Quote from PtrlHead :

Anyone??

The IP entry is irrelevant. That's only recorded if you join a LAN server.

Assuming you've checked your LOCAL firewalls (i.e. if you used the Windows firewall, remove LFS from it, then run LFS in windowed mode, and reallow LFS access when it prompts you again - use roughly the same procedure for other firewall software) - the reason for this is how firewall software identifies a program and whether or allow it access, I won't bore you with the details.

If it's not this, then I'd suggest talking to your ISP as to whether or not they changed any internal policies, such as packet mangling (throttling, blocking, etc.) before I started looking at anything else local to your machine. Given that only a small minority of people are having issues it makes more sense that it's not something related directly with LFS itself, but perhaps some combination of hardware and LFS, or simply your ISP changed something when the patch was released.

Quickest way to test that would be to download an older patch and try to join an older server. If this works it's still no guarantee that things have not altered at your ISP. IT could be that they used a way to detect LFS and exclude it from any packet mangling, and that now no longer works (unlikely as I do not believe the netcode has changed much in Z).

If that works start providing more details about your computer, turn network debugging on in LFS, and attach the debug to a post when you fail to connect.

The fact that you can talk to the master server is irrelevant, as thats only used to get a list of servers. Since you can get a list, you clearly can talk to the master.

Quote from the_angry_angel :

The IP entry is irrelevant. That's only recorded if you join a LAN server.

Assuming you've checked your LOCAL firewalls (i.e. if you used the Windows firewall, remove LFS from it, then run LFS in windowed mode, and reallow LFS access when it prompts you again - use roughly the same procedure for other firewall software) - the reason for this is how firewall software identifies a program and whether or allow it access, I won't bore you with the details.

If it's not this, then I'd suggest talking to your ISP as to whether or not they changed any internal policies, such as packet mangling (throttling, blocking, etc.) before I started looking at anything else local to your machine. Given that only a small minority of people are having issues it makes more sense that it's not something related directly with LFS itself, but perhaps some combination of hardware and LFS, or simply your ISP changed something when the patch was released.

Quickest way to test that would be to download an older patch and try to join an older server. If this works it's still no guarantee that things have not altered at your ISP. IT could be that they used a way to detect LFS and exclude it from any packet mangling, and that now no longer works (unlikely as I do not believe the netcode has changed much in Z).

If that works start providing more details about your computer, turn network debugging on in LFS, and attach the debug to a post when you fail to connect.

The fact that you can talk to the master server is irrelevant, as thats only used to get a list of servers. Since you can get a list, you clearly can talk to the master.

I have already checked my firewall. It's not that.

I don't know much about these things but every time I turn my computer on I can join one (and just one) server with two or less players in it so can the problem really be in something blocked in internet traffic?

So changing my ISP would possibly solve the problem??

Can I somehow make a similar host-connecting test to some particular server as I have done to the master server in an earlier post?

im also getting DCed alot and sumtimes have the did not receive stuff problem, since patch z too... so i dunno...

As the angry angel metioned I think it must be partly hardware issue as there are people all over the world (Finland, UK, Australia, Canada...) having this problem. I bet there is at least some people in Finland playing LFS with same ISP and same kind of connection as I am and they aren't having any problems. Why? Because they have different PC's? My PC is nearly 5 years old so that may be part of the problem (I have the newest updates though).

My PC is 6 years old and everything works fine. What i do mean to see is that more racers get a time-out and disconnection from the server than in patch Y. There must be something different in patch Z i think.

I may have a way round the problem here!!

1. I first joined a server that had no players in it.

2. I left the first almost immediately and joined another server that had one player in it and drove there a few laps.

3. I joined a server with ~5 players in it and it worked (usually says "did not receive guest info")!!:woohoo:

4. I was able to join any server!!:banana:

Worked twice with me today. I just hope it's nothing temporary.

EDIT: My LFS seems to be now working fine! I can join any server normally. I haven't changed any settings or done anything so either the game has fixed itself or devs have done something about it.

