Hi all, I'm at my wits' end and I could really use someone's help. A friend and I were looking forward to playing Gears 4 together today. The last time we played together, we played the original Gears of War without any problems, way back in 2008ish. So, we both logged in and sent an invite. Note we're using the MS store version (I think that's the only one). Nothing happened. No messages, nothing to click. Turns out we first had to click 'fix' in the xbox profile thing (done) and then add a 'port forwarding' thing to our routers. Now, despite being into PCs, I'm no networking expert. I've had a look around and found this: https://portforward.com/gears-of-war-4/ I also managed to add a rule to my router: But when I check port 8000 at https://www.portchecktool.com/, it times out. I feel annoyed that I can't solve this, but there's no easy step by step guide on how to achieve this. On a side note, we're going to play GoW5 together in the future , but he's waiting for the Steam version to be on sale so we don't have to deal with this bullsh!t.
My first thought is why is the external port 8000? A quick shufty at that thur link doesn't mention 8000. My understanding is that both of your routers will be broadcasting the traffic via port 3074 TCP, and/or the UDP ports (88,500,3074,3544,4500) and upon arrival at yours, your routers firewall/NAT, such as it is, will say "No guv, ain't got no open port matching 3074" and poof goes the packet(s). I can't tell what router you've got there, and I doubt screenshots of how I'd configure it on mine would help all that much. I'd be looking for something that lets you create port groups, or objects, and ideally creating two something like; -GoW4-TCP --3074 -GoW4-UDP --88 --500 --3074 --3544 --4500 and then creating NAT rules (Or firewall, depending on how.. Broad the router is with its headings) that say something to the effect of; Source: WAN Port/Object/Group: GoW4-TCP Destination: LAN - This may be allowable to the entire LAN, or may need a specific destination providing as you've already done (IE: Your PC IP) Action: Allow/Forward/Pass/whatever the thumbs up terminology is on that router Source: WAN Port/Object/Group: GoW4-UDP Destination: LAN Action: Allow/Forward/Pass/whatever the thumbs up terminology is on that router You may also, depending how your router does stuff, also need to create the reverse to let the traffic out, so; Source: LAN Port/Object/Group: GoW4-UDP Destination: WAN Action: Allow/Forward/Pass/whatever the thumbs up terminology is on that router and TCP too obvs. Other thought; Do either of you operate a PiHole or similar DNS level blocking? At least one default list I've seen has a lot of the XBL stuff blocked, which has played havoc with my XBL stuff on PC, although weirdly not on the Xbox.
@liratheal Thanks for your post - I'm afraid that unfortunately it's mostly going over my head! It won't stop me from having another go later today or tomorrow though. This was chosen as the value was used in a Youtube video I found on how to port forward - if I don't put a value in there, the rule can't be saved. Not as far as I know. It's very common place, and from what I see, a lot of people give up on it. As expected, Microsh!t's support is non-existent, instead relying on the community to give answers. My friend and I ended up playing Wolfenstein Youngblood yesterday instead. Because Steam doesn't have these issues. Quite how a multi-billion dollar company like MS can't do something about this when Valve can is beyond us.
I'd change the rule to have the external port of 3074 instead of 8000, and see what happens. Although if it's as you say and a bunch of people have the same problem I'd be unsurprised to find that the porting team was one guy rocking backwards and forwards in the corner and MS have no intention of getting him some support. Is there a LAN mode? Might be able to run something like Hamachi to trick GoW4 into thinking you're both in the same place.
There's yer problem. I'mma drop into analogy mode, not to patronise but for clarity: Networking ports are kinda like letterboxes. You've a street with a bunch of houses on it, each with a house number, right? If you want to deliver a letter to Mr. Smith, you put it through the letterbox in house number 80; if you want to deliver a letter to Mrs. Jones, you put it through the letterbox in house number 22, and so on and so forth. Now, replace "houses" with "applications," "letterbox" with "port," and "house number" with "port number." If you want to deliver a packet to your web server, you put it through port number 80; if you want to deliver a packet to your SSH server, you put it through port number 22, and so on and so forth. The video you looked at needed to deliver a packet to Rev. Mustard in house number 8000. That's great, but you're not doing that - in fact, there isn't even a Rev. Mustard on your street. What you're doing is effectively the same as taking a letter for someone else and shoving it into the empty property at house number 8000 and wondering why you never get a reply. What you need to do is to deliver a letter to Mr. Gears of War, who lives at house number 3074. Delivering it to house number 8000 ain't going to get you anywhere: it specifically needs to go to Mr. War's house. In short: the numbers matter, they're not chosen at random and you can't just swap one for another. There are three ways to do what you want. The first is to find the "DMZ" mode in your gateway: this sets a particular IP as a "demilitarised zone," meaning that any packets sent to a port not already reserved by a different system are forwarded to the DMZ machine. Instant fix for any port forwarding problems, but you're effectively exposing your machine to the internet and creating a pretty massive security hole in doing so. Bad idea. The second, and better, way is to set up Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). This is as easy as flicking a setting on the gateway, and means that any device on the LAN side can say "hey, I need port 3074 opening, do that for me would you?" and the gateway goes "hokey-cokey." There's still a potential security risk involved, there, as malicious applications can also open ports and a lot of the security flaws they find in router firmware centre on the UPnP functionality - but it's a lot safer than using a DMZ. Finally, you can try forwarding the ports manually. You'll need to make sure you know: Port Number, which should be the same for internal/forwarded and external Protocol Local Machine IP You can't use random values from YouTube videos for these, they're specific to the application you're trying to use and your home network. The values @liratheal posted upthread look right - but you'll have to know the IP yourself. Hope that was helpful - I didn't mean to write quite so much!
