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Topic: LAN Connection

charlietame
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Joined: 2020-08-24, 02:26
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2020-08-24, 02:41

Only see one mention in the FAQ which seems like the same issue. Both machines fresh install of Build21(Release) and both running Linux Mint 19.3. Same issue both ways. Start host machine with the client machine running, see the host displayed on the client but connection is refused with the message that the host shut down (Except it didn't). If host is started before the client machine it is not seen on the client at all. As mentioned this happens whichever way I start both machines.

Ports 7394, 7395 and 7396 are mentioned in the online manual and are open and neither machine is running firewall or AV and open on the router (Assuming that is working correctly). Just wondering if there is a port issue or something maybe with Mint. Not a huge issue, just thought I would mention it in case it affects others.


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Notabilis
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Joined: 2016-11-03, 20:37
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2020-08-24, 17:58

Welcome to the forum!

Sorry to hear that you are having problems with the game. We have another networking bug with Linux Mint open, maybe they are related: https://github.com/widelands/widelands/issues/3973

It would be great if you could check whether you encounter the same problem as described in the bug and, if possible, try some of the debugging steps mentioned in the comment. Unfortunately I am unable to reproduce the bug on my (not Mint) Linux system, so I need some help with debugging it.


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charlietame
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2020-08-25, 04:34

Thanks for the reply and I know that this isn't a Mint forum but some time ago upgrading from one version to the next caused havoc with file sharing that had worked fine with the earlier version so it did cross my mind that maybe it was a "Mint" thing. Bit pushed for time right now due to something at work earlier but have a machine running the very latest version of Mint and just installed Widelands from the repository... it says build-20. The response here is Warning: Could not establish connection to host. This is not the same as if the host is not running at all because the host does show up at first.

  1. You must be on the "Begin Network Game" screen before starting the host(s).
  2. I started a host (Build 21) and a host (Build 20) and on the client screen both of them appeared but both have the "State" marked closed. Unless I select something like Weak AI the start button on the host is greyed-out. After a failed connect that host vanishes from the "Begin Network Game" screen.

So all hosts only show up when the client is on the Begin Network Game before the host is started. After failed connect the host disappears. Games on hosts are always listed as State : Closed When starting a host the default is "Open" but the start button is inactive. Other choices enable start button but always come up as "Closed" on the client. It then appears as if the server does indeed shut down (Basically says go away client you cannot see me).


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charlietame
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2020-08-25, 05:02

Ping 127.0.0.1 and Ping localhost both work. Running client and host on the same machine still fails with machine name / localhost / 127.0.0.1.

Not sure what the game state "Closed" displayed by the hosts means.


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charlietame
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Posted at: 2020-08-25, 06:04

As I mentioned I have a rough day at work tomorrow (like today) but could some problem with the way Widelands is allowing the "Open" game status? I am going to try W7 as host and see what happens and also W10 when I retrieve my laptop tomorrow.

On the W7 machine the server shows up with game status "Open" so that's different but goes to closed when the host game starts. After a long time I got the same "could not establish a connection" message so next step is to try a client on that machine... and getting the same result. I should add that these machines are a combination of wired and wireless so I don't think it's a network issue per se, however I have Windows firewall off and the router shouldn't be interfering. So apparently I have the same problem windows > linux, linux > windows and also with server / client on the same machine. I can't think of anything I'm doing wrong here but nobody's perfect.


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charlietame
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2020-08-25, 10:28

Hah, I think I was making a wrong assumption, ie that one could see and join a game after the server was running. You can't, the sequence is start the server machine with the client(s) waiting on the LAN display screen. The server shows up on the clients and the clients select to join. Only after that select start on the server. If the server selects a 2 player map eg "Crater" but includes AI, 2 clients (maybe more) can join but it seems they both become spectators so neither client can actually play. So in short I need to do more experiments but in this case I think the error was assuming the wrong way to do things.


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charlietame
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2020-08-25, 18:26

On the W7 machine despite my setting the firewall to "Allow" local stuff it seemed to still be causing problems... I turned the firewall off and still nothing but after a restart all was well so as a last minute effort I restarted everything and set 2 Mint machines and the W7 as hosts (Different maps) and was able to see them all from a Mint machine at work. I should add that for some time I have run Apache server on one machine so it been accepting port 80 requests and FTP requests for over a year... I used the port addresses 7394,5,6 and was able to connect from work no problem. That is the only hardwired machine via very close DSL phone building.


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2020-08-25, 19:43

charlietame wrote:

On the W7 machine despite my setting the firewall to "Allow" local stuff it seemed to still be causing problems... I turned the firewall off and still nothing but after a restart all was well so as a last minute effort I restarted everything and set 2 Mint machines and the W7 as hosts (Different maps) and was able to see them all from a Mint machine at work. I should add that for some time I have run Apache server on one machine so it been accepting port 80 requests and FTP requests for over a year... I used the port addresses 7394,5,6 and was able to connect from work no problem. That is the only hardwired machine via very close DSL phone building.

Glad you found out how it works in your setup


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Notabilis
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2020-08-25, 21:06

Thanks for testing and glad you got it working for you.

Since based on your description there seems to be something strange going on with Linux Mint, I will try to set up a virtual machine with it and check whether I can reproduce any of your problems. Not that I am overly confident that I will be able to do so...


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charlietame
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Pry about Widelands
Posted at: 2020-08-27, 06:48

Having gone back over what was happening the real odd thing is why I could start hosting a game but not see it when launching a client afterwards... However if I had a client running on another machine when I began hosting it the server did show up. After I made adjustments to the router and rebooted it and all the other machines the host machine did show up on clients when they were started so whatever that issue was maybe the router was blocking something like broadcasts or whatever. About 2 weeks ago we had a severe thunderstorm that upset some of the IT gear at work and some of the facility satellite TV receivers so who knows what might have come down the power lines and flipped a few bits. Either way that invisible server issue has now gone.

It now appears that all is working just as it should on W7 and Mint with any combination of machines including 3 AI 0 humans or anything in between so it does look like a communications problem rather than anything else. As I mentioned Mint did once mess up file sharing (The same setup had worked fine with Ubuntu) which did make me suspect a Mint issue but I find that any combination of V19.3 and the new V20 also works so I wouldn't waste too much time on it... have to guess on some local glitch plus a failure to see it on my part. Thanks again for the ideas though.


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