New ISP... won't connect to Xbox Live :(

[Studley]

Well after 8 days without the internet, I've finally got it up and running again. Things seemed to be going OK - I fired up my Xbox and started downloading the N3 demo. Whilst doing that, I decided I wanted an online game of Uno. So I selected Multiplayer Game, it paused my N3 download, and now... it won't connect again....

I went through the Test Settings bit, it failed on the Xbox Live option, saying:

W 0000-0021
X 0000-F001
Y 30A8-4840
Z 0000-0000

Can any of the Dutch crew find anything useful on this link? It's the only reference I can find to these codes...

http://forums.xbox.com/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=13&PostID=790521

[Studley]

Well I think I cracked it... I'd got my DNS set to Automatic, they were the correct primary/secondary DNS but I changed it to Manual and entered the same addresses, and it works :?

Hopefully that's the end to all my net-related problems. On the plus side... my broadband is now FREE (that's £0 per month)!

[Cage]

This one guy with the same problem did this..
ik heb het al uitgevogeld ik moest de Firmware updaten en de Firewall uitschakelen
In English it means he updated the firmware of his router and disabled the firewall. Should work like a charm according to him.. Give it a try, I'll say..

[Pedle Zelnip]

This one guy with the same problem did this..

In English it means he updated the firmware of his router and disabled the firewall. Should work like a charm according to him.. Give it a try, I'll say..

Uhm, if you have computers hooked up to that same router then wouldn't turning off the firewall be a bad thing(tm)?

One thing that might be a good idea to try if the problem hasn't been fixed is to look to see if the router supports putting a machine in the "DMZ", as then you can move the Xbox out from behind the firewall while still leaving everything else on your network protected.

[Aift]

It's good to hear your connection is working!

[Zerodisorder]

congratulations :)

[Curry]

This one guy with the same problem did this..

In English it means he updated the firmware of his router and disabled the firewall. Should work like a charm according to him.. Give it a try, I'll say..Anyone advising to disable a firewall to solve a problem should be caught and shot.

[Rival24]

Anyone advising to disable a firewall to solve a problem should be caught and shot.
Uh-oh :P I advise that to people all the time. I never had any problems without a firewall.

[Cage]

Anyone advising to disable a firewall to solve a problem should be caught and shot.
On the contrary my dear Curry. On a home network there is no need to firewall your router. If you firewall your PC it should suffice. Any good router can block ping from the net which will block most attacks without enabling the routerfirewall. Protect your system with a good firewall tool and all is good. This will save you the hassle with firewall problems on your router. I mean, even companies have decent firewall soft/hardware. Besides, all those firewalls that ship with routers are crap anyways.. So I have to agree with Rival24.. Turn of those crappy firewalls.. Even the Windows firewall does a better job ;)

[Studley]

Ha, the first thing my ISP did when I was having connection problems, they told me to disable any firewall AND virus protection software I had, then see if I could connect to the internet :D

Needless to say, I told them where to shove it.

Actually I had connection problems again tonight - ironically when my Saint's Row download was at 99% - but I did like the Dutch suggested and upgraded my router firmware, now all is well!

[Curry]

On the contrary my dear Curry. On a home network there is no need to firewall your router. Bullshit. Any network should be protected as thoroughly as possible as early as possible in the chain.
If you firewall your PC it should suffice. Good idea, let's block the intruders when they're already in the building? One of the prime ideas behind good system administration is that you want to stop anything before it gets to its target. If the firewall on the router fails for an unspecified reason the network is still protected, it's only the router that is compromised. If the firewall on the computer fails... you've lost the game.

Your story sounds like the typical stories I hear at birthday parties of elderly people that took 2 computer courses and think they are an expert at security: "Yeah I had to turn off the firewall because otherwise Kazaa wouldn't work." Believe me: disabling a firewall without a damn good reason is just an idiot's way of solving problems. It's like taking the engine out of a car so it gets lighter and thus will drive faster: the cure is worse than whatever it fixes.

[Cage]

Bullshit. Any network should be protected as thoroughly as possible as early as possible in the chain.
That's exactly my point. The firewall that's provided with routers nowadays isn't thorough. You think you got your network secured but in reality it's not. It's like putting a drunk drug addict in charge of you security of your precious diamonds and thinking they're save. There's only one way to secure your diamonds thorough and that's with a solid box with a big lock on it.. So securing you PC with a decent firewall for good protection on your homenetwork.

I do agree with you BTW that good protection should be at the beginning of the network in a businessnetwork, but not if the only thing you're protecting is MP3 and pr0n :) That's overkill imho.

And for the record; I've had a little more then 2 courses. :P :D

[Pedle Zelnip]

There's some truth to both your points of view.

On the one hand Curry has a valid point: a hardware firewall provides an extra "layer" of protection. If the hardware firewall is compromised then you're *probably* still safe as an intruder still has to determine how to get from the firewall/router to an individual PC. A compromised software firewall means the intruder immediately has access to whatever's shared on your machine. And furthermore, software is notorious for being "easy to break" compared to hardware.

On the other hand, Cage has a valid point: that most good software firewalls are very difficult to break, and as a result will work fine protecting a PC. Note that there's a "very difficult" and not "impossible" there though. And of course this also depends on the firewall vendor, some vendors will be very good at patching security holes, and others will not be so good.

I am very puzzled by the claim that most firewalls in routers are of poor quality though, I must say I've never heard anyone claim that most hardware firewalls are inferior to a software firewall. I'd want to see something backing up that claim before I believe it.