I also have the same problem.
I upgraded to patch Z in the same time than upgrade to windows XP pro SP3. So I suspect more this SP3 than patch Z. Are the other concerned people equipped with SP3?

What are doing LFS client and server when transferring the guest info would be interesting.

Quote from Bogey Jammer :

I also have the same problem.
I upgraded to patch Z in the same time than upgrade to windows XP pro SP3. So I suspect more this SP3 than patch Z. Are the other concerned people equipped with SP3?

What are doing LFS client and server when transferring the guest info would be interesting.

im not sure about i have SP3(yes im noob at these things) but i do know i have windows XP pro

EDIT:Prtlhead, that worked for me till phase 4''i was able to join any server''

Weird. I only have that problem when I ALT + TAB out of LFS when its connecting to a multiplayer game. Otherwise, it works great.

Quote from batteryy :

im not sure about i have SP3(yes im noob at these things) but i do know i have windows XP pro

EDIT:Prtlhead, that worked for me till phase 4''i was able to join any server''

Well, for me LFS is working fine again. I have no problems what so ever. They just disappeared. I didnt do anything it just started working again so I guess its just lucky me . I really hope you guys can sort it out as I know nothing more thay you...

I got my lfs working no problem, but i have also been noticing ALOT of time outs and lost connections. It seems some people have gfx problems after patch Z.

EDIT: SP3 should NOT have problems with LFS, its just security updates. I myself have a man-made XP version and its called "SP3" but it works perfectly with lfs.

Quote from NoYPiDRiFTER :

I got my lfs working no problem, but i have also been noticing ALOT of time outs and lost connections. It seems some people have gfx problems after patch Z.

EDIT: SP3 should NOT have problems with LFS, its just security updates. I myself have a man-made XP version and its called "SP3" but it works perfectly with lfs.

does SP3 come from Service pack 3? i just installed that update

yes

I now have this problem. Or at least one very similar. I can connect to some servers trouble free and ther servers I get "Lost Connection to host" within seconds of joining.
There is one particular server that I play alot on and have always been able to connect, have good ping and untill yesterday never lost connection.

I have connected to this server many times trouble free with patch Z. I am not banned in any way from the server - quite simply something has changed. I have checked ports & firewall and all is fine, the only thing I can think of is that I did some file maint on my PC at the weekend.

Not sure if its relevant but this included cleaning browsing history, saved passwords etc.
Doubt its got anything to do with it but im outta ideas.

FYI, I had this last night, whereby I was playing along fine, and for seemingly no reason my connection was dropped. I dropped out to Windows, and my Wireless connection had dropped. After a few seconds, it re-negotiated again just fine.

So I started playing again, and rejoined a new server, played for about five minutes, and again I dropped from the host. Again, Wireless networking was down, and again it re-negotiated fine. It did this possibly five or six time, and only sorted once I rebooted.

It appeared that it was only happening when I was playing the game. I've been connected remotely to my PC at home all day today without a single packet lost, so I'll test tonight and see if starting the game causes Wireless to drop again. I suspect this might be more of an issue with the Windows TCP/IP stack, so I'll check the log files later and report back.

Quote from Trux :

I now have this problem. Or at least one very similar. I can connect to some servers trouble free and ther servers I get "Lost Connection to host" within seconds of joining.
There is one particular server that I play alot on and have always been able to connect, have good ping and untill yesterday never lost connection.

I have connected to this server many times trouble free with patch Z. I am not banned in any way from the server - quite simply something has changed. I have checked ports & firewall and all is fine, the only thing I can think of is that I did some file maint on my PC at the weekend.

Not sure if its relevant but this included cleaning browsing history, saved passwords etc.
Doubt its got anything to do with it but im outta ideas.

Try reinstalling (that's always something to do if you don't know what else to do).

