General X-Box Live Connection Query

B

Beattie

SPL
13 October 2004
First of all, I really wasn't sure where to post this, and since this is the only section I've ever posted in I just assumed here would be the best bet..

Basically, I have a Gold Live Membership which I barely use, I've never really been into the whole online gaming thing but had a couple of games on it with FIFA against a few mates and recently bought Euro 2008, and tonight found out so had a lot of my mates, so they started a league.

Now, on the rare occasions when I did use online, I always seemed to have problems with Chats just not working or cutting out and finding it tough to get games going in the first place (This session is no longer available, for example).

But since I didn't use it much it never bothered me, but with these leagues and stuff I could see me using it much more. Had a couple of games last night without any problems with one specific mate, then another one in the opening league match tonight, then came the next game against another guy and I just ran into 'This session is no longer available' about 5 times before it finally worked.

Then it got round to me playing my mate again in the league, I won, but it crashed on an image of my celebrating fans, meaning it rewarded him a 3-0 win.

I asked about this somewhere else I post a while ago, and all I got was 'A Router is to blame'.

My setup is.. Computer in the same room as the X-Box, modem in here to allow PC downstairs to connect. So I have a wire coming from the router to the 360, one from the router to the PC and what-not.. the same as any other setup.

So I genuinely cannot see where these kind of issues are coming from and since I'm going to be playing Euro online a lot by the seems of things, it's an annoyance.

I know this is a bit of a long-winded rant almost, but I am desperate for any advice.

And anyone can feel free to move this to a more appropriate forum and what-not.

Help greatly appreciated.
 
Go to the System blade, select Network Settings and then Test Xbox Live Connection. You'll be able to see what sort of NAT your system is behind, and if it's set to Moderate or Strict then you will only be able to connect to certain other users.

You need to get it to say Open, otherwise you will consistently run into problems. If it already says Open then that's great, and God knows what the problem is (is the internet disconnecting or just the 360?). If it doesn't, you need to fix it. The way you do this varies depending on the router. Find out which router you've got, then go to PortForward.com and follow the instructions for setting up Xbox Live.

If that doesn't work, try giving your 360 a static IP address that is assigned every time by the router, and set the Xbox 360 up in the Network Settings bit to match (manual settings rather than automatic). And if that doesn't work, try setting the Xbox 360's static IP address as a DMZ (i.e. all traffic is allowed to come in and out).

Don't ask how to do all that though, because A) it can differ hugely from router to router and B) it would take an age to explain if you're not PC savvy, I would just Google the above bit by bit until you manage to make the changes.
 
Thanks for your help.

Worryingly, my NAT says Open..

Nothing cuts off, I just seem to have problems getting chats working and actually connecting to games.

I'm beginning to think that maybe my internet connection is just poor or something.. confusing.
 
If your NAT reading is Open then everything seems okay on the 360 end. You could try the steps mentioned in the above post anyway, opening the Xbox Live ports and making the 360 IP static should make things faster for your router to comprehend. And before all that, if you haven't tried it yet (and I know it's obvious but some people don't because they don't think it will help), try rebooting the router. Sometimes that can clear out problems.

But it does sound like something to do with the internet connection, a friend had similar trouble and it turned out that the ISP was crap with consoles in the end. It would block out everything, it even blocked out certain PC games - Quake Wars was one of them, it just blocked the port and you couldn't manually change it (not easily, anyway).

If you try everything and you can't get it fixed, and Googling your router doesn't bring up any pages that say "THIS ROUTER IS CRAP WITH XBOX LIVE", give your ISP a ring and tell them what's going on.
 
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