PLEASE HELP; No one joins when I host an MP game

[Lord_Haart]

Hello all,

 

I have a really annoying problem,

 

 

I can play ALL games flawlessly (on both my pc and ps3) but I CAN NOT host a game in GTA IV. I live in England.

 

I create a game and set myself as host, but NO ONE joins, EVER. I can join all other games myself and they play fine, but it's as if there is something preventing people from joining.

 

 

My set up is :

 

10Mb cable broadband, straight to the little black broadband modem that Virgin Media provided. Then this goes straight to the ps3. I have no router, I just switch cables at the back if I want to use my pc. I always turn the modem off for a minute between switches.

 

 

 

I have tried all different things on my ps3 (UPnP, media servers disable, wiping friends list, auto detecting settings, manual etc; the whole lot). It detects most settings on auto and I can play fine, just not host. I used to be on BT 1Mb ADSL and it played absolutely fine and could host.

 

 

I'm convinced it is something to do with Virgin Media blocking some ports or something that this game needs, as previously I was with BT and people could connect fine, the full 16 player games.

 

 

It gives my nat as type 1.

 

 

I really can't see how this is ANYTHING my end.

 

 

Please help here, as I am totally at a loss.

 

 

Thanks in advance for your time.

 

 

[Madmonk420]

Ok i see this has been up a while and no one has replied.In all honesty m8 im not sure about this.I had similar symptoms a few weeks ago where i was waiting in a lobby for ages but no one came in.Ive also been getting kicked from games with no reason to.Its not that ive been vote kicked...I get disconnected then when i try to join the game again its says ive been kicked.All this started after a PSN maintainance session. I am now able to get people to join my games but i never changed anything.It could be that its your preferances that need looked at.You know autoaim on/off cops on/off ect This may be preventing guys from joining.Have a look at that m8.Beyond all this its got to be technical fault of some kind. I am a vigin customer too bro.I hope this helps my friend.

 

Its worth noting that this only happens on gta 4 and not any other game.

[Lord_Haart]

Thank you for your kind response.

 

I have messed with all the settings that I can think of. I had no problem at all when I was with BT on ADSL but I think that may have been because that was 2 years ago and things have changed. It's interesting about the psn maintenance you mentioned and also the fact that you say it only happens in GTA IV. I phoned VM and naturally they said they didn't block any ports , so I really don't know. It's so annoying.

[bradleyowain]

have you tried hosting every game mode also have you tried inviting your friends to see if they can join your game.

[bradleyowain]

have you tried hosting every game mode also have you tried inviting your friends to see if they can join your game.

[Lord_Haart]

Right well the latest update is :

 

I can invite friends, and ONE person (in two days) did join who wasn't on the friends list joined also and we had a short 3 man game. I think it was a touch laggy for them but I asked the friend and he said it wasn't too bad.

 

Could all this be down to the fact that 10mb virgin media cable has a great d/l but a pretty poor u/l speed. My actual downstream is about 9.4Mbps, whereas the upstream is 478Kbps?

 

This gives about 40K/s upstream I think. How much K per person does it require in GTA IV ? Even if it is like 10K per person I should be able to at least host 3 other people. Am I barking up the wrong tree here ? I wonder as when I was with BT before their upstream was about the same and I was fine. I noted that BT's upstream was a 1/4 of the downstream, whereas Virgin's is more like 5% of the downstream?

 

So we know that now nothing is TOTALLY blocked, but tbh other than the friends thing it is as good as almost. My ps3 auto detects settings fine, as I say. But is there something I can manually tweak in the ps3 network settings that could make my hosting 'normal' again.

 

Your thoughts on this matter are most welcome and all are appreciated.