Quote from dawguk :

FYI, I had this last night, whereby I was playing along fine, and for seemingly no reason my connection was dropped. I dropped out to Windows, and my Wireless connection had dropped. After a few seconds, it re-negotiated again just fine.

So I started playing again, and rejoined a new server, played for about five minutes, and again I dropped from the host. Again, Wireless networking was down, and again it re-negotiated fine. It did this possibly five or six time, and only sorted once I rebooted.

It appeared that it was only happening when I was playing the game. I've been connected remotely to my PC at home all day today without a single packet lost, so I'll test tonight and see if starting the game causes Wireless to drop again. I suspect this might be more of an issue with the Windows TCP/IP stack, so I'll check the log files later and report back.

I read from some other thread that some sort of "power-save modes" can cause this sort of problems. Try checking if your internet connection or windows is set to go in power-save mode after certain amount of time. If windows doesn't recognize that you are playing LFS it can just go in sleep mode and cut up the internet connection too.

Hi

I have that problem as wel. "Did not recieve guest info".
I have checked with my firewall. I donät have one installedon my computer but I have one in my router. I have tried DMZ, without router and everything. Nothing works for me. I have been abel to join two servers now in two days and none of them had more than 3 players online.

Exactly what does it do when you get that errormessage?

Quote from Zemathar :

Exactly what does it do when you get that errormessage?

That's I want to know too to understand the problem. I gonna ask the developers for it.
I tried Wireshark but my network knowledge is limited and I can only see that there's no network traffic when LFS is waiting guest info..

mmm, we are going nowhere :weeping:
It would be shameful to give up LFS just because of that connection problem :tombstone

Quote from Bogey Jammer :

That's I want to know too to understand the problem. I gonna ask the developers for it.
I tried Wireshark but my network knowledge is limited and I can only see that there's no network traffic when LFS is waiting guest info..

mmm, we are going nowhere :weeping:
It would be shameful to give up LFS just because of that connection problem :tombstone

Same here. I can't see any connection attempts to either the master server or the actually host. and now I mean nothing happens.
It would be nice to know what it is actually waiting for. Is it my computer who's listening for something that never reaches my computer. Yes, there is nothing arriving at my network cable. I have sniffed for everything but nothing comes up.
I have tried without my router and the built-in firewall so I have exposed myself to the internet without any firewall at all so that's not a issue here (with blocked packages in the FW).


I think it is somekind of a major error actually. If it was just one server that I had this kind of problem with then I could understand that it was something with just that server which didn't send me the guest info but not it is almost every server.

I wouldn't like to give this game up just because this! It's a good game/simulator! but it's not fun to drive alone

Tell me/us if you get any answers from any developer!

i find it really strange that people think "if it's just one server, it would be that server's fault but it's all servers so this must be LFS's fault, even though before I had no problems at all".

Have you (most people in this thread) EVER considered it could be your ISP's fault? Or perhaps it's time to do a virus / spyware check if weird things happen?
Ever wondered why there are hundreds of people online who have no problem whatsoever?
With many people racing online there's bound to always be a certain percentage of people with connection or computer problems. Until there's a no-connection epidemic you can be pretty sure it's not LFS at fault when you can't connect to a host.

Sorry if that sounds rude, but I'm tired of always having to say the same thing every time and I'm tired of having to convince people that there's other things than LFS that can go wrong and I'm tired of being blamed of stuff we have no control over. I long for the day that people start to think for themselves a bit more.

Quote from PtrlHead :

Anyone??

I'm now pointing at you too Victor as you promised to follow this thread and you don't have even a comment about this!

(not meaning to be agressive but it just pisses me off when noone's willing to help...)

And I'm tired of people misquoting me too.

--------
As for the guest info message and what it means - it's pretty straight forward : when you connect to a host you need to tell the host about yourself, so the host knows who joins. That's guest info.

Quote from Victor :

i find it really strange that people think "if it's just one server, it would be that server's fault but it's all servers so this must be LFS's fault, even though before I had no problems at all".

