Server Hosting Problem - Repeated Reconnection to List Server

Blinky

Greetings all,

I successfully hosted a server for just over a year, until a problem described in the title began around October 2021. If you have any input or suggestions on this matter, I would very greatly value your feedback! I thank you in advance for taking the time to read.

My server’s basic details:

Name: [ZA] South African Freelancers
Vanilla, with only an adjustment made to one file, which grants a very small XP boost for all factions when killing Nomads.
PvE (PvP is disabled).
Installed to and running on Windows 7.
Hosted from a home network via cabled ethernet.
200Mbps fibre connection, upload and download.
Set up to reliably run 24/7, with a large UPS backup in case of power interruptions.
I do not (yet) have a static IP for my internet connection. I do not know this is required or not, as I have not seen mention of it in any tutorial so far.

Problem:

Server repeatedly connects, disconnects and reconnects to the list server.
My server’s graphs are no longer generated on flserver.de
Server is likely no longer visible to anyone outside of my own local network. I have not yet been able to conclusively test this, but since flserver.de no longer sees the server, it’s likely not visible to anyone else either.

Symptoms:

The following code repeats many times, starting about half a minute after the server is started up:

Connecting to list server…
Established connection to list server…
Sending game information to list server…
Lost connection to list server…
Connecting to list server…

Server is no longer listed on flserver.de, and no graphs are generated for it.
I saw minimal, yet reliable traffic before the problem started. Most players only stopped by for very short periods, with the occasional player staying to rank up a character. However, no connections have been made to the server at all, from outside my home network, since last year.

What I have tried to troubleshoot the problem:

Turned off all other devices connected to my router to ensure that only the machine the server is running on has all the available bandwidth.
Ran only FLServer.exe, without any other programs open that might affect bandwidth.
Fresh installations of the game, configured as follows:
- With and without decompiled game files.
- With and without saved accounts and configs (no Freelancer folder in the “My Games” folder).
- Installed to an entirely different computer, which also runs Windows 7.
- Confirmed that IPv6 is disabled.
- Forwarded all necessary ports, and some extras, all UDP: 2300-2400, 9928, 6073. No connections forwarded for TCP.
- Deleted all empty accounts (those without any characters), in case there were too many, which could somehow affect the server’s ability to function.
- Disabled the router firewall for IPv4 and even IPv6.
- Enabled DMZ in my router for the host machine.
- Attempted to host the server from one town over, on a completely different internet connection with a different service provider. The exact same symptoms persisted.
Additional info and closing:

? Offline

Try to find mtuping flserver.de -f -l 1472stepping down by```
10


Then set good mtu into TcpOptimizer or```
 netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface "<iface name="">" mtu= <here>store=persistent</here></iface>

Blinky

Hi HeIIoween, many thanks for your reply.

Stepping down by 10 from 1472, I found that 1322 returned successful replies. However, the same reconnection problem persisted.

I understand that packets have 28 bytes added as overhead, so I decreased the MTU to 1294 instead, but sadly the problem is still there, despite the successful pings with this MTU to flserver.de.

Is there something else I could try?

Raikkonen

I don’t know that much about it so these are probably basic suggestions:

1.) Check the following entry is in freelancer.ini

hostname = gun.fllistserver.com ;GUN server provided by www.fllistserver.com
port = 2300

2.) Add the IP address via http://flserver.de/add_server.php

? Offline

Blinky wrote:
Hi HeIIoween, many thanks for your reply.

Stepping down by 10 from 1472, I found that 1322 returned successful replies. However, the same reconnection problem persisted.

I understand that packets have 28 bytes added as overhead, so I decreased the MTU to 1294 instead, but sadly the problem is still there, despite the successful pings with this MTU to flserver.de.

Is there something else I could try?

Forgot to say - need to reboot server after mtu setting step

Sure.

Add your server here: https://www.gs4u.net/en/addserver.html
It should be green
Force to avoid dns problems:

[ListServer]
;;;hostname = localhost                              ;Your local machine
;;;hostname = FLListServer2.dns.corp.microsoft.com   ;GUN server in Austin
;;;hostname = 131.107.135.190                        ;GUN server in Redmond
hostname = 195.201.39.247             ;GUN server in Redmond (DNS entry)

Take a look tcpoptimizer gaming manual
Choose optimal drivers for your ethernet adapter from the site of the adapter vendor

Blinky

I’m pleased to confirm that the server is back online. Thank you sincerely for your help.

I used the TCP Optimizer program to determine the exact MTU that’s appropriate for my connection, and set it accordingly. The server was indeed restarted each time I set a new value.

At first, there was no change, even when trying other MTU’s, but the errors no longer occurred the day after.

While I’m not 100% sure what finally fixed the issue, the new MTU value is mostly likely to credit. I wouldn’t have thought to check this on my own.

The server’s presence now reflects on flserver.de once more.

Thanks again!