[FFXI-4002] Connection Lost Every Three Minutes

[oliveira]

Another suggestion:

Refrain from purchasing D-Link products.

I recomend LinkSys (Cisco's office/home brand/trademark for consumer equipment.)

[Ariaki]

So I recently moved to a new Province (I'm Canadian), got internet set up at the new place with the same company I had before. I bought a D-Link Wireless Router because that's what I was using in my previous home, with no issues. And now I get the FFXI-4002 error code after setting up the Router. I can't bypass the router because I can't prevent others from having access to the internet, which isn't fair. I need to know how to fix this problem without throwing more money out the window for a router when I know the brandname isn't a problem, and without preventing the rest of the house from having internet access.

[Wolfe]

I can pretty much gurantee that this is strictly a wifi D-Link router error message. I didn\\'t have this issue when using my Belkin router (before it fried). We\\'re using the old D-Link POS, and I can\\'t connect. I\\'m on my 360 and I constantly get the 4002 error after logging in to my character. It happens after about 30 seconds, every time.

It sure would be nice if SE would post what each of these error messages mean and explain, IN DEPTH, how to fix every single one! Instead of having to open up a new thread asking for help, or searching numerous Google results to see if you can patch together your own results.

Yes, it may be a huge pain in the ass for SE, but guess what? That\\'s called running a business. You tke care of all the legwork so your consumers don\\'t have to.

Furthermore, why are we getting these damned time out errors anyway? How many players will leave their system on overnight to bazaar something because the AH system sucks? They don\\'t time out, timing out should never be an issue. A good majority of time out issues are because SE doesn\\'t want anyone to have any hiccups in their connection. And if you have a hiccup, you MUST be cheating.

Here\\'s a nice solution. SE, contact D-Link and tell them that you are going to encourage all users to stop using their products because of a very common flaw found in it that prevents users from being able to play easily. Guess what will happen, one of two things. D-Link will admit they have crap and tell you to go ahead or they will fix the issue!

Come on SE, step up your game.

Squaresoft was good. Enix was good. Why does SquareEnix suck?

[RAIST]

A lot of times it winds up being the default settings in the router's security (SPI Firewall, etc), or NAT settings (WAN settings, things like Secured/Open NAT, SIP Filtering, etc.--features will vary by brand and design). That's why the patent response is usually along the lines of enable port forwarding and such. Basically, they're telling you that you may need to punch holes in your router's security measures for the game to work.

FFXI relies heavily on backgournd DNS and UDP traffic--this is usually what is getting blocked when people get knocked off. Check the logs, check your manuals, and adjust the configuration as appropriate.

[Vladislav]

Problem solved! Solution below!

So I've been playing this game since '04 and I thought I've seen every error code, all in which I have fixed, but this one just stumps me. I had no problem playing yesterday, last week, or even last month but today after three minutes of playing I get the red Disconnecting Icon followed by the error code FFXI-4002, sometimes 4001, and then POL-0250, the usual Disconnection error.

Hello everyone. You see Chilloa you was no have problems before but having it now, same here for me i played 2 years w/o any disconnect problems . I usually using 2 different modems on my PC's . So this 3xxx~4xxx problems started for me since apr. 25~26 , i started getting disconnect every 5min~2hour . So i think maybe problems is not in pur Modem/router , but in game cause as i can see in topics this 3xxx~4xxx started not far ago for many players .

[RAIST]

There was actually a HUGE problem with the link exchanges with two companies over seas. Tons of people using BE and O2 were unable to access certain servers in the cluster.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...l=1#post308584

Often times (not always, but most the time) it is an issue between your game and SE--be that your security, router, ISP, or some other network segment in between. After verifying it isn't your local hardware/software causing an issue, need to trace your routing back to SE to see if there is a failure in between you and SE, and if you find a stall, report it to your ISP. That is ultimately what got the UK routing issues resolved.

Oh, and it is possible that after 2 years your hardware could be having issues. Especially if the device is left on 24/7. Home use equipment isn't always designed for longterm use(why we get them so cheap compared to commercial grade equipment). I had one router start going AWOL in roughly a year ($40 Belkin)--swapped in a new Netgear and the problems disappeared. Capacitors can simply dry out over time, voltage regulation gets skewed, overheating can happen during summer months and such--it all addds up to wearing the components down over time.

[bungiefanNA]

The connection problem is because one of the ports the game needs was blocked. A router by default acts as a firewall, blocking incoming traffic unless requested from your side. You have to tell it to forward incoming traffic on specific ports to specific computers. Think of it like a Post Office full of PO Boxes, and nobody has rented them yet, so the mail goes nowhere. You can send mail without a PO Box, but receiving it without an address can be a problem.

What the DMZ does is tell the router that when a port doesn't have a forwarding rule, send all incoming data to the target machine. IE, if nobody owns the PO Box, send it to this one person. Unplugging the router and direct connecting makes your machine publicly visible and removes the firewall.

Opening ports or using the DMZ is only useful if your computer has a static IP address. If you let the router assign one, it can assign a different address every time the machine connects.

The disconnection happens because the game uses one port as a keep-alive command that says you are still sending data to your character. You send the data on another port. So just that one port being blocked, 3 minutes of inactivity will force you to log out of the server.

Opening just the ports you need is preferable to the DMZ, unless you are on a read-only system like a game console. Otherwise it gives your system a larger attack area from the internet where someone that knows the IP address of your connection can try to send commands and see what responds.