I've been a huge fan of BI series of military simulators going back to the original Operation Flashpoint in 2001. I've been experiencing a problem with ARMAII since I purchased and installed it that I haven't experienced with prior versions. This problem occurs in vanilla ARMAII and Operation Arrowhead.
Every time I try to create a server on my local machine and have a client connect or Vice/Versa we get a "Connecting Failed" error. I did not experience this problem with either the original 2001 Operation Flashpoint or ARMAI.
I run many different online sims in multiplayer so I'm very experienced with setting up P2P servers. I running a Linksys router in non-DHCP mode so it's a very clean connection and the port 2302-2305 (tcp & udp) is set to the host IP. As I stated before I did not have this problem in ARMAI or the original OFP.
I've also done many different tests using PF Port Checker and tested the packet loss and up and down speeds with Comcast and I'm getting very good results. I have generally about 10-12 download and 5-6 upload and under 99ms for ping to most continental US servers.
This problem has also occurred with two completely different installations of the operating system. I was originally running XP professional and have recently switched to Win7 Professional and still have the exact same problem. A friend of mine in Washington state is also on Comcast and one of the things we did try is that we created a LAN server (I'm in NM) and connected via IP and it worked which is interesting and puzzling at the same time.
I do not have any problems connecting to dedicated servers like our squad server (TheFirst2Fight). One of the things that is constant is that when I create or try to connect to a P2P server of one of our squad mates I get a ping in red of 2500. When I connect to our squad server I get a ping of about 60-80.
System Specs:
Windows 7 Professional
8GB DDR3 Ram
Asus Rampage Extreme Motherboard
Intel Quad Core Q9650
Dual Crossfired Asus 5770 ATI Video Cards
OK, problem solved. I was confused about a couple different things but after going back and forth from here and emailing BI I was able to work out the final solution on my own.
It turns out that it is a router port conflict that was originating from the game. When you install the game and create a player profile you end up with a folder called "Arma2 Other Profiles", I'm sure this is no surprise as a lot of you probably already know that. Inside that folder (again no surprise) is your player profile "player.Arma2OAProfile.cfg"
This "player.Arma2OAProfile.cfg" part is important as it's the key to the conflict that I was experiencing. The reason is that I run Operation Arrowhead almost exclusively so the game is accessing my player profile using the "player.Arma2OAProfile.cfg" file. Keep this in mind if you are trying to resolve this issue and you are experiencing a similar problem.
It's my understanding that some older routers will have this issue but most newer routers are designed to resolve port conflicts. I've run into this issue with Steelbeasts as well and I'm not exactly sure what the terminology is so excuse me if I'm stating that wrong. I call it port conflict but it may be called something entirely else but the result is the same. The problem I was having was software related pertaining to the port being hard set by the game.
I'll explain:
In the CFG file towards the bottom there is a section that has some references to MP connection. The section reads:
currentCampaign="Campaigns\oaarmycamp";
difficulty="regular";
lastCampaignMission="Civil service";
remoteIPAddress="174.131.54.208";
remotePort=2302;
teamSwitchOffsetX=0;
teamSwitchOffsetY=0;
You'll notice that I have highlighted the offending line here in red.
When you remove the port text in the "Create Game" window here...
...it has absolutely nothing to do with removing or disabling the port for the game as far as I know. The port is still hard set by the config file and removing or leaving this blank does absolutely nothing. You can put whatever number you want in here and the port will still be set to whatever it is in the Config file. (maybe someone from BI can clarify this)
The solution I found is to use either one or the other but not both. I wasn't sure if it would work or cause a problem but I chose to delete the line from my config file rather than the router. I opened ports "2302-2305 UDP" for the additional ones needed for the in game chat. BI didn't answer my question regarding if it was possible to open multiple ports in the config file. The 2302 is only necessary for the game itself though from what I understand so it looks like it's set primarily for client purposes.
I'm not saying that this will work for everyone though. It works for me and now I can host anyone I want. We tested it again tonight and I was able to get several players into my server no problem and the ping is now showing the correct number for each player and not 2500 as it was before.
The bottom line is that if you are experiencing a similar problem to the one I was having, either open the port in your router or open it using the config file but do not do both. It causes a conflict that essentially cancels out the port you are trying to open by having them both there!
---------- Post added at 07:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:54 PM ----------
Hey PvPscene, I did try your suggestion here and wanted to thank you for putting it up there. Unfortunately it did not help and I posted what actually resolved the issue.
Thanks!