242ms TTL=243
Reply from 208.67.219.130: bytes=32 time=231ms TTL=243
Reply from 208.67.219.130: bytes=32 time=235ms TTL=243

Ping statistics for 208.67.219.130:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 231ms, Maximum = 243ms, Average = 237ms

C:\Documents and Settings\shorty>tracert lfs.games.internode.on.net

Tracing route to lfs.games.internode.on.net [208.67.219.130]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.254
2 14 ms 15 ms 19 ms loop0.lns5.adl2.internode.on.net [203.16.215.249
]
3 23 ms 54 ms 219 ms v14.cor3.adl2.internode.on.net [203.16.212.254]

4 223 ms 219 ms 224 ms po3.bdr1.adl6.internode.on.net [203.16.212.146]

5 223 ms 219 ms 219 ms pos4-0.bdr1.syd7.internode.on.net [203.16.212.21
]
6 203 ms 199 ms 199 ms pos4-2.bdr1.sjc2.internode.on.net [203.16.213.53
]
7 228 ms 224 ms 224 ms ge-3-7.r02.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.1
1.97]
8 223 ms 224 ms 224 ms ae-2.r20.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.2
25]
9 193 ms 194 ms 204 ms ae-1.r21.plalca01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.5.3
2]
10 228 ms 224 ms 229 ms xe-4-1.r04.plalca01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4
.122]
11 202 ms 194 ms 194 ms fa-3-3.r04.plalca01.us.ce.gin.ntt.net [140.174.2
1.166]
12 234 ms 239 ms 229 ms nxdomain.guide.opendns.com [208.67.219.130]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\shorty>


My ISP's LFS server is alive and well it seems.
I can even understand that with an as yet still locked recalcitrant copy of the game, I can't see the server running, or even in IGN server listing for that matter. They don't run a demo server at all.

What I don't understand is why I even got sent out of my home state. Internode have a 50+ server farm inhouse. In Adelaide.
It is adl1 through to adl9.

Or why I can't connect with the master server to unlock my game.

OKAY, nuff, I hollered uncle.

noccy, you win.

I bit the bullet, dropped my router firewall, and she went through like silk.


Thank you very much to all who tried so hard to help.

WE DID IT.

I owe you a Coopers beer.

Wahooo

Hell yeahhhhh

Quote from shorty943 :

Umm, No Gunn, didn't you read the thread?

All of it? Hell no. Internode have a good rep though, but that won't stop me from putting down Optus at every opportunity.

Hope you get this sorted.

LOL. He already got it sorted

Quote from AndroidXP :

LOL. He already got it sorted

Hey Gunn, my personal pet dislike, is TELSTRA, my mobile phone carrier. Thieves they are.

Stupid God damned Billion router. The router firewall was blocking LFS.

Then I crashed that at about 2300 last night. Just got back online now.

Once again, thank you all for your patience and persistence, I'll catch you on the track some day.