1) I can host and join public matches just fine but I can't connect to some of my friends. Why?
You and your friend have incompatible network configurations. To be able to play together at least one of you must allow incoming connections from other peers on UDP port 3659. This means you need to do this:
1) Forward UDP port 3659 in your router to your computer.
2) Turn UPNP in your router off (not really necessary but I recomend it).
3) All firewalls on your computer must accept incoming connections on that port. If at least one of them doesn't none of it will work.
How will that benefit you? Here is a list of things:
1) You will be able to connect to anyone even if other person is using a strict firewall.
2) Your connection to other players will be established almost instantly.
3) Your lobby will fill faster and you will find games through quick match faster.
4) You will always hear other players on the mic and they will hear you.
5) If the hosting player leaves you will not get "Your connection to the game has been lost" message.
2) I have opened UDP port 3659 but it still does't work. What have I done wrong?
1) First of all test if the port is forwarded correctly with this port checker tool, it's free and simple: PortChecker tool
If it's says that the port is open then everything is done correctly in your router so you can stop looking there. If it doesn't then make sure you forwarded that port to the correct ip address (most common mistake) and also look for firewall programs installed on your computer. If you find any such program then disable it to test if everything works without it and when it does you can then start to mess around more. Some programs such as antiviruses come with firewall that can ruin all the fun because you won't even know there is a firewall.
NOTE: Always close port checker before running mass effect otherwise game will pick a random port since it's in use by port checker and you sure don't want that.
2) Check if Mass Effect is exclusively using that port on you PC. To do that start Mass Effect 3 and create a private lobby then (if you are on Windows 7) bring up windows task manager, on "Perfomance" tab select "Resource Monitor", on the "Network" tab check "MassEffect3.exe" in the list of processes and you should see ports used under "Listening ports". It MUST be using UDP 3659 (it will also be using UDP 9999 and one random UDP port but those do not matter). This tool also checks windows firewall status for that port which should be "Allowed, not restricted". If you select all processes than mass effect must be the only program using that port. If you see some other program using that port you must deal with it accordingly depending on what it is.
3) If one 1 and 2 are not a problem then it's still possible that some application specific firewalls (those that allow you to configure settings for each application separately) are blocking MassEffect3.exe and not the port checker tool. Look for those. If you don't find any you could try to reinstall windows and try to play witout installing any security programs. Keep in mind that reinstalling windows from a hidden harddrive partion or a cd that came with your computer can sometimes install additional software like antivirusses and firewalls. And if that fails and your router doesn't have a public IP (getting a public IP in some countries is problematic) it's possible that your ISP doesn't support incoming connections so forwarding ports is useless and won't help you.
Some other info to help you:
Forwarding UDP port 3659 to your pc:
Forwarding a port means that all data send to your router on port 3659 will be forwarded to a computer you specify (you must specify your own computer of course). To do this go to your router settings and find a tab or a menu or whatever that says port forwarding, there you will need to enter this data:
Local ip: Local ip of your pc
Port range begin: 3659
Port range end: 3659
Protocol: UDP
Don't forget to save the changes. The most common mistake here is using incorrect ip adress of your pc. If you type some adress that doesn't exist or even 'I like pancakes' your router won't care and just drop all the data that comes through this port. Also keep in mind that your pc may have dynamic ip adress which can change after you restart it and in that case your won't be able to play multiplayer at all. You will need to assign a static ip to your pc to make it work every time.
How to get IP of your router and local IP of your pc:
Select start and run cmd.exe, command line window pops up, type : "netstat -r" (without parentheses). In IPv4 routing table find row that has destination 0.0.0.0 and netmask 0.0.0.0 (usually first row). Gateway in this row is IP of your router and interface is local IP of your computer. Simple right?
Windows firewall:
Usually this won't be a problem, so I won't go in to much details here, because the first time you start mass effect it will usually ask you if you want to allow it through the firewall or not, just click yes and you are all done. If you click no you will have to add it manually later. Don't try to be smart here and try to add specific ports just select all UDP and all TCP ports, there is no security risk in doing so because you only allow Mass Effect to go through nothing else. Also windows firewall has 3 profiles: domein, public and private, you can only have one of those selected as current and it can change sometimes when you change your network settings so make sure you add mass effect to the correct profile or even better add it to all three.
3) Me and my friend are at the same place on the same network. Can we play together?
4) Me and my friend are at the same place on the same network and we want to play with our two friends who also share the same network. Is this possible?Yes, but one of you must be the host. When you are both in the lobby make it public to get two more people
5) I am getting "Your connection to the game has been lost" message during a match. Why?This will work if you have a very specific form of NAT and even then it will fail to do so more often then not. I have looked into this but for the moment don't have any reliable solution. I will update this post if any information becomes avaliable.
It means you lost your connection to the hosting player computer, not ea server. And the only reason for that is your own network or network of the hosting player if you joined through quick match. Why I am so sure about it? Because there is no ea server in between, from the moment the connection is made between you and the host your system is responsible for mantaining that connection. Before you do anything about it though make sure that you (or anyone on your local network) aren't uploading/downloading anything from internet. Downloading a single file will usually consume full bandwith of your internet connection and that will harm your game connection. Usually there will be some heavy lag before you get disconnected in that case. Now if you are sure that there is no other network activity or the disconnect is very sudden than your router is most likely the problem here. The reason is NAT UDP session being dropped by your router due to a bug in router software (more common than you think). To permanently fix this problem you really need to get a better router but here are few things you can do to minimize a chance of your router going crazy:
1) Update your router firmware.
