When you get a list of games all you're getting from the master server is a list of addresses and ports, effectively. Once your PC has that list it's up to your PC to query each server in that list. When you're joining a server the only thing that happens, with relation to the master, is that it is informed that you're currently online and where.

What I'm saying is that if you're having trouble, but are to complete the tests above fine (which you can), then there are bigger problems.

Do you find that some servers are better than others? Certain times of the day, perhaps? Have you noticed any other degradation in performance?

I'm guessing that you're probably using one of the ADSL services..? Are you able to check the attenuation, etc.?

Edit: Interestingly you're posting IP address is listed as a US IP. Now this could be a load of bollocks, but if you're going all the way over to the US and then back, then this could explain it. Fixing it would be an entirely different matter and would more likely be in the realm of the ISP... Unless you're remotely connecting to another box?

Quote from the_angry_angel :

When you get a list of games all you're getting from the master server is a list of addresses and ports, effectively. Once your PC has that list it's up to your PC to query each server in that list. When you're joining a server the only thing that happens, with relation to the master, is that it is informed that you're currently online and where.

What I'm saying is that if you're having trouble, but are to complete the tests above fine (which you can), then there are bigger problems.

Do you find that some servers are better than others? Certain times of the day, perhaps? Have you noticed any other degradation in performance?


I'm guessing that you're probably using one of the ADSL services..? Are you able to check the attenuation, etc.?

Edit: Interestingly you're posting IP address is listed as a US IP. Now this could be a load of bollocks, but if you're going all the way over to the US and then back, then this could explain it. Fixing it would be an entirely different matter and would more likely be in the realm of the ISP... Unless you're remotely connecting to another box?

Thanks for your respnse mate, much appreciated . Me being a sort of technophobe and trying to understand what your saying....!

Are you saying that the problem lies with mt ISP? If so I can't understand why I have had no issues at all for the last year or so.

I am having the same problems on all servers, tonight I cannot connect to any server at all??

I am connected through AOL using their most speediest service so I'm led to believe.

It's weird that this has just started happening recently.

For info I have tried restoring my pc to previous, but still no joy??

Could it be AOL newly blocking the traffic or something?

Thanks for your help The_angry_Angel.

Save the thanks for things getting fixed, and even then, forget about it

Quote from AlienT. :

Are you saying that the problem lies with mt ISP? If so I can't understand why I have had no issues at all for the last year or so.

Unfortunately things will constantly change - everything from your path from your home to any other server on the world (this is by design), to BT doing engineering work, to AOL introducing new technology (such as throttling), to your local exchange reaching capacity (only applicable to some technologies), or it could be any kit you've got at home dying (such as any cabling, or a microfilter).

I do know that in select areas BT are moving, replacing and introducing new kit. I've personally been involved with one client's home worker who is now no longer within the limits for ADSL, despite not doing anything at his home, after BT were prepping his area for the 21C network (next generation network connection over the UK). However, your ping responses don't indicate anything that would usually indicate a poor physical connection - that said you might want to check the line attenuation and the noise levels - if you're using a home router you can usually log on to them and check the connection status just incase your posted results are lying.

Like the BT issue, if you had dying kit at home, you'd see a degradation in all internet performance.

After a quick scout around on the internet and the fact that a couple of other AOL users have posted in the last few days, would suggest that something strange is going on. Quite what exactly is another question. There appears to be the insinuation on multiple forums that AOL staff have told people that they actively play with the traffic after 6pm - as this is the internet it could simply be a load of bollocks.

I'm quite happy to change the port that theangryangel.co.uk 1 runs on, over the next few days. I'll start it off with something low. If you find thats better, and then in a few days time when I swap it to a higher number, and it's bad, then there's probable cause for assumption and complaint against AOL..

I'm off to bed, but I'd be happy to test directly with you tomorrow night or so AlienT?

A problem that you can experience with AOL is that they route your internet traffic through the US.

Seeing that your master tracert did appear to be a direct connection (not going through the US), have you tried connecting to UK hosts and see if there's a difference with non-UK hosts?

In either case, TAA is probably right with his post. I'm afraid the problem is on your end somewhere. I'm guessing it's your ISP. They can make changes to their network and make a mistake for example, leaving people with a bad connection. I've had it myself as well a couple of times (not AOL).
Maybe it's worth calling them about it (though i know this can be tedious).

Thanks for your replies Victor and Karl , I am pretty sure it is my end that needs to get fixed, now to sit on the phone for half an hour to eventually get through to someone at AOL that can't fix it .