Have you (most people in this thread) EVER considered it could be your ISP's fault?

Actually I've not found out yet the origin of the problem, so I didn't deduced it's LFS's fault.
About my ISP, I doubt that it blocks the guest info packets and not all the other ones (including the underground websites I visit sometimes :razz but if it's the case, LFS would be finished for me :weeping:

Quote from Victor :

Ever wondered why there are hundreds of people online who have no problem whatsoever?

That is the question.

Quote from Victor :

As for the guest info message and what it means - it's pretty straight forward : when you connect to a host you need to tell the host about yourself, so the host knows who joins. That's guest info.

Ahh ok thanks for the info. Time for me to go deeper in my investigation.

PS: you are angry? me not

Guys I found a clue

I checked the bigger difference since last time I've played LFS online: my modem.

I switched back to my good ol' modem and configured a PPPoE connection within XP (the username and password are stored in windows not in the modem which acts in this case in bridge mode). Connect to a LFS server, it works.

Just after I've reinstalled my new current modem, connect to a LFS server, it doesn't work.

It seems that the modem my ISP forced me to use doesn't stop to prove me it's a sh*t. But it's not a firewall problem, nor a virus.

So I must find now what exactly in that crap blocks the guest info. But I'm starting to think that the guest info may be wrong and the server could not reach the player's computer.

Good new

I managed to connect to any LFS server.
I applied the same internet connection method with my new modem as my old one. It seems to like it because it automatically switched to bridge mode . I still hate this modem..
I remember that I had lowID problem with eMule several years ago with my old modem. That's why I switched it to bridge mode. It's probably the same problem with LFS.

Here is my workaround; sorry for French XP screenshots (and possible wrong translation to english):

1. Open network connections in windows configuration panel
   
2. Then click on "create a new connection" on the left
   
   
3. Click "next" and select "establish a new connection to internet"
   
   
4. Select "Manually setup my connection"
   
   
5. Select "Connect to a (wide band) using an username and a password"
   
   
6. Enter a name for your connection
   
   
7. Enter the username and password your ISP gave to you. NEVER tell them to ANYONE!!
   
   
8. Click finish
   
9. Before using this connection make sure your modem is disconnected from internet (not from your computer!) and set it up to make it in bridge mode (depending on the model, maybe it's automatic, I don't know)
   
10. you can connect to internet with your new connection method
    

Hope this will help the most users as possible.. For me the problem is solved.

That's good you found your problem and could fix it.

I have also found mine!

For start, you can't have F-Secure (antivirus) online. You need to deactivate it. For some reasons it will stop the guest info package to be received. I knew that since earlier so that hasn't been on.

But the major thing was my ISP. I have 10MBit/s connection via fiber. (wonderful by the way) I called them and told me my problem. they told me that there wasn't anything wrong with my connection so I had to get some tracert's and mailed them to them. It was some kind of routing/BGP-problems that they had. Sometimes depending on the load they had at the time my traffic was routed in different ways. One of the ways had a routing problem.

So my problem was actually a ISP-problem! But keep in mind to de-activate your anti-virus program.

Quote from Zemathar :

That's good you found your problem and could fix it.

I have also found mine!

For start, you can't have F-Secure (antivirus) online. You need to deactivate it. For some reasons it will stop the guest info package to be received. I knew that since earlier so that hasn't been on.

But the major thing was my ISP. I have 10MBit/s connection via fiber. (wonderful by the way) I called them and told me my problem. they told me that there wasn't anything wrong with my connection so I had to get some tracert's and mailed them to them. It was some kind of routing/BGP-problems that they had. Sometimes depending on the load they had at the time my traffic was routed in different ways. One of the ways had a routing problem.

So my problem was actually a ISP-problem! But keep in mind to de-activate your anti-virus program.

i may be having that F-secure problem. but im not sure should i de-activate it. i got a virus on my computer, but f-secure blocks it from doing anything. so, if i turn it off, i will relase a virus