At any rate, if you think a hardware firewall doesn't work well, you could always use both and then you're *really* safe.

For myself, I use a hardware firewall for two reasons: 1) the extra security, and 2) the performance benefit. A software firewall is taking up resources on a machine that could otherwise be used for other things (say games, which now that I have an Xbox360 I don't do on my machine as often, but still do occassionally). There's also the factor that sometimes it can be difficult to know when a firewall is "on" or off when it's a software one. For example there's no way to know that the Windows firewall is "on" unless you go into network settings and explicitly check. A hardware firewall is on unless you explicitly turn it off (assuming that there's even that option in your router, which many do not have).

And for the record, I have a bachelors degree in computer science, so while I'm not a networking expert, I definitely am an informed observer. =8-p

[Cage]

I am very puzzled by the claim that most firewalls in routers are of poor quality though, I must say I've never heard anyone claim that most hardware firewalls are inferior to a software firewall. I'd want to see something backing up that claim before I believe it.
I'm not saying that most firewalls in routers are of poor quality, but I'm talking about the 20 bucks routers most people have at home. Those firewalls have an on and off switch (if you're lucky) and can't be tweaked for solving problems and/or port forwarding and stuff (and if so, it's minimal).. If you have a decent one, like most companies do, then you'll have lots of options and stuff to tweak the thing to fit your needs. Those are the good ones and I was not talking about them. So, if you can't tweak the cheap one there's always the off switch which will solve many of your connection problems.. :)

At any rate, if you think a hardware firewall doesn't work well, you could always use both and then you're *really* safe.
Agree 110%.. But if the hardware firewall is causing connection problems and you can't or don't know how to tweak it then shutting it off is the best option, if your PC has a firewall installed ofcourse.. And that's what this thread was all along and why I said turning off the firewall should solve it. O-)

[Curry]

I'm not saying that most firewalls in routers are of poor quality, but I'm talking about the 20 bucks routers most people have at home. Those firewalls have an on and off switch (if you're lucky) and can't be tweaked for solving problems and/or port forwarding and stuff (and if so, it's minimal) Good thing is that that's all they need to do: forward no incoming traffic. The best firewall for Joe Average is simply one that eats all traffic from outside to inside and NAT all traffic from inside to outside :)

Actually, Xbox Live works great with such a router without forwarding or any fancy features ;) And I've yet to see a solid example of home networking routers being compromised for security actually. Even the Sweex/Edimax crap just runs a trimmed down Linux without public telnetd or sshd which is rather secure by definition.
So, if you can't tweak the cheap one there's always the off switch which will solve many of your connection problems.. :) Let's just say I was not too happy with your suggestion that hardware routers are useless and throwing them away is the solution to any networking problem. I know of more than enough troubles you can have with the Edimax junk, but that's mainly due to them having a lack of memory and having major problems maintaining a good routing table, mainly compromising P2P usage through the router and being bad protection against DoS attacks. That's why I always recommend buying a $50 Linksys router, that's Cisco branded (not Cisco hardware btw) and solid good stuff.

If you have troubles leaving your house because the lock is half broken, would the solution be to remove the lock or to buy a good one?

[Cage]

Good thing is that that's all they need to do: forward no incoming traffic. The best firewall for Joe Average is simply one that eats all traffic from outside to inside and NAT all traffic from inside to outside :)

Actually, Xbox Live works great with such a router without forwarding or any fancy features ;) And I've yet to see a solid example of home networking routers being compromised for security actually. Even the Sweex/Edimax crap just runs a trimmed down Linux without public telnetd or sshd which is rather secure by definition.
Here's my expirience..:) I myself bought a 3Com, just for wireless and connection sharing.(wanted a linksys, but wasn't available here in town and I was to lazy to go to the city :P) It does exactly what I wanted it to do. Share and make wireless. At first I had the firewall running, but when too many traffic was generated it would reset itself because it would think there was an attack in the making. Almost every hour. There is no way to tweak this so I've stopped firewalling it. I could've replaced it with a decent one, but it's doing what it's supposed to do. If I connected my PC directly to the modem there would also be no hardware firewall. Afterall, its just my PC for visiting xboxic and nu.nl O+
Let's just say I was not too happy with your suggestion that hardware routers are useless and throwing them away is the solution to any networking problem. I know of more than enough troubles you can have with the Edimax junk, but that's mainly due to them having a lack of memory and having major problems maintaining a good routing table, mainly compromising P2P usage through the router and being bad protection against DoS attacks. That's why I always recommend buying a $50 Linksys router, that's Cisco branded (not Cisco hardware btw) and solid good stuff.

If you have troubles leaving your house because the lock is half broken, would the solution be to remove the lock or to buy a good one?
Ofcourse is to buy a new one the best option, but most people bought a cheapass router for a reason. Lack of money (or to lazy like me ;)). So if you have no money to buy a decent one (and your old one is causing trouble), there's always the option of disabling it and turning on the windows firewall for free.. :)

Conclusion; I agree with you on all your points, but sometimes it's not an option to upgrade to a decent product. The only option for those people is to make the best of it with the current hardware and software. And that option is turning of the firewall that's causing problems and enable only the one on your PC.. So firewalling your router at home isn't always necessary (or possible).That's all I'm saying..

[Curry]

Alright as long as we agree that disabling the firewall is by definition the last option to try I think we're both happy :P