I'll be back online soon though that is for sure

Hi ya

I've been unable connect to Master Server for a good while now, more than a year (Didn't think much of it 'cause I wasn't doing LFS anyways), and now I'd like to get back in.

I've done the tests, they come back ok, tried with Windows firewall off, have the newest version (patch Y). I can't unlock demo, can't find servers for demo, I can't even connect to LFS.net or these forums with Firefox or IE. LFSWorld I can connect.


You may wish to try using the master on the alternative port, which is 8080. To do this open cfg.txt. Find "Master Port" and change from 29339, to 8080. Save and reopen LFS. If that helps then your ISP is doing naughty things and fiddling data on certain ports.

If this doesn't work then it could be a local firewall problem. If you're in Windows, go into the Windows firewall control panel (or the control panel of whatever firewall solution you're using) and remove any reference to LFS. Reopen LFS and then ensure you're in windowed mode (shift+f4). When you make the first connection out you should get a warning asking if you want to allow LFS access to the internet. Say yes.

If this still doesn't work then it's possible that you're actually getting a response from the master, but the connection that your PC makes to each server to make the list (which is how the master list actually works) is being fiddled with. There are several reasons for this, the most common being that your ISP could be looking at "high port" traffic and throttling or blocking it. Because LFS uses a "high port" by default, there's potentially not much you can do about it except complain or persuade every server admin to run on a "low port".

That I haven't tried yet, but I've copypasted it to my email, I'll try that after I get back home.

Also, I've recently moved to my own appartement, the problem exists still. Thought it would be gone somehow after I get to new place, but no. I'm at my folks no, had the same problem here with my computer, with their laptop I have no probs at all.

Thanks for answers in advance.

Quote from Qurpiz :

I've done the tests, they come back ok, tried with Windows firewall off, have the newest version (patch Y). I can't unlock demo, can't find servers for demo, I can't even connect to LFS.net or these forums with Firefox or IE. LFSWorld I can connect.

Please check your hosts file (details in the first post).

You've said that the results come back "ok", but you've not actually given the results. My guess would be that they're working, but not actually resolving to the correct addresses.

Quite a while ago, when the master was being moved, some people were advised to change their hosts file, which would report the master, and other addresses, as another one. Since LFSWorld has never been in this list that people were being told to change, it sounds like your hosts file still has an entry, or set of entries, that are no longer needed.

Quote from the_angry_angel :

Please check your hosts file (details in the first post).

You've said that the results come back "ok", but you've not actually given the results. My guess would be that they're working, but not actually resolving to the correct addresses.

Here

I know they're in finnish, but I think you can see what you need.

I've tried all the things mentioned, not working.

Anyone? Anything?

I tried with Open DNS, did not work. In fact, it made it worse (=could not connect to Google)

hi
I am having a problem
I am staying at a university dorms and they blocked the p2p and the online games ports . and I cant acces the master server ever scince they blocked them .
I know from some friends who play (world of war craft) that they use some programs so they can trick the proxy from they following site http://www.your-freedom.net , still i tried several things from that site and it didnt work with LFS . so please can anybody help me or give me some advise to make LFS worke online .
thank you for your help

pings are preety good but cant connect to most of the server

Tracing route to master.liveforspeed.net [213.40.20.2]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.2.1
2 15 ms 18 ms 28 ms Genie20-lo64741.inter.net.il [213.8.255.156]
3 15 ms 17 ms 11 ms Shiri02-vl210.inter.net.il [213.8.229.194]
4 * 12 ms * Left720-po-channel2.inter.net.il [192.117.180.14
5]
5 13 ms 15 ms 13 ms May-gig4-2.inter.net.il [192.117.180.210]
6 103 ms 107 ms 83 ms Nirit-pos7-0.inter.net.il [213.8.8.34]
7 113 ms 111 ms 119 ms 62.189.84.225
8 165 ms 180 ms 173 ms so-4-0-0.xr2.lnd9.alter.net [158.43.150.161]
9 154 ms 192 ms 157 ms so-3-0-0.TL1.LND9.ALTER.NET [146.188.15.37]
10 * 157 ms 148 ms POS1-0.BR1.LND9.ALTER.NET [146.188.7.242]
11 101 ms 102 ms 97 ms so-7-0-2.core2.London1.Level3.net [146.188.68.21
0]
12 113 ms 120 ms 131 ms ae-22-56.car2.London1.Level3.net [4.68.116.176]
13 115 ms 113 ms 121 ms PACKET-EXCH.car2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.151
.98]
14 112 ms 118 ms 108 ms loncat01-ge-lon01.core.netline.net.uk [213.40.13
1.73]
15 119 ms * 126 ms master.liveforspeed.net [213.40.20.2]
Trace complete.

since a few days I can not reach www.liveforspeed.net or lfsworld.net or the master server !!

ping master.liveforspeed.net

Pingen naar liveforspeed.net [213.40.20.2] met 32 byte gegevens:

Time-out bij opdracht.
Time-out bij opdracht.
Time-out bij opdracht.
Time-out bij opdracht.

