Hosting mp in ofp i do not show up in the pool

[DOA 20]

When I try to host a MP game in OFP, I create the new game, but I am not in the pool of players. Others can join, I don't show up in the pool of players. Hosting with Resistance works fine. it is only if I try to host MP in Flashpoint.

I did a complete uninstall and reinstalled a clean OPF Gold, patched it to 1.46, then installed Resistance patched to 1.90. I did not reinstall any thing is not official. Same problem. I have tried to search through he registry, but can't find anything that looks like it may cause this. TIA ...DOA

I have OPF 1.46, Resistance 1.90, Dell 8200, 1.8Ghz P4 CPU, 512MB RAM, nVIDIA geforce 3 ti 200, etc. etc. I don't think this is hardware related.

Praise for the programers and developers:

Operation Flashpoint is the best military simulation ever, I have tried them all and they all come up way short when compared to OPF. :-)

[DOA 20]

When I host with Resistance 1.90, I show up in the pool of players, when I host with Flashpoint 1.46 I do not show up in the pool of players. I have done a complete uninstall and reinstall. Same issue. There is some line in a config file or some key in the reigistry that is keeping the local client from joining or being created. The uninstall leaves a lot of stuff in the registry and I guess that is affecting the new installs. I need a heavy weight to help with this one. TIA ...DOA

[DOA 20]

I connect in OFP multiplayer hosts, I show up in the pool of players and all is right with the world again.

I am going for the Maximum message length in characters: 76800...here goes...

On my problem machine I dual boot Windows ME, for backwards compatibility with some older software, and Windows 2000 for my main operating system. (Don't worry, I have XP on another box, I must support a Windows 2000 environment at work.)

I have Windows 2000 and frequently used applications installed on my D: partition. Nothing else. I get the OS and applications tweaked, then I image D: so I can restore it quickly.  I created this image about three months ago when I added a hard drive to this machine.

After the image was created I installed all games and simulations (like Flashpoint) on my E: or F: partitions, while booted into Windows 2000.

Tonight, after backing up my current data, I booted into WindowsME, which is on my C: partition. I then dropped a fresh Windows 2000 image onto my D: partition. This completely wipes out anything that existed on my D: drive. My current operating system and applications on the D: partition is replaced totally with the three-month-old D: image.

This effectively rolled me back in time about three months to the point where I built this Win2k image, a point before I had installed Flashpoint or any simulations. (I haven’t updated any drivers since creating this image)

It booted properly and I have not restored any backed up DATA from my recent Win2k profile. (Email, favorites, cookies, My Documents, Quicken data, etc.)

I navigated to my F: drive, to my Operationflashpoint folder (untouched by this re-image). I started the game with OPERATIONFLASHPOINT.EXE, (v1.46) I started a new MP game and I connected properly, I show up in the pool of players and all is right with the world again. *sigh* A Resistance MP host works as it always has.

I am afraid all this tells us is that my problem was not in my Operationflashpoint folder but somewhere on my operating system partition.  

Next I will do a complete install of OFP/Resistance to get the proper registry hacks on my newly imaged, totally clean operating system and I will restore my current personal data. If this issue pops up again at any point in this process I will post it here in painful detail.

The issue of uninstalls and reinstalls (to a different location?)has come up in several threads I am following/posted in the TROUBLE SHOOTING and in MULTIPLAYER Forums. I did uninstall and re-install OFP a month or so ago, when I moved all my FPS games to the F: partition. If I had to guess, and I do, I would guess that the original install puts something in the registry or on the OS root drive that is not friendly to the reinstall, and not easy to find. (A pitiful guess)

I have a few addons; but, not the infamous digital grenade. None of them write anything to the registry, and they are all still in my game folder which is now functioning properly.

The last thing I installed was the stand-alone dedicated servers. Could running the dedicated servers do this? (another pitiful guess).

Could a re-install trigger FADE? (a really pitiful guess)

I hope this somehow helps to resolve this issue. Good luck people…DOA

I built my current OFP game folder as follows:

Official BIS-Codemasters:

Operation Flashpoint Gold Edition -  OFP CD (V1.20)

Gold Upgrade CD  (upgrades to 1.30 and Red Hammer)

Patch to v1.46

OFP Dedicated server v1.46

Resistance

Patch to v1.85

patch to v1.90

Dedicated server v1.90

Unofficial:

Between the Lines (X Media Publishing)

Planet of War (X Media Publishing)

CAF monster truck addon

A few Planes

A few soldier units

CAF monster truck addon

I am just begining to download addons

No custom sounds yet

(All of these are still in my now functioning game folder)

[DOA 20]

I got this email from a guy that can't get hooked up to post. I know nothing about this. Directx closes ports?

I am posting this to see if it may be useful But again I know nothing about this...DOA

FROM THE EMAIL:

Hi,

Im kinda new at this posting stuff, and not a complete tech wiz, but I had the same problem. I finally got it to show my name in the pool. Maybe you can post this if it works for you. I cant seem to post.

Startup OFP and click multiplayer. Then click port and change the number to 2302. Then click NEW to host and you should show up.

It seems like directx 8.2 blocks out ports below 2300 and above 2400. It ended up being a Microsoft thing.

END of EMAIL

[abacab 0]

I found that the dudes explaination of Directx 8.2 interfering with the pots that OFP needs are right on the money for my problem, which is your problem. I tried his experiment and sure enough my name appeared so I thought I would upgrade to DX9 ...bad decision...now game crashes back to desktop when I try to open up the laptop. Oh well...where did I see that DXBuster proggy? Res uses sockets as default protocol and looks like OFP used Directplay exclusively. I go to Directplay in Res and I crash to desktop with DX9, leave it on sockets and all is fine.

[DOA 20]

I think changing the name of your host machine to something that does not start with a number will resolve this issue...DOA

Yes this name thing worked for me on three machines and I was able to duplicate my issue by putting a number at the begining of my servers computer name. Also don;t use special characters in the computer name...DOA

Here is the post I used to resolve this issue.