2) Turn UPNP off in your router.
3) Forward UDP port 3659 to your computer.
4) All firewalls on your computer need to accept incoming connections on that port.
5) Restart you router before playing by unplugging the power.
6) Don't use wireless connection.
How can this help? UPNP allows programs on your computer to configure router settings such as port forwarding automaticaly which in theory should make things easier but there are problems with it. One such problem is that UPNP doesn't require any form of authorization which means that other programs on your computer and programs on other computers on your local network can freely modify those settings without asking you anything leading to conflicts and disconnects. Some UPNP implementations are just buggy and may drop your connection for no good reason. Mass Effect will forward port 3659 for you through UPNP but I can see that it uses a 4 hours timeout, when it expires that port will be closed (restarting the game during that time period will not renew the timer!). If you are in the middle of the game it's possible that you will be disconnected when that timer reaches zero depending on your NAT implementation.
Forwarding that port manually will greatly simplify the connection process minimizing the number of open connections your router needs to keep track of and thus decreasing the chance of disconnect.
I understand that restarting your router every time you want to play is asking to much but it can save you from a mid game disconnect because you will be starting with clean NAT table every time, and most router with bugs will have problems when that table becomes full.
If you use wireless then try running without it. Wireless networks tend to disconnect you from time to time. You will not see much on your desktop aside from your connection icon going off and then on again but it will kill your game connection for sure. Signal strength reported in windows does not mean much and some routers will tune transmitting power as they see fit (game data may incorrectly be seen as low activity).
6) I am getting "You have lost access to the Mass Effect 3 server. You must connect again to access online features of the title" message during a match. Why?
This means exactly what it says, you have lost connection to Mass Effect 3 server. It seems the game must keep continuous connection with that server at all times. This connection is used to authorize your DLC, deliver you in game info like leaderboards, send your game stistics to them and stuff like that. Reasons for disconnect could be:
1) The server is overloaded and has dropped you. Getting this message during server maintance is normal.
2) Problem with your network setup. Looking for firewalls or forwarding some ports won't help this problem! If firewall was the problem you would get "Can't connect to Mass Effect 3 server... can't authorize DLC..." from the moment you start the game. Port forwarding doesn't do anything here either because YOU connect to THEM not the other way around. It can be a router bug (see 5 for more info), try updating your network adapter drivers and playing without wireless if you use it.
3) This is a game bug. I personaly have never seen this happen during game, but I do get it in game menu and in shop from time to time. It looks like ea server needs to receive something from the game every minute or so, if it doesn't it will close the connection. Sometimes the game will stop sending data however, for example if shop server is busy you will get stuck during purchasing, the game will stop sending data while you wait and the connection will be closed by server side (with no errors and NAT session still active, not a network problem!). Same happens if you let the game alone for few hours while in private lobby or menu. Maybe something can also trigger it during game. My theory for the moment is that if the game process or one of it's connection threads becomes blocked for to long (like getting stuck in the shop while waiting for shop server) then ea server won't get any data from the game which is blocked and will close the connection.
In any case this is a problem of bad design to begin with. If the game loses connection it should try to reconnect instead of throwing you out of the game. Combine bad design with bad implementation, add some differences between network configurations on top of that and you've got yourself a random disconnect generator. And why is this connection so important anyway?
7) How does multiplayer work?
Not many people will ask this question but knowing how the game works will help you understand some problems that you may encounter and help you fix them. This is how the connection layout looks like from the moment four people are in the same lobby:
<more info to come here soon>
8) Why does matchmaking keep putting me in laggy games? Don't they test the ping?
9) I contacted customer technical support and they are giving me different advice (different ports etc). Why?First of all make sure that it's not your fault and that you are not downloading anything from internet in the background (P2P torrent software, internet radio or video, steam, music downloading software and stuff like that) because that can increase lag up to unplayble levels. Secondly, it's almost impossible for ea server to test the actual ping between two remote computers. The only way to test that would be to try and connect them together but that approach would be very time consuming. So what they do instead is try to guess your location based on your ip and connect you with players who are not far from you. That is not very reliable either and and if your ip doesn't much your location it can try to connect you to players who are literally on the other side of the world. There is nothing you can do about it, so if you find some friend with whom you can play together with no lag then add them immediately to your friend list.
My understanding of this is that people who work in customer technical support don't have any information about technical problems. There is no global list of FAQ's or anything like that. When you contact them they will type your answer in google or BSN search box and copy/paste you the first thing that comes up. I have contacted them myself and was getting links to 5 month old threads on BSN technical support forum with no answer. That means that everyone will be getting different answer to the same question and non of those answers will be official because those almost don't exist.
If it helped you bump this thread so the rest can see it too.
Edited by Caratinoid, 23 August 2012 - 05:42 PM.
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every non EA/Bioware multiplayer game like Counterstrike, WoW, GuildWars, Starcraft II, Diablo III (which i own) have no similar problems and are perfectly playable under current firewal/ISP/Whatever BW will use as excuse settings