Ping-statistieken voor 213.40.20.2:
Pakketten: verzonden = 4, ontvangen = 0, verloren = 4
(100% verlies).
C:\Documents and Settings\hans>tracert master.liveforspeed.net

Bezig met het traceren van de route naar liveforspeed.net [213.40.20.2]
via maximaal 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.7.7.100
2 7 ms 9 ms 9 ms 78-21-128-1.access.telenet.be [78.21.128.1]
3 11 ms 8 ms 13 ms dD5E0FB21.access.telenet.be [213.224.251.33]
4 9 ms 11 ms 9 ms dD5E0FD49.access.telenet.be [213.224.253.73]
5 9 ms 6 ms 9 ms dD5E0FD1A.access.telenet.be [213.224.253.26]
6 11 ms 43 ms 10 ms dD5E0FDA1.access.telenet.be [213.224.253.161]
7 10 ms 10 ms 9 ms dD5E0FD8E.access.telenet.be [213.224.253.142]
8 18 ms 17 ms 16 ms Level3-Telenet-London [195.50.113.185]
9 88 ms 15 ms 216 ms ae-12-51.car2.London1.Level3.net [4.68.116.16]
10 17 ms 16 ms 17 ms PACKET-EXCH.car2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.151
.98]
11 18 ms 16 ms 19 ms loncat01-ge-lon01.core.netline.net.uk [213.40.13
1.73]
12 * * * Time-out bij opdracht.
13 *

nothing in host file.
HELP

Thanks Hanziboy
http://www.liveforspeed.be

you were blocked due to a new check in the pubstats - your pubstats grabber is a bit aggressive, so please have a look at that (ie. don't make continuous requests when tarpitted. At least, not 10 per second.)

Quote from Victor :

10 per second.

Ohhhh... BUSTED!!

That's MY kinda coding error

Quote from nitro man :

6 103 ms 107 ms 83 ms Nirit-pos7-0.inter.net.il [213.8.8.34]

That's the beginning of your problems, right there. You need to contact your ISP and tell them what you're doing (playing Live For Speed) and ask them to fix the routing problems for you.

Quote from Victor :

you were blocked due to a new check in the pubstats - your pubstats grabber is a bit aggressive, so please have a look at that (ie. don't make continuous requests when tarpitted. At least, not 10 per second.)

I thought that would be the case. On our Belgium (international) LF league we use a tool that checks the PB of every driver in the competion for that combo. My developer for that tool had read we may check every 5 seconds so we safely put it on 6 seconds. We update that list every hour. The outcome of the tool can you see on our webside http://www.belsimracing.be ( to move to http://www.liveforspeed.be ) direct link to the tool is http://www.petss.be/bsr/sywix/results.php . Before the block I've just changed the combo, so now only 2 racers drove enough laps to display the time.

So we had no intentions of overloading the system And will ask my developer to change the time to a safe 15 seconds/request.

I just hope My ISP changes my ip adres verry soon because as Master Admin of the league I can not do a lot right now.

Is there a way to send my ip adres to you guys to unblock me again??

thanks for the effort.

Ip adres changed .. back online

With version X i had no problems,but when i installed Y v. i cant see any servers..
My firewall is turned off.Hosts does not have any line containing master.liveforspeed.net.


