Constant crash from MP lobby, disables network

[Blondini 0]

The specs:

Arma v1.08 (and 1.09 beta)

Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 @ 2.4Ghz

4 Gb RAM

nVIDIA 8800 GTS 640Mb DDR2 (169.21)

X-Fi XtremeGamer

XP SP2

The problem:

The game constantly crashes in the transition between being in the lobby and selecting a role and the initial data download, or, if not then, as it's in the loading frame just before entering the game. The loading bar at the bottom usually progresses to about half way and then I get the "no message received for 15... 20... 30... seconds" error and then the entire PC locks up and has to be rebooted.

If I alt-tab out and use explorer to end it I can stop the PC locking up but the thing that occurs every time is it disables my internet connection and I have to unplug/replug the wireless (NETGEAR) adapter to get it back up and running. If I don't manage to stop the PC crashing, when I reboot it doesn't detect the wireless adapter at all and I have to do the unplug/replug to get it to detect it again.

Things I've tried/noted:

All drivers up-to-date.

GPU and CPU temperature seem fine

Tried it with the anti-virus (AVG Free Edition) and Windows Firewall off - no difference

On the wireless router I've got ARMA port forwarding on 2302.

My pings to servers don't seem extraordinarily high - usually 100-200..

I don't have any problems with any other games

Once I manage to connect to a game it seems fairly stable, it's the getting into the games which is the problem.

Any ideas? I haven't seen anything similar in any other posts.

Cheers.

[ArmaVidz 0]

Sounds stupid, but when I had that issue I disabled my pagefile and my problems went away...like almost completely. Do you have the pagefile on?

You could try turning it off if you like...

Start Menu>Right-click "My Computer">Go to "Properties">Go to the "Advanced Tab">Under "Performance" click "Settings">Go to "Advanced" tab>Click "Change" at the bottom of that window>Select "No Page File">Click "Set" button>Click "ok" click "ok" click "ok">Reboot>Try to connect to MP like before.

Vidz

[sickboy 13]

Are you using a wireless program by the manufacturer of the adapter, or you are only using the drivers of it?

Im asking because i've heard about many problems with "Custom WLAN Software" as opposed to the XP SP2 built in wireless console etc.

In any case I would remove the custom wlan software, only install (latest) Driver, and let XP handle the wireless connection etc.

You don't need portforwarding as ArmA Client.

You need portforwarding as ArmA Server (Dedicated or ingame server), and in that case you need more ports than just 2302

A client however must be allowed to make outgoing connections on ports 2302 and 2304 (per default) udp  iirc.

Most routers/firewalls only block incoming connections, not outgoing.

[BraTTy 0]

I don't have a solution and possibly unrelated but my last pc was having a similiar problem.

Mine would sit at "waiting for host" and would require a hard reset to shutdown Arma.It was getting annoying that maybe 1 out of 20 tries would it actually go into the game.

Few reinstalls later finally fixed it and I am not sure what the problem was.

I tried most everything while it was happening, mostly networking related but no avail.

Single player worked fine and I have no addons or mods installed at all.

I didn't have a wireless adapter on that machine but I do have a belkin wireless usb adapter and I hate the built-n wireless utility that comes with it.

You think that'll work Sickboy? Just using the driver and let Windows handle the rest. I thought I tried that when I first got it.That would be kewl if it works like that I shall try again at some point

[Blondini 0]

Guys, thanks for the suggestions, tried them but no joy. Am going to go the reinstall route now since what Bratty said sounds very much like the probs I've got.

Cheers

[Blondini 0]

And we have a winner. Sickboy gets it. After my earlier reply I realised that the Custom WLAN software was still running so I deleted that properly, loaded drivers for the adapter only and left it up to Windows to run the adapter and now everything is running sweet as.

Thanks very much for the help.