TEST 1:
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\koja>ping master.liveforspeed.net

Pinging liveforspeed.net [213.40.20.2] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 213.40.20.2: bytes=32 time=99ms TTL=53
Reply from 213.40.20.2: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=53
Reply from 213.40.20.2: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=53
Reply from 213.40.20.2: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=53

Ping statistics for 213.40.20.2:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 93ms, Maximum = 99ms, Average = 94ms

TEST 2:


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

C:\Documents and Settings\koja>tracert master.liveforspeed.net

Tracing route to liveforspeed.net [213.40.20.2]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 52 ms 45 ms 46 ms 213-190-60-7.telecom.lt [213.190.60.7]
2 46 ms 45 ms 46 ms 81-7-119-117.static-ip.zebra.lt [81.7.119.117]
3 46 ms 46 ms 46 ms 82-135-178-106.dialup.zebra.lt [82.135.178.106]

4 61 ms 62 ms 62 ms s-b3-link.telia.net [213.248.97.165]
5 80 ms 77 ms 77 ms level3-117311-s-b3.telia.net [213.248.78.110]
6 76 ms 77 ms 77 ms ae-11-11.car1.Stockholm1.Level3.net [4.69.135.17
]
7 77 ms 93 ms 93 ms ae-4-4.ebr2.Dusseldorf1.Level3.net [4.69.135.22]

8 77 ms 93 ms 93 ms ae-2.ebr1.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [4.69.133.89]
9 93 ms 93 ms 93 ms ae-1-100.ebr2.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [4.69.133.86
]
10 107 ms 93 ms 92 ms ae-2.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.132.133]
11 92 ms 93 ms 93 ms ae-22-54.car2.London1.Level3.net [4.68.116.112]

12 264 ms 217 ms 185 ms PACKET-EXCH.car2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.151
.98]
13 93 ms 92 ms 100 ms loncat01-ge-lon01.core.netline.net.uk [213.40.13
1.73]
14 92 ms 93 ms 92 ms 213.40.20.2

Trace complete.

Can anybody(pro) help me..i really dont get it...so please help me...my msn is [email protected] add me ..i have the same problem...no servers no masterserver no nothing...help...

no help here for 3 days..

i wonder if anyone ever reads the previous pages. There have been so many of the same cases - all the answers are there if you would just look for them.

And people : sometimes internet connections just don't work - sometimes hardware breaks down or someone made a mistake. Nothing we can do about that.

its working..

Mafia17,how do you made it working ?
i've tried everything..no idea

simple...my network is not working every time...so some day i just tried again and it worked...that wasnt the games foult..bad network only...

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
E:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>ping master.liveforspeed.net
Pinging liveforspeed.net [213.40.20.2] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 213.40.20.2: bytes=32 time=103ms TTL=54
Reply from 213.40.20.2: bytes=32 time=104ms TTL=54
Reply from 213.40.20.2: bytes=32 time=104ms TTL=54
Reply from 213.40.20.2: bytes=32 time=103ms TTL=54
Ping statistics for 213.40.20.2:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 103ms, Maximum = 104ms, Average = 103ms
E:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>
E:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
E:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>tracert master.liveforspeed.net
Tracing route to liveforspeed.net [213.40.20.2]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms SL2141.home [10.0.0.138]
2 * 15 ms 15 ms bzq-79-178-14-1.red.bezeqint.net [79.178.14.1]
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * 16 ms 14 ms bzq-179-124-5.static.bezeqint.net [212.179.124.5
]
5 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms bzq-179-124-26.static.bezeqint.net [212.179.124.
26]
6 65 ms 64 ms 65 ms pal5-bi-1.pal.seabone.net [195.22.218.57]
7 88 ms 89 ms 87 ms decix-fra1-racc1.fra.seabone.net [195.22.211.223
]
8 88 ms 89 ms 88 ms level3-1-us-decix.fra.seabone.net [195.22.211.38
]
9 97 ms 90 ms 91 ms ae-31-55.ebr1.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.68.118.15
8]
10 89 ms 90 ms 91 ms ae-1-100.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.69.132.12
6]
11 96 ms 91 ms 104 ms ae-2.ebr1.Dusseldorf1.Level3.net [4.69.132.137]
12 100 ms 92 ms 93 ms ae-1-100.ebr2.Dusseldorf1.Level3.net [4.69.132.1
30]
13 109 ms 124 ms 109 ms ae-2.ebr1.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [4.69.133.89]
14 95 ms 102 ms 108 ms ae-1-100.ebr2.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [4.69.133.86
]
15 108 ms 107 ms 108 ms ae-2.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.132.133]
16 106 ms 108 ms 105 ms ae-22-52.car2.London1.Level3.net [4.68.116.48]
17 104 ms 103 ms 103 ms PACKET-EXCH.car2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.151
.98]
18 104 ms 104 ms 104 ms loncat01-ge-lon01.core.netline.net.uk [213.40.13
1.73]
19 105 ms 110 ms 104 ms www.lfsworld.net [213.40.20.2]
Trace complete.
E:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>

This is the results, i have big lag problem.

Help!